Cosmetic product analysis – How do you do it?
Someone wrote in and asked the following. “If you were given a formulated scrub containing pulverized avocado seed/peel. What steps would you take to evaluated…
The Challenges of formulating natural cosmetics
Clean Beauty is all the rage these days and it can be directly related to the difficulties in formulating natural cosmetics. Although there are not…
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,…
Basic cosmetic chemistry course
When you study chemistry in college, they don’t spend much time teaching you what to do with your degree after you get out. In reality,…
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,…
Setting up a cosmetic formulating lab – Mixers
Here’s the next article in our series about starting a cosmetic lab. Here is the basic equipment you’ll need. Containers Weighing equipment Mixers Heating &…
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…
Natural surfactants for cosmetic products
Cosmetic surfactants are the most versatile and important ingredients in cosmetic formulations. Unfortunately, there are not many surfactants that naturally occur so trying to make…
Natural cosmetics and Standard cosmetics – What’s the difference?
In a previous article about natural cosmetic products, I wrote about the difficulty in producing actually natural cosmetics. This is particularly difficult for cleansing products…
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…
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…
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…
Optimizing cosmetic formulas – part 2
In the previous post in this formula optimization series we covered the basic process of optimization and also the things you could optimize and how to…
What is an emulsion? Back to Basics
You may have heard the term emulsion, but still don’t quite understand what it means, especially if you are not a chemist. Well, I thought…
How to formulate nutricosmetics
As a cosmetic formulator, you are expected to know how to formulate any cosmetic product. But these days the definition of what is a cosmetic…
How to make cosmetic formulations – a complete overview
When you get out of college and start your new formulation job in the cosmetic industry, you will quickly learn that not much of what you…
How do you become a cosmetic chemist consultant?
I received the following question and thought it would make a good post. I’m an Senior Cosmetic Chemist with an Bachelors Degree, with 18yrs experience…