Why more cosmetic chemists aren’t doing research?

On another post about wrinkle treatment breakthrus, Louise asked this excellent question which I thought would make a good post because people just starting out in the cosmetic industry might wonder the same thing.

Why aren’t cosmetic chemists doing research?

The basic premise of this question is that cosmetic products haven’t really changed much over the years. Cosmetic marketers seem to just take the same old formulas, change them a little and call them a new product.

This is a fair observation (although incomplete). But there are two main reasons cosmetic chemists spend more time on developing products than they do on researching new technologies.

1. Success

Cosmetic companies are in the business of selling products. When you try to research a technology you are not actually creating a new product. Certainly, you might find something that could some day be turned into a market changing product, but the reality is most technologies that you investigate will not turn into products. This is true in the cosmetic business as well as almost every other market. Research has a low level of success.

Product development, on the other hand, has a high degree of success. At least when it comes to whether or not you have a product to sell. When your company has to go to Walmart or Target and tell them the latest product they are launching, they have to have some tangible, new product that can go on store shelves. Product development will almost certainly create that. Basic research will not. Thus if a company has to decide where to focus it’s efforts, they will invariably choose the short term product development strategy over the long-term research one.

2. Money

While success is not guaranteed in research, the fact that it costs money is guaranteed. It’s a relatively small amount of money in the cosmetic industry but it is money nonetheless. When a company pays for something they want to see results. Unfortunately, research does not work that way. Finding technological breakthrus is not something that can be easily planned, budgeted, or guaranteed. Most times it can’t even be explained to marketing and sales people. Therefore, people who are in research have a tough time justifying their work because they can’t show an obvious result.

While basic research is the most promising area to create truly breakthru technologies, most companies do not have the risk tolerance, time, or money to invest significantly in it. And that is why most of the jobs in the cosmetic industry focus on “new” product development rather than new technology discovery.

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How to Become a Cosmetic Chemist

The job of a cosmetic chemist, or as they call it in the UK a cosmetic scientist, requires you to do a wide variety of things both in and out of the lab. Your main responsibility will be that of a formulator. This means you mix raw materials together to create cosmetic products like lipstick, nail polish, skin lotions, shampoos, toothpaste and any other type of personal care product.

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