Today, more than one in two female consumers uses between 4 and 6 products on their face every day, and nearly 15 per cent apply 7 or more. This widespread adoption of “layering” is profoundly transforming beauty routines and presenting cosmetic laboratories with new formulation challenges. To address these challenges, COSMED is bringing together scientific experts from the French cosmetics industry in Montpellier on 29 September 2026.
For the cosmetics industry, the paradigm has shifted: the challenge is no longer to prove the efficacy of a single product, but to anticipate how it will behave when used in combination with others. To tackle this new challenge, the 26th edition of the Cosmed Scientific Congress will bring together 150 researchers, formulators, toxicologists and R&D managers from across France.
On the agenda: the latest advances in interactions between active ingredients, optimising multi-product efficacy, galenic compatibility and the evaluation of complete skincare routines. A programme tailored to solving the new challenges of formulation…
To shed light on these issues, the conference will feature presentations by industry experts:
• Florence Bernardin (Founder, ASIA COSME LAB) will discuss the Asian origins of layering and its impact on consumer perception and loyalty;
• Coralie Ebert (CTO & Co-founder, ME NOW) will present a unique, AI-generated map of the interactions between the market’s ten key active ingredients (Hero Molecules);
• Muriel Morelli (R&D Expert, SCIENCES & COSMETICS) will address formulation challenges, notably “pilling” – the physical manifestation of incompatibility between products that significantly detracts from the user experience;
• Géraldine Savary (Lecturer and Researcher in Chemistry, URCOM Laboratory) will demonstrate how a physicochemical approach to the interface can guide the development of high-performance formulations;
• Hassan Zahouani (Professor at École Centrale Lyon & Co-founder, TACINNOV) will explain how to technically evaluate the performance of a complete routine;
• Clarisse Bavoux (Deputy Director General, CEHTRA) and Adeline Nalin (Pharmacist and Toxicologist, AROMA-ZONE) will analyse the safety requirements imposed by the daily layering of cosmetics.
Montpellier: a strategic ecosystem for innovation in the cosmetics industry Organised by COSMED, the trade association representing cosmetics companies in France, this event brings together the entire value chain of the industry: laboratories, brands, research centres, ingredient suppliers and testing organisations. The fact that this congress is being held in Montpellier highlights the dynamism of the Occitanie region. A true centre of excellence in biotechnology and life sciences, the region is now home to 724 cosmetics companies and nearly 8,000 jobs.
See you on 29 September 2026, in Montpellier and via live streaming.
Full programme and registration
• Visit the Cosmed Scientific Congress website
