First Aid Beauty Bump Eraser Body Scrub and the science behind its TikTok success
Love it or hate it TikTok is one of the fastest growing digital platforms and has become an essential marketing platform for beauty brands. In…
Category: Raw Materials
Cosmetic thickeners and stabilizers
Thickeners are considered an aesthetic modifier (as discussed more in this post about types of cosmetic ingredients). In a formula they are essential for creating…
The best cosmetic preservatives
At Chemists Corner, one of the most frequent questions we get is from people looking for the best cosmetic preservative to use for their formula.…
Herbal Extracts in Cosmetic Formulating - A reality check
There has been much written about the benefits of herbal and plant extracts in cosmetic products. You can find entire books like this one and…
What Silicones Are In Cosmetics
Silicones are definitely controversial ingredients in cosmetic products. The misinformed reasons people suggest avoiding them include things like being unsafe for the environment, causing acne,…
What is the best preservative to use?
One of the most common questions we get here on Chemists Corner about formulating is what is the best cosmetic preservative to use. Before I…
Color Selection for Cosmetics and Personal Care Products
Part 1: Stability of Certified Colors An important consideration in the color additive selection process is stability. Once the regulatory requirements for the market(s) where…
What is in a cosmetic ingredient
Formulating cosmetics can be a challenge. You’ve got to make a product that performs well enough for your consumers, is easy to make for your…
Why are some cosmetic ingredients added hot and others added cold
Formulating cosmetics can be a lot like cooking. And just like when you are making lunch or dinner, some dishes and cosmetic formulas must be…
Why are some oils solid while others are liquid?
Fats, oils, waxes and butters are natural materials that find use in improving the look and feel of skin and hair. They can provide shine,…
Natural cosmetic preservative ingredients and strategies
One of the most common type of questions we get asked here on Chemists Corner is about natural preservatives. On the one hand this is…
What are claims ingredients?
There are some ingredients that you include in cosmetic formulas to provide a benefit to consumers. These we call functional cosmetic ingredients. There are other…
Types of surfactants in cosmetics
In our cosmetic surfactant series we’ve talked about what surfactants are and what they do in your formulations. In this entry we’ll give a brief…
The addition of colorants in cosmetics
Today we are having a special webinar examining the use of colors in cosmetics. You can sign up for the webinar here. Sign up for…
10 Things Surfactants Do In Cosmetics
In the first part of our cosmetic surfactant series we talked about what surfactants are and how they behave in a cosmetic mixture. In this…
What are surfactants? A Formulators Guide
Of all the ingredients you could use to formulate cosmetics, surfactants are perhaps the most important. They are used for a wide range of applications…
Fatty Acids and the Formulator
In our recent post on cosmetic emollients I mentioned that many of them were derived from triglycerides. Triglyceride molecules are made up of two segments including glycerin…
Formula adjustment ingredients for cosmetics
When creating cosmetic products in a lab it is easy to have control over the final characteristics of your formula. Under this setting you get the…
Humectants - Cosmetic Formulating Basics
This month we are focusing on cosmetic raw materials. In this post we continue our look at functional cosmetic ingredients specifically on humectants. During much…
What are emollients in cosmetic formulas?
This month we are focusing on cosmetic raw materials and in this post we’ll talk about emollients. In a previous post we talked about the…