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
Stearamidopropyl dimethylamine
A conditioner ingredient can arrive as a waxy pastille and become useful in a different state inside the recipe. Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine brings a particularly satisfying twist: a small acid can...
Ingredient Atlas
Lanolin
A wool jumper and a rich lip product can begin with different parts of the same fleece. The fibres become textiles; the waxy material recovered when raw wool is washed...
Ingredient Atlas
Conditioning honey
Honey is already a transformation: bees turn flower nectar into a concentrated store. Its cosmetic story can include another transformation. Hydroxypropyltrimonium Honey takes a familiar bee-derived starting material and prepares...
Ingredient Atlas
Cupuaçu butter
A cupuaçu fruit can weigh as much as a small bag of groceries, yet the butter in a cosmetic begins with something hidden inside: its seeds. Follow them past the...
Ingredient Atlas
Distearoylethyl dimonium chloride
A conditioner can be rich in the hand and easy to rinse from the hair. Those qualities sound contradictory until you meet an esterquat: a conditioning ingredient designed to bring...
Ingredient Atlas
Broccoli seed oil
The broccoli we buy for dinner is a plant interrupted before flowering. Let it continue and its tight green buds open into yellow flowers, followed by seed pods. Those seeds...
Ingredient Atlas
Cationic guar
Inside a cluster bean’s seed is a gum that can take a surprising second career in hair care. Prepared as cationic guar, it helps a formulator work on the feel...
Ingredient Atlas
Behentrimonium chloride
A conditioner’s most valuable quality may be the moment it makes easier: working through wet hair, combing or smoothing the lengths into place. Behentrimonium chloride belongs to that practical side...
Ingredient Atlas
Avocado oil
The large stone gets most of our attention when an avocado is cut open. For its familiar cosmetic oil, look around it instead. The buttery flesh is the important starting...
Ingredient Atlas
Brassicyl valinate esylate
A conditioner can have an inner architecture as well as a pleasant texture. Brassicyl valinate esylate is particularly interesting because, with fatty alcohols, it can help create ordered layers inside...
Ingredient Atlas
Abyssinian oil
An airy spray of small pale flowers, round seed pods and an unexpectedly silky oil: Abyssinian oil begins with a crop that is easy to overlook. Its interest lies in...
Ingredient Atlas
Sodium methyl cocoyl taurate
A creamy wash can begin with a solid cleansing ingredient, and a little oil need not end the foam story. Sodium methyl cocoyl taurate is interesting at precisely this meeting...
