Types of Water Used in Cosmetic Formulating
There are a wide variety of water types that you can use when formulating cosmetics. Distilled, deionized, purified or tap water are all options for…
Cosmetic formula VOC restrictions - are your products legal?
Environmental rules are often strange. Here is a story where L’Oreal was fined over $160,000 for selling a product that contained 55% volatile organic compounds…
Episode 40: Dennis Abbeduto - Green Surfactants for Cosmetic Formulators
Interview: Dennis Abbeduto has nearly 20 years surfactant and formulation chemistry experience and currently works for Colonial Chemical, Inc in Southeast Tennessee as a Senior…
Have you formulated with dry water?
Here’s a technology I had never heard about, dry water. It sounds fascinating and could result in the creation of truly surfactant free cosmetic products.…
Cosmetic colorants - the safest cosmetic ingredients
Recently we received a request from someone who wanted to make their own face paint for children. Specifically, they wanted to know how to make…
When is a cosmetic ingredient considered safe?
While surfing the Internet looking for information about cosmetics you can’t help but stumble onto negative information about the “toxic” chemicals evil corporations put into…
Weekend science - surfactants
Here’s a nice video I found on Youtube that explains the chemistry of surfactants in a solution. It’s a nice way to spend 5 minutes…
Surfactant sources - Making detergents without using crude oil
Crude oil is pretty amazing stuff. It’s a mixture of a variety of hydrocarbon molecules and can be used to create any number of…
How stem cell technology can really work
Right now there are a bunch of cosmetic brand that claim to use stem cells to provide benefits. For example, there is the Swiss Botany…
Cosmetic science on tv
One of the fun aspects of what I do for a living is that I occasionally get invited to be a guest on TV shows.…
Don’t turn your cosmetic into a drug
Contrary to what you read on the Internet, the cosmetics industry in the US is regulated. It is regulated by the FDA and they do…
The largest natural and organic cosmetic companies
We’re in the process of launching a new course about formulating natural cosmetic products. You can see our latest video here. Formulating natural cosmetic products…
Hot trends to look for in 2015
Euromonitor is a market research company who covers the beauty market. They put together a white paper suggesting some trends that will be popular in…
How stable are your formulations?
I once made a shampoo formula that I kept for about 17 years. It was my first batch of anything and for some reason I…
Are people using cosmetics wrong?
People apply color cosmetics hoping to improve the way they look. But according to this research published in the The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, most…
Controlling Cosmetic Product Quality
A question was posed to us recently about creating consistent cosmetic products and formulations. Basically, the reader wanted to know how you do it. The…
Figuring out the 1% line
A fun activity for any cosmetic chemist is to look at a list of ingredients (LOI) and try to determine where is the 1% line.…
What are cosmetic product specifications?
When you create a formula in the lab it’s rather easy to create batches that are consistently the same in terms of their physical and…
Surfactants - Does the counterion matter?
There was an interesting discussion on LinkedIn about whether Magnesium Laureth Sulfate was more gentle than Sodium Laureth Sulfate. It’s a pretty good question and…
Weekend chemistry
On the weekend I like to look through Youtube and find cool chemistry videos. Here’s one from a series called Chemistry Life Hacks which gives…