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Please help and comment! Looking for help with a cosmetic science project!
Hello! I hope someone here might could possibly help me with my dilemma. I’m a high school student who will be applying to colleges next year for biochemistry. To be considered for a full ride to my dream college, I need to supply a project that I have done that involves science. It needed to be personal so I decided that I want to try to formulate my own lipstick and possibly a few extra things. My goal is to sell them on Etsy and showcase myself not only as a “mini-chemist” but also as an entrepreneur. I’ve worked hard throughout high school and have excelled with my GPA and testing scores. Now I just need something to set myself apart from the rest. I love makeup and I collect it. I’m a HUGE cosmetic junkie. I was hoping someone on here could help me answer a few questions that would help me start my endeavors and get into my dream college so that one day I can create my own full makeup line.
1.) Formulation: I would like to make something that is organic if possible. The basic lipstick formula I googled had solidifiers, diluent oils, preservatives, pigment dispersion, and colorants. Are there any organic supplies I could use for this? Is it safe to use Titanium Dioxide colorants and would those still be organic.2.) Any tips/tricks?: I want to be safe and successful, not run a whole laboratory of products. What equipment would I need? Money isn’t a problem, however I just want the basic stuff that is absolutely necessary.3.) My product vision: I’m thinking I want a nude lipstick, but a unique one. Some highlights in there to make it shimmery, but so that it is flattering on all skin tones.4.) Packaging: Where could I get nice packaging? Like bullet lipstick tubes (ex: M.A.C)5.) Any guidelines I need to know?: Please help me with anything I might need to know. I would love to test different ingredients and formulas.Please help me with some information so that I can use apply it to my studies and research to get me into my top choice college. I’m clueless and I’ve done some research, I just can’t find much. -
11 Replies
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I know it’s intimidating to start researching this from scratch, but persevere. I think you have a great idea.
You might want to start with researching what the term “organic” means, what the standards for organic certification are, why they are important for food, what they mean when applied to non-food products, and why that may (or may not) be important for personal care products.Next, look up the FDA regulations for cosmetic colorants and explain why lip colors that follow FDA regs cannot be certified organic.Unless you want to spend a bunch of money, DIY Lip products are best made as either lip balm (in pots) or lipgloss in chapstick-style containers. Another part of your project should be investigating the filling equipment needed for each style of container, and documenting why you chose the finished product that you did. Go here for info: http://www.diycosmetics.com/ -
What organic colorants could I use? If I develop it from basic ingredients and formulas, is it still my own creation?
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What organic colorants could I use
I understand that crushed beetles are to be found in most lipsticks. That’s pretty organic I should think… -
If I use mica, it’s still vegan right? Just not 100% organic.
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That’s exactly right. “Organic”, Certified Organic” and “100% Organic” are all terms that were developed and codified for food only. Although I wasn’t trying to influence your conclusion, in my opinion, “Organic” when applied to non-food consumer product is almost completely useless - the only benefit it has is marketing.
“Vegan”, on the other hand, is a term that means something.“Organic” as a term for colorants, however, is misleading. In this case, it doesn’t mean organic as in food grown from plants without using pesticides, it means organic as in chemistry, so that it refers to chemicals that are made from carbon and hydrogen. All FDA-approved organic pigments/colorants are synthetically made.Another point…I’m going to make an analogy you might understand - right now, you are in a similar situation to someone who has to write a history paper. The teacher asks for your topic, and you say America in the 1860’s. That’s much too broad. So you’ve narrowed it down to the Civil War. Still too broad, so you narrow it down again to the Battle of Gettysburg. But you don’t want to sound like a high school or even a college student writing a paper - you want to sound like a professional historian writing a book. That is the equivalent of what you’ve asked us to help you with, and I’m telling you that you have to narrow down much, much more to be able to pull this off.It takes many years, and a lot of training, to make a full-fledged cosmetic chemist. BUT…if we help you focus on one simple anhydrous product, with no more than 4 or 5 ingredients, we can probably get you to a point where you validly claim to know a great deal about that particular product type, and about running a project to bring that product to market.I need to make another point here too, before we get too far into this. Cosmetic Chemistry does not have a whole lot to do with biochemistry. It’s not completely unrelated, but to be a cosmetic chemist, you need to know chemistry, biochemistry, biology/physiology, microbiology, some physics, some chemical engineering, and even some marketing, sales, and business finance. Biochemists (and part of my undergraduate work was in biochemistry) only need to know chemistry and biochemistry, and as a result, get a lot more specialized. If you want to be a biochemist, and work in a lab trying, for example, to find a cure for cancer, this may not be the best project to focus on. But if you want to show a wide array of knowledge, and aren’t narrowly focused on biochemistry, this will be a good way to go. -
WRT packaging AliExpress has a wide selection - and you can purchase small quantities.
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Yes, I want to show an array of knowledge. I’m majoring in Biochemistry because I’m debating between the medical field and starting my own cosmetic line. I just want to formulate a lipstick, nothing else. i’m not trying to start a full line here. I just want to show that I can formulate a product, be familiar with the ingredients that go in it, etc.
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Good. You’ve narrowed down successfully. However, stick-form molded lipsticks are more complicated and expensive to make than lipgloss or lip balm, so be prepared.
You will need to do some ingredient and formulation research first, but my project suggestion for you is to identify a new/unique raw material that hasn’t been used in a lipstick before, and figure out how to use it in a lipstick base. Inventing an entirely new lipstick base formula, and then running it through the required safety testing, will take more time than you have. But - identifying and explaining the new base formulation and testing process should be part of your project. -
Do you have any ideas of materials I could use to test. Where could I get raw materials to try?
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Here are two reliable websites to get you started.
http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com.au/search?q=lip+stick
http://www.soapqueen.com/category/bath-and-body-tutorials/lip-products/
There are many suppliers in the US that supply lip safe ingredients to home crafters and small businesses. Maybe others who are actually in the US will be able to give you more ideas but I have read that Brambleberry is a good place to start.
http://www.brambleberry.com/Default.aspx
Hope this helps
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Thanks so much!
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