There may be a mystique to the concept we could all someday lead a cosmic lifestyle. In 1609, German astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote a novel through which a young traveller lands on the Moon to seek out that lunar beings consider Earth revolves around them. Within the Sixties, fresh off the back of the primary moon landing, space-age aesthetics catapulted style, make-up, architecture and interiors into the long run with André Courreges introducing the world to the Space Age look. 

Today, as we get a gentle stream of space exploration discoveries, creatives are only as inspired by the cosmos as ever, perhaps reflecting a necessity for escapism and creating moments of awe because the world undergoes a polycrisis. For Thom Browne’s AW23 show, Isamaya Ffrench created intergalactic make-up consistent with the gathering’s homage to The Little Prince, space uniforms and NASA. FKA twigs’ recent red-carpet look by @tildax_x_ looked as if it would draw from a nebula and black hole visual vernacular, just as NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory led astronomers to discover a lonely galaxy situated about 9.2 billion light-years from Earth. 

Space has long influenced beauty aesthetics, but now it’s literally influencing beauty because the industry increasingly looks to technology and scientific breakthroughs from the world of space travel. Skincare brands have begun to develop products for all times in microgravity. “Tested in Space” is the motto of 111Skin, which was founded when scientists from the Soviet space programme reached out to Dr Yannis Alexandrides for help treating the injuries of astronauts in space.

“Space is a laboratory for ageing since it accelerates every little thing,” Dr Alexandrides says. In space, there isn’t any protection from the atmosphere, collagen production is negatively affected, and the dearth of gravity thins the skin and hurries up the ageing process. Dr Alexandrides’s work with the astronauts led to the event of the brand’s Y Theorem Repair Serum which incorporates a novel antioxidant combo, NAC Y². And with higher performance up there, come dramatic results down here on Earth.

In 2020, Estée Lauder sent bottles of its Advanced Night Repair serum into space, as a part of NASA’s efforts to advertise business opportunities on the International Space Station, while PCA Skin sent live skin tissue samples to the ISS last February to explore the results of microgravity on skin-related genes. Meanwhile, Japanese corporations ANA and Pola Orbis are working towards creating the world’s first space-friendly cosmetics line by 2023 which is able to feature make-up that feels comfortable on the skin within the zero gravity conditions of space.

Clariant, considered one of the world’s leading corporations in care chemicals, has a dedicated Space beauty category, showcasing 4 lively ingredients inspired by outer space’s extreme environment and the stresses it could actually placed on cell functions. Starting with Epseama, Clariant pulled from NASA’s study of dual astronauts, where one twin was sent to space and the opposite remained on Earth to find out how space conditions can affect premature ageing. In line with Clariant, Epseama stimulates and protects RNA nc886, which affects the Kinase-R (PKR) protein, known to induce premature ageing. One other lively ingredient developed by Clariant is inspired by the scarcity of water in space. BioDTox is designed to detoxify and cleanse skin with minimum amounts of water. Clariant’s VageStop protects against the sun and takes inspiration from astronauts’ exposure to high amounts of sun radiation. 

Space manufacturing can also be underway because the private sector seeks to master how materials and processes behave in space conditions and the way this will boost innovation. In line with McKinsey, the variety of patents including “microgravity” increased from 21 in 2000 to 155 in 2020. California-based start-up Varda has designed the Rocket Lab to fabricate in space and is preparing to launch its first production facility into orbit.

Space mining is taken into account some of the promising areas of space industrialism and will impact where some beauty ingredients are sourced. Asteroids are stuffed with metal resources including iron, nickel, cobalt and precious metals equivalent to gold and platinum. Originally here due to a 200,000 yr old meteor shower, platinum is utilized in luxury beauty products equivalent to La Prairie’s $1,460 Platinum Rare Cellular Night Elixir and will in the long run come from an outer space supply chain.

Some experts are calling asteroid mining the Twenty first-century gold rush and an especially viable opportunity for investors, with NASA finding there are between 1.1m and 1.9m asteroids larger than one kilometre within the major asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter). Astrophysicist and media figure Neil deGrasse Tyson predicts that the world’s first trillionaire will come from asteroid mining, given the 16 Psyche asteroid was estimated at $700 quintillion, if the core is confirmed to be wealthy in iron, nickel and gold. 

As aspirational and intriguing as this will likely be, it’ll be critical to embed sustainability and regulations in space exploration, microgravity manufacturing and asteroid mining. Human-made space junk is already an alarming issue, with scientists calling for a world binding treaty to guard Earth’s orbit. The identical principles of sustainable beauty manufacturing and workplace practices on Earth might want to apply to space. Up to now, most industries – including the sweetness industry – are failing to contemplate this, and are more concerned with tapping into the innovation and novelty. 

This begs the query: are we shifting from space dreamers to space colonialists? Pioneering perspectives are early signals of what we may face in the subsequent century. Planetary Personhood by studio Nonhuman Nonsense is a speculative interplanetary campaign against space colonisation. By granting legal personhood to Mars, the project goals to create a symbiotic relationship with the larger universe. There may be also a growing body of labor difficult our limited understanding of the cosmos, an approach defined as cosmic imagination. Interspecies Future created by LAS, a Berlin-based art foundation that brings together art, technology and science, is a cross-disciplinary movement dedicated to advancing the rights and opportunities of nonhuman life on Earth. 

With the space industry estimated to achieve $1tn in annual revenue by 2040, beauty brands searching for to harness the universe’s geology yet claiming to be sustainable should see this as a possibility to use ethical principles all the best way. That is fertile ground for undoing polluting and colonialist dynamics, out of sync with equity and sustainability imperatives we face on Earth. In spite of everything, we as humans are formed of cosmic dust. And perhaps soon, all our beauty products can be as well.