Amyris' Alastair Dorward on the "guilt and penance" of buying better-for-you beauty

Alastair Dorward may be new to the biotech company Amyris -- he joined as chief brand officer in August -- but he's not unfamiliar with the better-for-you beauty and personal care space. Dorward was the founding CEO of natural, non-toxic brand Method and CEO of hand sanitizer brand Olika. The latter was acquired by Amyris in June.

"I've been a close student of Amyris, [their] trajectory from malaria into the world of production of really valuable and rare molecules and the whole conversation around making the scarce abundant... Over the course of the last year or so, there's been this emergence of the portfolio of beauty, and that's when I really started leaning forward," said Dorward on the most recent episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. 

In many ways, Dorward considers beauty the last frontier of the progression for consumers to natural, organic or clean. Having worked across the food, toddler, personal care and beauty categories, he said, "There's been a trade-off that is unacceptable -- a trade-off between results or efficacy and clean."

For its part, Amyris and its swathe of brands have been a tugboat that has pushed other conglomerates forward. Its portfolio includes Biosannce, which popularized industry-wide the use of squalane derived from sustainable sugarcane; clean baby brand Pipette; Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's clean color line, Rose Inc.; and most recently, Jonathan Van Ness' vegan hair-care launch, JVN.

While beauty consumers are just starting to have more options at their fingertips, Dorward said, "The beauty industry has had the greatest challenge. [Mastering] cleaning [products] is one thing, but beauty and results are a much harder proposition to get right."