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You have unlimited research money - What cosmetic science question would you investigate?
Nearly all the research in the cosmetic industry is done by companies with a vested interest in the outcome. Usually these companies don’t publish results so unless you work for the company you never find an answer.
But suppose money wasn’t an issue and you didn’t care about IP protection.What cosmetic science or formulating question would you get answered?You can be as general or specific as you like. -
25 Replies
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Personally, and I’ve done a lot of poking around on articles and text books, but I’d really dig deep into ‘parabens connected with to cancer’ stuff.
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Interesting suggestion. That is just a really difficult one to investigate because the answer already exists. The non-industry funded, independent, EU Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has determined that there is no connection between parabens and cancer.The only remaining question is what evidence or how much evidence would convince anyone who believes it is a problem that it isn’t? -
I think I would work on developing a new class of topical items similar to Nutritional products.
In the Natural Market we use many botanical products and try to assign properties/benefits to them which would cause them to encroach upon OTC products. This causes a great deal of issues.
I would propose creating a new class of Topical products which utilize herbal/botanical extracts and allow limited claims to be made. In addition I would require that they provide credible citations to justify their claims. These new topical products would have a similar warning to Nutritionals (These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA…….).
The largest outlay initially would be administrative. Clear lines would have to be drawn and conditions treated/claims would have to be limited so as not to interfere with competent medical care when warranted. Documentation standards would have to be defined. At this point of course there would be legislative hurdles to meet in order to get the class codified.
Many will ask why I would do this as on the surface it would facilitate the “naturalistic fallacy.” In fact my goal is diametrically opposed to this danger. I feel it would serve to limit over reaching claims in the natural market, encourage good research into the claims/benefits and clarify the “natural” skincare market.
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I would like to see long term research (10-20 years) on using skin care cosmetics vs not using any at all. (sun protection excluded)
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I would like to see research done on what all of these “chemicals” we all are using is doing to us and more importantly what they are doing to our planet!
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Are we really bashing “chemicals” as a whole now?
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I’m not bashing “chemicals” are you, Mark? I just think it would be a wise move for an organization that is not connected to the government and not connected to the cosmetic industry to check out all substances that we are using in our daily lives and see if they are harmful in any way to humans and to the planet Earth. If I had the money to do that, I would fund such an organization.
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@David08848 - It’s a challenging project you propose because it is a complicated question and might go beyond what science can even answer.
Before even attempting to answer the question we would have to first narrow down what you mean by “are chemicals harmful?” Without being more specific the answer is both Yes and No for any substance you can imagine.If all people can’t agree (or at least most people) on what it means for something to be harmful I don’t see how we could ever answer the question. -
Since everyone has daid something meaningful, I would like to add my 2 cents worth as well. I will invest to study pheromones more deeply into perfumes and how it works, if at all it does.
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Perry, If we do analyze everything and find out about the good aspects and the bad aspects we perhaps might learn more that we already know and we as individuals and as a group can make better assessments of all of these things and then can act upon them or not. My whole point of answering this hypothetical question is to get us to think more about what we’re doing and think more about these things as we go along. I had to make judgements about my business and where I wanted it to go and what I wanted to include in my product line. Could I have made a liquid soap without a preservative? Yes, I could have as many do but I opted to use one for my own protection business-wise and for the protection of the customers. I went through the same process when I decided to do my current project, body wash. Your reply about using Vitamin E in small percentage as a “marketing claim” forced me to think about whether I wanted to do it or not. I chose not to do it and will probably continue that philosophy in the future. Having that knowledge (thank you!) was what was most important to me just as having as much knowledge as possible will help me to make the best choices possible! That is really what I am after in making the suggestion I did to your query. Even if we don’t do anything about it, we’ll at least have the knowledge!
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@David08848 - Thanks. If it didn’t come through in my post, I agree this would be excellent information to find out if we could.
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@David08848 one thing we know for sure - without chemicals nor we or the earth would exist!
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@David08848 If you have a look at an MSDS you already get a quite good picture of how hazardous a chemical is for humans and environment. The problem is that you need to dig much deeper in order to make a difference. questions like if I stop using this chemical - what do I replace it with? Even if a chemical is non-hazardous - what is its ecological footprint? Concentration and effectiveness has to be taken into account. Transport, energy used for manufacturing, space, economy, animal experiments …etc etc - but I agree one thing - we have to think more about the consequences of using and producing some chemicals/ingredients and ban at least obvious bad ones - like plastic microbeads
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Given that technology changes and advances over time we may find out that some things we thought were safe for us actually are not. That’s why I suggested that we should take a look at everything we have done in the past. I can think of things like lead paint or asbestos that were created in a laboratory in the last century and I saw homes in my own neighborhood that had to deal with the lead paint and the asbestos shingles that were put up decades before. Even as a child growing up in the late 50’s and throughout the 1960’s many of these things came to light and we became aware of them through television and newspapers.
Yes, we and the Earth are all made up of chemicals but those occur in nature. It’s when we decide to manipulate these natural chemicals that the possibility of creating something harmful can occur. That is why I suggested taking the time to look at everything isn’t a bad idea! Educating ourselves and the consumer is also a good idea. I now think that doing away with that under 1% for marketing claims would be beneficial as well! (See what you started, Perry!
) I’m teasing you, Perry but I have found that a little bit of knowledge can change your way of thinking. I also think that is a good thing! David is right in pointing out just how complicated and how much of a structure exists that is affected by all of these chemicals we are using. I also became aware of the effects of these chemicals when I put up a post on Facebook about my body wash project and posted two pictures of samples from chemical companies! When I looked at the pictures and saw the warnings on the bottle about possible damage to eyes while using these chemicals, I had to think quick and put up a post about the warnings being there because most of these are concentrated surfactants suggesting they would be diluted (most would be) in the final product, so yes, David, I know MSDS sheets and chemical data sheets and have seen firsthand the potential problems that can occur while using chemicals! And yes, those microbeads we not such a great idea! I believe is was fish that managed to be affected by those plastic microbeads but ultimately it is us that can be affected! Still in all, I think everyone here is trying their best to “do the right thing” and create innovative and interesting products and I support that. I am also grateful that I can come here, ask questions and learn! Really what I am suggesting is that we continue to keep our eyes open and watch and listen so we can make products that are as safe as we possibly can and if I had the money I would create an organization that would do just that!
David
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This is a little off-subject but the comment above inspired me.
@David08848 - I would agree that we should continue to safety test and be open to new discoveries of harm. We also have to be able to decide when enough evidence is collected. What evidence would someone need to believe that parabens are safe to use? For many people there is nothing that will convince them. It would be great to create an organization dedicated to ensuring products are safe. It just needs to be science-based, not ideologically based.
“Yes, we and the Earth are all made up of chemicals but those occur in nature. It’s when we decide to manipulate these natural chemicals that the possibility of creating something harmful can occur.” This is known as the Naturalistic Fallacy and should not be the basis for deciding whether a product is safe or not.There are lots of things that occur in nature which are terrible for the Earth, other animals, and people. Snake venom did not require a human to create it nor did the botulism poison. In fact, the most dangerous things on the planet occur in nature.Most chemicals that are synthesized were never encountered by our bodies during evolution. So there are no biochemical pathways for our bodies to chemically interact with them. The ingredients just pass through our body with little to no effect.There are certainly synthetic compounds that are dangerous but as a general rule whether something is synthetic or natural is no indication of whether it will be safe to use. In fact, I’d err on the side that if something is natural it is more likely to be harmful than something synthetic. -
@David08848. You’ll open a can of worms when you say something like this to a scientific community.“
Yes, we and the Earth are all made up of chemicals but those occur in nature.… It’s when we decide to manipulate these natural chemicals that the possibility of creating something harmful can occur.”This is the same nature that gives us poisons and toxins. Also the same earth who’s nature will 90% of the time kill us if we don’t manipulate it for our use. Artificial manipulation.Humans have what… say 5000 years of documented history on earth? And they’ve all lived an un-artificial, natural life till this this point. They all got to live naturally, un-manipulated to a glorious age of 30.I’d rather live artificially to be 90 than to live a natural life to my 30s.That all said, I love all naturalists and microbead fearing people! They’re awesome for business. -
@AuroraBorealis Great explanation and spot on as to why the term chemicals drew my original comment.
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further to the above, I keep a list of naturally occurring plant / flower / fungus extracts that are considered so harmful they’ve been explicitly banned from cosmetics, just to demonstrate that what’s natural ain’t necessarily good for you
going back to the main question, I’d quite like to know what it is about hot-fill styling products that makes customers so flaky and indecisive when it comes to picking what they want and sticking with it
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I think any research in which we could definitively determine a connection between what consumers like and some characteristic of a cosmetic formula would be great to know.
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I think any research in which we could definitively determine a connection between what consumers like and some characteristic of a cosmetic formula would be great to know.
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Gentlemen,
You haven’t posted anything that I am not already aware of. I do not consider myself a “naturalist” and do not attempt to sell “all natural” products. I simply stated that I feel it would be a good idea to look at what we are doing to ourselves and to our planet. We have the knowledge now that we didn’t have centuries ago and we should use that knowledge to check what we have done, what we are doing and what we are going to do.
Perry, if you reread my post above you will see I stated “Perry, If we do analyze everything and find out about the good aspects
and the bad aspects we perhaps might learn more that we already know and
we as individuals and as a group can make better assessments of all of
these things and then can act upon them or not.” In your last reply you stated “I would agree that we should continue to safety test and be open to new discoveries of harm.” which indicates to me that you understood what I said. That really was my only point and you got it. To all, please don’t put words in my mouth that I have not uttered, or ideas I have not expressed! I am not putting down the use of chemicals, I am just suggesting we be more cautious about our usage. That’s all!So right now I am going back to my project which is studying the use of “chemicals” (would you have reacted less strongly if I had posted the word chemicals without a quote around it?) and seeing what I can come up with. I am eager to learn more about the use of chemicals (in this case surfactants) and see if I can create a good, product that works well, pleases people who use it and doesn’t do any harm to them or to the planet. Hopefully, we are on the same page now…
David
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It isn’t the use of the word “chemicals” in quotes, it is more a reaction to how marketers (especially in the “natural” market) have co opted this word and given it a negative connotation. We are constantly bombarded with lines crowing they are “chemical free” and we see people advocating that they won’t use cosmetics with chemicals in them. As we all know chemicals are ubiquitous and it is naive on their part to make these claims.
So I think the issue was the use of the word chemicals in a manner where many inferred you were assigning a negative connotation to the term. The term chemical has no bias be it negative or positive. They just “are.”
That said I could see some benefit in severing the assessment of common cosmetic raw materials from marketing entirely and setting consistent and coherent protocols to assess safety. The bulk of the data available in this are has been hijacked by marketers with ulterior motives from the start. The last proposed Cosmetic Act would have outlined duties of the FDA to start this process.
This would be of benefit to persons in the Cosmetic Industry. However pragmatically unless you mirrored the preconceptions which have been fostered in many Cosmetic consumers, I believe that you would be considered a shill of the Chemical companies. This is unfortunately an area where pseudoscience rules.
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Mark,
I appreciate your reply. As a retailer and manufacturer I don’t have the same experience with marketers as you and others here might as cosmetic chemists, so I would not be aware of the negativity you experience because of it. I do have customers ask whether my products are natural or organic but I do not set out to sell either of these types of products although a few of mine might be considered natural by some. I also have heard some perceptions from a customer of what certain products should be or should contain but frankly it doesn’t happen very often. Still, it is helpful to hear your experiences and perspectives on this issue and has helped me to understand the reactions of some here.
I see what you are saying about the interpretation of my use of the word chemical but I was not using it in either a negative or positive way rather just making the point that every ingredient of a product could benefit by a little scrutiny now and them. I do feel, however, that for some the parenthesis for some may have drawn attention to the word so that they were more apt to consider in a negative context. I assure that is not what I meant nor is it what I think or feel!
I also feel that marketing has caused many problems in the cosmetics field (and others) but I think the lack of education of the consumer is the bigger problem here. I have dabbled in chemistry since the late 1990’s and know enough not to pay attention to the marketing but rather look at the ingredients list of a product to make my decision about whether to purchase it or not from that. So I feel we would all benefit by acquiring a little knowledge about the products we use. I do a lot of research about ingredients I am going to use to acquire as much knowledge as possible in order that I make the right decisions and choices. I just wish others would do the same and if we had non-biased information available about these ingredients it would make things much easier!
David
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In response to Perry’s original question I would love to have someone investigate and develop a preservative that:
- is broad spectrum
- does not contain parabens, isothiazolines or formaldehyde releasers,
- is stable over a wide pH range,
- is suitable for use in all emulsions, surfactant systems and water based products,
- is not plagued with the issues that some of the other preservative systems are prone to such as emulsion instability or interaction with ethoxylated and non-ionic materials.
and if it could be derived from a renewable plant source that would be amazing.
This would save me so much time trying to find a preservative that meets “natural” customers expectations and is stable in each formulation.
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Why is urogenital irritation by surfactants specific to a region of the body rather than to a tissue type? Howard Maibach was as puzzled by this as I am.
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