Cosmetic formula management: develop, version and approve formulas digitally

Spreadsheets are fast and flexible for first trials. With several developers, many variants and parallel projects, typical problems appear: files get copied, the file name serves as version logic, raw-material data is maintained several times and test results sit in separate folders.

The question “Which formula is current and which data belongs to it?” then becomes needlessly hard to answer. At the latest when a customer, an auditor or the safety assessor asks, that costs time.

In formula management software, a formula consists of lines: raw material and percentage by weight. The raw materials come from a shared catalogue with INCI name, CAS number, composition and supplier offers instead of being retyped in every formula. If a raw-material detail changes, it is up to date everywhere.

This is more than convenience. Annex I of the Cosmetics Regulation requires the safety report to contain the qualitative and quantitative composition, including the chemical identity of the substances with INCI and CAS where possible, and their intended function. Keeping this data on the raw material means it does not have to be gathered again for the report.

In VYVA every save that changes the formula creates a new version with its own formula number. Earlier states are kept as snapshots with raw materials and percentages, together with the time and the person who created them. Variants branch off a specific version, so a project can pursue several development strands in parallel; the history appears as a graph rather than a list.

Each formula also has a status: draft, testing, review, approved, final or discarded. That makes it clear at a glance what is being worked on and what applies.

The percentages and raw-material prices give the price per kilogram of the formula. Enter a batch size and VYVA calculates the quantity of each raw material and the cost of the whole batch. Where a raw material has a supplier offer with tiered prices, VYVA uses the price of the tier that matches the quantity needed.

This shows what a variant costs while it is still in development, not only when the customer quote is calculated.

The formula carries the product specification: target pH, viscosity range, appearance, colour and odour. It is the benchmark against which batches and test samples are measured and appears in manufacturing and test protocols next to the measured values. Fill quantity in grams or millilitres and density are added so that percentages by weight turn into the right mass.

The manufacturing protocol breaks the batch down into phases such as water and oil phase with their steps. This turns the formula into instructions for producing a batch in a traceable way.

If the legal situation for an ingredient changes, for example through a ban, a new maximum concentration, a labelling requirement or a usage restriction, VYVA shows this as an alert on the affected formulas, with risk level and workflow status. This does not replace a regulatory assessment, but it ensures no affected formula is overlooked.

Test protocols for stability, packaging compatibility, sensory evaluation and microbiology belong to formula and batch. Sample releases to customers are managed in the same place. When several people edit a formula at the same time, VYVA shows live who is editing which field.

Recurring base formulas can be saved as templates, with raw materials, compliance context and manufacturing steps, and reused for new projects.

An approval in VYVA follows a checklist and ends with a decision: approved, approved with conditions, revision required or rejected, with reasons and signature. On completion VYVA records the version the decision was based on. A positive decision despite open critical compliance alerts is only possible with a written justification.

The internal approval can be followed by the customer’s: the formula is sent through the customer portal, where the customer approves or rejects it.