Here is an interesting question from Claire Hi Colin, I was looking at some eye drops today fortired eyes (optrex- I think it was the refreshing ones) and I noticed that witch hazel and alcohol were listed as ingredients, I though that both of those were astringent and I can’t see how they could make […]
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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
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Phenoxyethanol is a preservative that hasn’t gathered a huge amount of attention until recently. This is largely because of what it isn’t. It isn’t a formaldehyde donor. It isn’t particularly sensitising. It has never been linked with cancer. Basically it has kept its head down and nobody has taken a lot of notice of it.
The names of cosmetic ingredients, and food ingredients, often make them sound a lot more complicated than they really are. Caprylic capric triglyceride is a name that often appears on ingredient lists and I doubt that many people take much notice of it or wonder where it comes from. But it is, usually, simply a
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I enjoy being a cosmetic chemist, but like every job some things can be a bit tedious. None is more so than complying with legislation. In California they have a particularly irritating example of this in the form of a thing called Proposition 65, which includes a list of chemicals that California has decided are
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EDTA turns up near the bottom of the ingredient lists of lots of different personal care products. You also see disodium EDTA and tetrasodium EDTA. For all intents and purposes these are the same – they are just different ways of delivering the same thing.
Ambergris is really one of the weirdest ingredients used in the cosmetics industry. It is a foul smelling substance that is from time to time washed up on beaches around the world. It was in the news in the UK back in February when a man called Ken Whitman found a huge chunk of it
I’ve had this Genealogy of Perfumes in my papers since I picked it up in the eighties. It was produced by a big fragrance house called Haarman and Reimer. It has always been something I have found interesting. I have had it stuck on the wall of labs I’ve worked in at times.
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Rosemary improves memory according to data presented at a meeting of the British Psychological Society. The study involved memory tests on 60 subjects in a room filled with the scent of rosemary. The scent helped.
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Cetrimonium Chloride is the mainstay of hair conditioners. It works in a very simple way. Damaged hair has an electric charge. This is why you get flyway hair. The hair shafts are literally repelling one another. Conditioners work by neutralising that charge and replacing it with a lubricious layer of loveliness.
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