Thickening Agents for Cosmetic Formulations
One of the requirements of most cosmetic products is that they have an appealing rheology. This means that you as a cosmetic formulator you are…
Category: Formulating
Essential Cosmetic Lab Equipment
If you want to be a cosmetic chemist and make cosmetic products, there is certain essential equipment that you’ll need to get. Here is a…
How to Determine Cost of a Formulation
This video shows you how to figure out the cost per pound (or kg) of a formula using ingredient costs & percentages. A free downloadable spreadsheet …
A Cosmetic Chemists Guide to Ingredient Lists
In the United States (and most other places around the world), beauty product manufacturers are required to list the ingredients used to make their products…
How Cosmetic Claims Can be Used to Make You a Better Cosmetic Chemist
As a cosmetic chemist, you should always keep an eye on products and try to figure out what other people in the industry are doing.…
A great online community where you can engage consumers
I’m sure Perry has already told you this but as a cosmetic scientist it’s important for you to know your consumer. One way to understand…
What Makes one Cosmetic Ingredient Better than another?
As a cosmetic chemist, you will be often visited by chemical sales people and presented “new” raw materials to put in your formulas. Or you…
The 10 Different Types of Cosmetic Formulas You Must Know
While there are literally thousands of different types of cosmetic products, there are actually only 10 different types of cosmetic formulas. Here is a brief…
HLB - The Easiest Way to Create An Emulsion
As a cosmetic chemist you will undoubtedly be asked to make products that require you to combine materials that aren’t easily compatible. Fortunately, there…
How to make a cosmetic formula
I’m experimenting with a whole new type of video recording. What do you think? If you’re interested in the program that was discussed in the…
Knockout Experiments for Cosmetics - The Fastest Way to Become an Expert Formulator
There are many different routes you can take to learn to become an expert formulation chemist but few are more powerful than conducting your own…
Why Cosmetic Chemists Should Always Try Their Products
The number of people I’ve known who work on products that they’ve never even tried has always amazed me . They miss so much when…
Lab Notebooks and the Cosmetic Chemist
When I was in college I dreaded writing lab reports. They seemed so structured and uncreative that doing them was a chore. Then you had…
Most common cosmetic preservatives
We frequently see brands that claim to be “paraben free” and “formaldehyde free.” With so many new brands making this claim it might surprise you…
Demonstrating a cosmetic benefit
I was reading my twitter feed and noticed someone reporting from the annual PCPC conference (#pcpc2014 in case you are searching Twitter). The following quote…
A further look at the Whole Foods Ingredient list
In our continuing series examining the Whole Foods banned ingredient list, this article is going to focus on the dreaded “sulfates” category (and I’ll include…
Do consumers think about parabens in cosmetics?
If you spend a lot of time on the Internet surfing RSS feeds and social media, you could develop the notion that parabens are dangerous…
Old time cosmetic formulations
I just opened up a box I had in storage and rediscovered a formulation series of books called Benett’s The Chemical Formulary. I actually have…
No more formaldehyde - How to modify a cosmetic
J&J seems pleased with themselves for capitulating to fear mongering groups and reformulating their iconic J&J Baby Shampoo. We previously wrote about why caving to…
How long should your cosmetic formulas last?
I have personal care products that I haven’t opened for a few years. These are mostly hair styling products that I got for free and…