The pathway map
The replacement mechanisms available for your ingredient, named and documented. The sweep starts from the whole catalogue.
Cosmap, the first platform that gives formulators complete screening.
When an ingredient is banned, restricted or out of supply, the search for substitutes stays limited to what the lab already knows and what suppliers offer. With Cosmap, it starts from the entire CosIng catalogue.
For a given case, Cosmap opens the available substitution pathways and, under each, the ingredients that follow them. Everything is justified and open to challenge. You then correct the analysis, or you explore.
An example of Cosmap used to substitute D4
Cyclotetrasiloxane (D4) is a silicone emollient long used everywhere, now restricted in Europe.
Here are the candidates Cosmap brings up, grouped by replacement strategy.
IngredientCYCLOTETRASILOXANE
FunctionVolatile slip agent
Product typeSkin care products
Saturated aliphatic hydrocarbons, linear or branched. They reproduce the volatility of D4: they evaporate after application.
IngredientReasonStatus
ISODODECANE
Branched C12 alkane, MW 170. Emollient and solvent.
no restriction
C10-13 ALKANE
Decane to tridecane, BP 174–235 °C. Lipophilic solvent.
no restriction
COCONUT ALKANES
Plant-derived alkanes. Emollient and solvent.
no restriction
C14-22 ALKANE
Heavier alkane cut, non-volatile: behaves as a conventional emollient.
flagged
Branched ethers and diesters. They reproduce the slip and finish of D4 but stay on the skin: volatility is traded for persistence.
IngredientReasonStatus
DICAPRYLYL ETHER
C16 dialkyl ether, MW 242. Emollient and solvent, with no ester function.
no restriction
DIISOPROPYL SEBACATE
Branched C16 diester, MW 286. Emollient, solvent and plasticiser.
no restriction
NEOPENTYL GLYCOL DIHEPTANOATE
Branched neopentyl diester, MW 328. Emollient.
no restriction
PROPYLENE GLYCOL DIPELARGONATE
Propylene glycol diester, MW 356. Emollient and viscosity controlling.
no restriction
A pathway groups the candidates that replace the ingredient by the same mechanism.
Under each, they are ranked, and every line carries the reason for its presence and its regulatory status.
In the first pathway, one line does the opposite: Cosmap flags an ingredient its own grouping wrongly holds, and says why.
That is what open to challenge means.
You correct, you explore
The Cosmap engine justifies the substitution pathways and the candidate ranking by showing you the chemical characteristics it has retained: those to look for, and those to avoid.
It can be wrong. It may not have dug deep enough into a pathway or a family of ingredients.
From there, two moves:
Correct the analysis grid: screening gains precision
You know things the engine does not: a process constraint, a family already ruled out internally, a criterion that does not apply to your product.
- Add a characteristic to look for, setting its level of requirement: desirable, critical or mandatory.
- Add a characteristic to avoid, from a simple penalty through to elimination.
- Remove a characteristic the engine retained that does not concern you.
- Restore a characteristic it penalises that you judge acceptable.
- Rule out an entire chemical family.
Explore: screening widens
A pathway interests you, a family deserves digging into. The engine starts again on that ground and brings up the candidates the first pass did not retain.
- Dig into a chemical family to bring out more candidates.
- Go deeper into a pathway, keeping its central mechanism as an anchor.
Every iteration is kept, named and linked to the previous one. The trail stays available alongside the result.
The engine requires no formula and no proprietary information
Three fields are enough: the ingredient to replace, its function in the product, the product type.
An INCI name, a cosmetic function and a product category are public data.
Nothing entered belongs to your formulation.
IngredientCYCLOTETRASILOXANE
FunctionVolatile slip agent
Product typeSkin care products
What you get
Argued candidates
Ranked, placed by family and subfamily, each with what justifies it.
Regulatory filtering, upstream
Banned ingredients are ruled out before they are ever proposed.
A traceable file
The document that justifies the chosen option to an R&D director.
What Cosmap does not do
Cosmap does not reformulate for you. It does not predict performance in formula, tests nothing, and does not monitor your formulas over time.
It takes one ingredient and opens the pathways to replace it. The trials remain yours.
What Cosmap brings you
Faster screening. From an announced restriction to a list of argued candidates in minutes, instead of weeks of data gathering.
Better odds of success. Putting candidates into trial that the lab would not have listed on its own. The limiting factor is rarely the formulator's skill, it is the number of options they can realistically examine.
Request access
Every request is read and handled by hand. You will get a reply, and access when your case fits.
The demonstration and the first month of use are free. The steps that follow are set out after your request.