Colin's Cosmetic Consultancy Blog
Everything you need to turn your innovative beauty or personal care idea into a saleable cosmetic product.
Self tan products are changing and consumers are going to notice.
You should too.
If you sell a self tanning product you will likely be aware of a looming change to the limit of dihydroxyacetone (DHA) in self tanning products to a maximum of 10% which is going to affect a large number of products on the market. The new regulation also sets a new DHA limit for non-oxidative hair-dye products to 6.5%, which while not unimportant will probably affect far fewer skus.
Continue reading “The self tan shake up”Ambergris is highly sought after and very rare and expensive. But what is it?
A sperm whale full of ambergris has been washed up on the beach in Holland. The quantity is 83Kg, and will keep perfumers who use it as a fixative going for years. The origin of ambergris was unknown for many years. It was found from time to time on beaches. Its scarcity made it enormously valuable.
Once industrial scale whaling got underway its origin in the digestive system of whales became obvious. It also led to the pursuit of sperm whales, with disastrous consequences for their numbers. To combat this trade in ambergris is banned in many countries.
The details can be found here.
How to prepare for when your makeup product falls foul of scaremongers.
This week there has been a scare story about PFAs in makeup. (PFA is a recent acronym for perfluorocarbons.) Its origin is persistent mischief mongers the EWG who keep up a continual stream of misinformation about all manner of consumer products including cosmetics, most of which are easily linked to their fund raising activities. In this case the story was that there are dangerous components in colour cosmetics and many cosmetic companies don’t even know they are there. The monetisation comes from the EWG’s accreditation standard – where companies pay them for approval.
Continue reading “How To Handle A Scare Story”
Salicylic acid has been used in cosmetics and dermatology for many years, more or less as soon as it was available in the 1840s. In fact it was used before that unknowingly as willow bark, from which it was first isolated, was already in use as a folk medicine before that. This use is referred to by Roman writers. But it has recently come under a bit of a cloud following its classification by the European Chemicals Agency as a Category 2 CMR.
Continue reading “Salicylic Acid – CMR2 status doesn’t affect its usefulness”
Monoi Oil has a great story to go with it. It’s the traditional Tahitian skincare product made by infusing coconut oil with gardenia petals. As such it is really good natural product with a genuine heritage and some real benefits. It does present a couple of challenges though. Continue reading “Monoi Oil”