Articles and guides
Practical advice, ingredients and stories about solid cosmetics.
In-depth guides
Choose a topic and find practical answers.
Ingredient Atlas
Ingredient origins, textures and practical answers about cosmetic labels.
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Solid Cosmetics School
Practical lessons for using, storing and travelling with solid cosmetics.
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Which One? Comparison Studio
Clear comparisons for the cosmetics you use, the routines you enjoy and the gifts you give.
Read the guideArticles: 776
Ingredient Atlas
Hydrolysed gardenia extract
A creamy white gardenia flower hardly prepares you for a deep-blue cosmetic material. The surprise lies in the fruit and in what happens after extraction. This is a story about...
Ingredient Atlas
Tocopheryl acetate
Two products can both mention vitamin E while choosing different versions of it. Tocopheryl acetate is the more sheltered relative: a small chemical addition changes its stability, its place in...
Ingredient Atlas
Horsetail leaf extract
Where are the leaves on a horsetail? The fine green spokes look like the obvious answer, but they are branches. The true leaves are tiny scales gathered around the joints....
Ingredient Atlas
Sodium hyaluronate
The hyaluronic ingredient in a glossy serum may have started as a dry powder. Sodium hyaluronate makes that transformation especially interesting: a water-loving chain can look utterly ordinary before becoming...
Ingredient Atlas
Horsetail extract
The little green bottlebrush at the edge of a field has a second, less familiar appearance in spring: short pale shoots topped with cones. Horsetail is a plant of joints,...
Ingredient Atlas
Niacinamide
A name that began in vitamin science now appears on everything from watery serums to solid face cleansers. Niacinamide’s most useful story is not a race for the biggest percentage....
Ingredient Atlas
Hops extract
A hop cone looks like a tiny green paper lantern. Inside, specialised glands produce a yellow resin, while above it the plant climbs by winding its whole stem around a...
Ingredient Atlas
Inulin
Before it becomes a pale cosmetic powder, inulin is part of a plant’s plan for next year. Chicory stores this carbohydrate below ground, ready for another season of growth. Follow...
Ingredient Atlas
Honey
Honey arrives with a familiar image: a golden ribbon falling from a spoon. Yet the interesting story is how it becomes that ribbon. Bees transform and concentrate a much more...
Ingredient Atlas
Hydrolyzed wheat protein
The stretch in bread dough and the slip in a conditioner begin with very different preparations of wheat. Follow the protein through separation and shortening, and the familiar grain becomes...
Ingredient Atlas
Hemp seed extract
A hemp plant can supply textile fibres from its stalk, edible hearts from its seeds and quite different materials from its flowers. The seed extract belongs to one specific branch...
Ingredient Atlas
Hydrolyzed rice protein
Rice can supply a crisp powder, a wax or a protein preparation, and each tells a different beauty story. Here the interesting part is the protein: prepared into smaller fragments...
