Cosmetic Science book review - Sustainable Cosmetic Product Development
Allured has a new book out about Sustainable Cosmetic Product Development. If you are interested in formulating for the Natural, Organic or Green market, this is an extremely useful book.
Cosmetic book summary
The first chapter looks at the development of the Green market and gives a great overview of the history of how the market has evolved. The second chapter is a bit more useful for formulators as it goes through the worldwide standards for Green, Natural and Organic products. This gives you great direction on how to formulate for specific places in the world. The next chapter gives an excellent overview of what it means to formulate with green ingredients. The next four chapters are probably the most useful ones in the book. They go through exactly how a formulator can use green principles to create hair products, skin products, color cosmetics, and fragrances. The final three chapters are related more to the work that goes on after formulating including one on green packaging, global sourcing of ingredients, and a final chapter on the environmental impact of cosmetics.
Book review
If you are asked by your marketing folks to make your formulas more “natural” or “green”, this book is an excellent resource. It gives you a solid background of the different definitions of green cosmetics and talks about all the certification programs around the world. Then it tells you exactly which ingredients can be used as substitutes for traditional, synthetic compounds. This compilation of ingredients with specific applications is a great resource. My only complaints about the book is that there was a little too much focus on history in the hair chapter and the Index could be more thorough.
Final comments
Overall, if you are going to be doing any natural formulating (and almost every cosmetic chemist will) this book is an invaluable resource.
