Tag Archives: ingredients

The Palm Tree – The Cosmetic Industry’s Base

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Palm is an important source of cosmetic raw materials

Palm is an important source of cosmetic raw materials

Some things I write about seem quite important to me but somehow don’t really resonate with the people who read my blog. For example I wrote a post on palm oil which explained how the palm oil business works.  Nobody read it.  But I still think it matters so here we go again. Basically palm is grown on plantations and then processed to produce palm oil. This all goes into a big system from where it is moved around to produce a bewildering number of products. Continue reading →

Astringents

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astringents

Witch hazel is the best known astringent.

A Twitter friend asks what an astringent is. And the answer is basically quite straight forward on one level. It is something that stings the skin and stimulates it to react. The easiest way to think about it is to consider the material that is most often used as an astringent, or at least most often used in conjunction with the word astringent, which is witchhazel. If you know what witchhazel does, then that is an astringent. The main experience I have had of witchhazel was having it applied to wounds and bruises as a kid. I was told then that it would clear away the germs and stimulate the skin so that the wounds or bruising would heal more quickly. Continue reading →

Antibiotic Free Rosacea Treatments – Dermalex

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antibiotic free rosacea treatments

Rosacea is bad – though generally not this bad

A question from Lucy

Exciting to find your site… thank you for interesting articles.

Do you know anything about Dermalex Rosacea Cream? It sounds tempting in so far as being antibiotic free and reducing redness but the scary-sounding ingredients are unfamiliar. Is it genuinely safe?
I’d be grateful for your opinion Continue reading →

MAC Pro Longwear Nourishing Waterproof Foundation

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Cosmetics in general are a very personal thing and it is hard to work out why a person would like one product rather than another. It is hard to even work out why you like it yourself. And this is particularly the case with colour cosmetics like foundations. What is it that makes one foundation great and another totally unsuitable for your skin, and why will somebody else come to a completely different opinion? Continue reading →

Do You Need Shampoo?

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Do You Need Shampoo?

Everyone loves bubbles

I don’t generally trust the Daily Mail, and in fact usually try to avoid it.  But I couldn’t miss a fascinating story about falling shampoo sales.  It seems that last year some of the big brands lost as much as 11% of their sales.  What is going on?  The Mail of course is never short of opinions and is quick to form judgements.  The headline was that women who work from home don’t bother to wash their hair.  Right.  It must be the lazy trollops.  What else could it be? Continue reading →

Colour Codes For Preservatives

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Colour Codes For PreservativesAmong the many things I try to cram into my schedule is a newsletter for people with sensitive skin.  I am not very successful at doing this I am afraid, and I don’t get the newsletters out very frequently.  But despite this I get a steady stream of people talking to me about their issues with reactions to cosmetics.  In particular, to preservatives.  And particularly in particular to methylisothiazolinone. Continue reading →

Charcoal As A Skin Cleanser

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Charcoal As A Skin Cleanser

Charcoal – Skin Purifier?

In recent years a lot of people have started making their own cosmetics.  There are quite a few places online where they discuss their progress, and it makes interesting reading from my perspective.  Having done it for a living for several decades it is interesting seeing what people find interesting and what they find difficult.   Continue reading →

Is It Time To Free Cosmetics Of Caffeine?

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Is It Time To Free Cosmetics Of Caffeine?

Do you need this stuff on your skin?

Caffeine has been a cosmetic ingredient for a long time, and you’ll find a jar of it on the shelves of most cosmetic development laboratories. There are three things it gets used for. There are the so called body sculpting products. The idea behind these is that you apply them to parts of your body that have more fat than you’d like. The caffeine stimulates fat burning, so you can get rid of the fat in the areas you don’t like it. Keep it up and you can change the shape of your body to something you like the look of. It is also used to improve the tone of the skin.  It is supposed to stimulate energy production in the upper layers of the skin. This again uses the breakdown of fat, but in this case to release energy to improve the look of the skin. And finally it is used in shampoos to stimulate hair growth.

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Elderberry Extract for Dark Circles Around The Eyes?

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Elderberry Extract for Dark Circles Around The Eyes

Do elderberries hold the secret to curing dark circles around the eyes?

We’ve all seen and may well have actually experienced the dark marks that you sometimes get around the eyes.  They are known as dark marks, dark circles and spider veins.  They vary in colour – they can be black, blue or purple.  The cause of them is that the skin is particularly thin on this part of the face.  This makes the blood capillaries there particularly prone to damage, both as a result of rubbing them and to things that affect the size and  permeability of the blood vessels.  The result is that blood cells can get out of the blood stream and accumulate into this dark coloured structures.  The spidery appearance is due to them following the lines of the capillaries.  Having got there they can trigger an inflammatory response making the skin puffy as well. Continue reading →

Who Does The Research On Cosmetic Safety?

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who does the research on cosmetic safety who does the research on cosmetic safety

I get a steady stream of enquiries from journalists. Their questions are usually fairly similar.  They ask about the safety of cosmetics, and lose interest quite rapidly when I tell them that they are in fact safe.  “Stuff you’ve never worried about before is still nothing to worry about” is not really the makings of a great headline.  But I did get one that was a bit more interesting than most the other day.  Who does the research on cosmetic safety?  Obviously, there might be a story if all the research on cosmetic ingredients is carried out by cosmetic companies, or paid for by them, then maybe something sinister is being hidden.  Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy? Continue reading →