Articles

It is only recently that I've really got to know and love sleep masks. As a cosmetic chemist who has been in the industry for many years you'd think I'd take home every new thing but no, instead I've found it easy to slip into a comfortable skincare mindset and regimen, especially after finally discovering what works for me. I've already got my night serum, day serum, intensive cream and light moisturiser. I alternate between detox clay masks and hydrating sheet masks and use an exfoliating scrub, tonic and gentle cleanser regularly. If anything, I often think about simplifying the night portion of my regimen in order to get to bed sooner rather than adding another layer on my 'to do' list but that was before I tried sleep masks!

Back in 2017 a range of articles about foaming soap were published on the internet declared it to be somewhat of a dud. A closer look revealed an intriguing truth, that these harsh, product-killing opinions were all emanating from one 10 participant pilot study. As pilot studies about soap don't usually get this much attention we decided to take a closer look in a bid to find out what was really going on back then and establish if it's true, that foaming soap is all fluff and bubbles...

Witch Hazel has been a 'go-to' herb for many natural skin care lovers, a reliable tonic that helps reign in and calm problem skin thanks to its toning and tightening chemistry. But our appetite for astringent chemistry has waned over the last few years, we now talk of microbiome balancing, of hydrating our skin back to health rather than seeking to suppress its natural secretions. Has Witch Hazel had its day or is there still a little something left to discover?

For many of us, the unfolding of the Covid 19 pandemic is confusing, scary even. The things that we used to take for granted about the way modern life operates are rapidly changing and falling out of reach. In fact, things are changing so quickly and dramatically that many of us feel dazed, overwhelmed and deeply confused. By the time you read this, this pandemic may be all over, then again, maybe it will only just be getting started...

Benzalkonium Chloride is one of a handful of recognised actives for alcohol-free hand and surface sanitisation. Here we unpick its chemical name and discover more about what it does, how it does it and its environmental fate.

Using essential oils as your fragrance is a great way to turn what would otherwise just be a 'perception-only' ingredient into an ingredient with the real capacity to bring something positive to the formula. It's not that synthetic fragrances are bad, they give formulators and brand owners a lot of creative freedom, are often very stable, can be formulated with the specifics of a formula or target audience in mind and have great batch-to-batch uniformity but at the end of the day a synthetic fragrance just makes a product smell good whereas essential oils can actually do good.

The relationship between Austin and New Directions started with him attending our skin care and business courses. Since then, Austin has been a client of the technical Help Desk and general business.

Tell a customer that your product contains peptides and you'll always spark their interest even if most of us don't really understand what they are and how they work. We just know that they have the capacity to do great things and great things is what we really want!

Cosmetic brands have been selling themselves as 'paraben free 'or 'sulphate free' for years now but that may be about to stop in EU based markets in a move that for once, sees (un) common sense prevail.

Over the last thirty years the cosmetic industry has turned its attention more and more to the natural world for its ingredients, inspiration and innovation. Indeed, we are now at a time where our cosmetics and the climate cannot be separated from each other. The climate influences the production of our cosmetics, our cosmetics protect us from the effects of the climate. As such, it makes sense for us to take a closer look at how this relationship is developing, how the climate is changing our cosmetics.