Someone has asked about a serum they like. Hi Colin, I have a very very expensive formulation of a serum here. Would you please be so kind to evaluate it? My questions are especially concerning preservatives.. and also: does skin benefit from so many different ingredients and antioxidants…? I think I think that simple is […]
A Serum Formulation Read More »
There is a news story that L’Oréal have issued a product recall for their Ideal Moisture Dry and Sensitive Day Cream in Canada. The reason is that the level of MI in it is higher than Health Canada’s regulations allow. This is quite a rare event – big cosmetic companies are usually pretty good at
L’Oréal Withdraws Product With Too Much MI In It Read More »
I have just had someone get in touch to tell me that Ecover Wipes have just changed their formulation to include methylisothiazolinone (MI) as the preservative. I haven’t been able to confirm this myself so I will have to treat it as hearsay for now. If you know the facts please let me know. But
Why Would A Company Switch To MI? Read More »
Regular readers will know that any aqueous cosmetic product needs a preservative to stop it going mouldy. Preservatives tend to get a bad press, and given that most of them are inevitably toxic they are probably going to carry on getting it. Preservatives get a lot of attention not only from journalists and the nervous,
A Natural Way Of Preserving Products Using Oregano Read More »
It is a sad fact of life that not many of the fancy sounding ingredients that cosmetic companies add to their formulations add much to the benefits those products have for your skin. A good moisturiser is a pretty handy tool for dealing with dry skin, but how much of the good it does you
Ascorbic Acid/Vitamin C Read More »
One of the most surprising things about blogging is how much you learn. A good example arrived in my inbox yesterday. I have just started a newsletter for people with sensitive skin, largely because I get a lot of people getting in touch looking for information about it, and in particular sensitivity to methylisothiazolinone or
I get a lot of traffic to this blog from people interested in methylisothiazolinone, or as it is now known MI. For people who haven’t been following the story, here’s a quick recap. MI has been used for about 40 years in combination with a closely related chemical called methylchloroisothiazolinone. I’ll call that MCI.
There was a lot of interest in hypoallergenic products back in the eighties when I first started as a formulator. Back then the perception was that natural ingredients were the problem. Like a lot of popular ideas it corresponded to prejudice rather than evidence. But few of us, scientists included, trouble to check our beliefs
How to make a Hypoallergenic Product Read More »
I am afraid this is old news, though as it happens new to me. I am not sure how I missed it but it turns out that a very large and well conducted survey was carried out into the link between antiperspirants and breast cancer. It was done in 2002 by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in
Do Antiperspirants Cause Breast Cancer? Read More »
Should you use natural products if you have sensitive skin? There is an argument that you shouldn’t. The problem is that an allergic reaction is caused by your immune system reacting to something that it encounters and identifies as a threat. Natural products contain a wider diversity of ingredients so you have a bigger chance
Reactions to Plant Extracts in Cosmetics Read More »
