“If you grow plant cells in a bioreactor, you can control their environment — temperature, pH, carbon dioxide gas levels — and feed them nutrients as needed, and get same results every time,” says Barbara Paldus, PhD, who spent 20 years building biotech production equipment before founding her own beauty brand, Codex Labs. Paldus taps lab-made ingredients, including biotech-fermented corn feedstock, in order to preserve her formulations. Because some biotech ingredients are more potent than their crop-based counterparts, Paldus estimates she needs to use 75% less of an active ingredient in her formulations to yield the same results, an efficiency that saves energy and packaging.