A question about alum from Alice. Hello Colin, Thank you for taking the time to write such a informative blog. I have a question concering potassium alum. I have been researching this product and I keep seeing comments like “its a compound” so it does not contain aluminium. KAl(SO4)2 does contain potassium and aluminium so […]
Alum As Antiperspirant Read More »
A debate about the safety of chemicals in cosmetics chaired by Alice Hart-Davis with Chris Flower (Director General, CTPA) & Dr Peter Taylor (Pharmacy lecturer, De Montfort University) speaking for them and Jo Fairley (Journalist/Author of the Green Beauty Bible) & Jayney Goddard (President, Complementary Medicine Association) speaking against.
Although it is a long way from being my most popular post, the one I get most comments on is my one on Methylisothiazolinone and Methylchloroisothiazolinone free products. These preservatives are used in a lot of products. I doubt that anybody alive hasn’t come into contact with them. Most people don’t have any issue with them,
Methylisothiazolinone – let’s not turn it into a scare story Read More »
I get a lot of traffic to my post about the combination of Methylisothiazolinone and Methylchloroisothiazolinone. If you read all the comments it gets, you’d probably get the impression that this preservative system had a really big problem with sensitisation. This would be pretty misleading. In real life products preserved with these ingredients don’t generate unusually high
Methylisothiazolinone Read More »
A regular feature on the calendar of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists is the Southern Educational Event held this year on the 6th of June at the London College of Fashion. The first speaker was former president of the society Dene Godfrey who was talking on a subject that he has basically made his own.
Dene Godfrey at the SCS Read More »
In March 2011 an accident at the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan led to a release of radioactive elements into the atmosphere. A few days later, these unique elements were detected in Oxford in the UK. Given that Japan and the UK are on opposite sides of the earth, that accident must have filled the
Should Pregnant Women Worry About Shower Gel? Read More »
Is Phenoxyethanol Banned in Japan? My recent post on phenoxyethanol prompted this question on Twitter. The answer is no it isn’t. Phenoxyethanol is limited to 1% in Japan exactly as it is in the European Union. But why did my twitter chum think it might be. I did a quick google and found that there
Is Phenoxyethanol Banned in Japan? Read More »
Ingredient lists have been a feature of cosmetic and personal care products for so long now it is hard to remember that they are fairly recent innovation. The actual regulations came in I think in 1990 – though many companies started listing them ahead of the law changing. When I started in the business in
There is an old prayer that goes, dear God please make all the bad people good and all the good people interesting.
At last, a real cosmetic ingredients database Read More »
