The excitable chaps who cover beauty over at the Daily Mail have gone even more effervescent than usual over the latest expensive skin serum. And when I say expensive I mean expensive – a four week course costs £600 (€750, $940). That is well over half the amount a full time worker on the minimum …
I am indebted to my friend the LA Hobo (@thelahobo on Twitter) for drawing my attention to a recent action by the FDA ordering the recall of organic almonds on sale in Whole Foods stores in the United States.
I am scheduling this post to appear just as I start speaking at the ScanCos conference in Stockholm on the subject of Organic Standards For Personal Care – Are They Relevant In A World That Is Getting Hotter And More Crowded? I am talking to an audience of cosmetic scientists and other industry professionals …
Multinational companies are soulless entities that exist for no other reason than to benefit their shareholders. You need to take extreme care when you are looking at the adverts they produce which have no other object than to transfer the contents of your pockets into theirs. But from time to time they do some good, …
If you put neat alcohol onto your skin and leave it there for any length of time it will dry your skin out. This is something that is well known. The exact details of how it works aren’t that well studied, but basically it disrupts your skin’s barrier function. Consequently it is not a good …
The popular singer Beyoncé is not backward in coming forward and has come up with a striking fragrance offering, Beyoncé Heat Eau de Parfum Spray. It is described as a rich, sophisticated scent with hints of red vanilla, magnolia,honeysuckle and almond. It sounds great, and the pack is clearly a work of art in itself in a …
There has been a bit of a twitterstorm over the shirt worn by one of the scientists, Matt Taylor, on the team that landed the satellite on the comet. It wasn’t the kind of shirt I would wear personally, but I have to say it didn’t look all that especially offensive. If I am honest, …
Antioxidants get a lot of interest for the skin benefits, but for a cosmetic chemist they also have a rather more mundane use. If you are using natural ingredients in your products, and particularly some natural oils, you need to give some thought to the risks of oxidation of the product over its shelf life. …
The first cosmetic science Twitter chat last Saturday was on the subject of natural products and how they have affected the scientists who develop them. This is a bit of raw subject for most cosmetic scientists who are skeptical of the claims made for natural products and of the criticisms made of conventional ones. And …
Getting rid of plastic beads from cosmetics is good for the environment, but that doesn’t mean we have to go without scrubs. There are plenty of very interesting and highly biodegradable alternatives. Here are a few that are being used.
