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.
Read the guide
Solid Cosmetics School
Practical lessons for using, storing and travelling with solid cosmetics.
Read the guide
Which One? Comparison Studio
Clear comparisons for the cosmetics you use, the routines you enjoy and the gifts you give.
Read the guide
Gift & Gifting Encyclopedia
300 articles about thoughtful gifts: people, occasions, traditions, beautiful presentation and words that feel like you.
Read the guide
Body Cleansing Explained
Does your skin feel tight after the towel? Are you choosing a bar, or wondering where to put it when it’s wet? Start with the part of the shower you’d like to make easier.
Read the guideArticles: 1444
Ingredient Atlas
Benzoic acid
Benzoic acid has a connection to berries, but its most useful cosmetic story is about keeping a product suitable to use. It also reveals something easy to miss on an...
Ingredient Atlas
Ginger root oil
Cut across fresh ginger and the scent is already vivid: spicy, bright and faintly citrus-like. A perfumer follows that aromatic side into a prepared oil. The route begins with the...
Ingredient Atlas
Alcohol · ethanol
The word Alcohol can send a label reader straight to a familiar bottle of perfume. In a solid cosmetic, the story can be smaller and less obvious: a solvent used...
Ingredient Atlas
Indian frankincense oil
Before frankincense becomes an oil, it has a more sculptural form: pieces of fragrant resin collected from a tree. The journey from those golden, irregular pieces to a clear aromatic...
Ingredient Atlas
Clove leaf oil
Most of us picture a tiny brown nail when we hear clove. The leaf oil asks us to look higher up the branch. Glossy green foliage on a tropical tree...
Ingredient Atlas
1,2-Hexanediol
A name that begins with numbers can look like the least inviting thing on a beauty label. Yet 1,2-hexanediol opens a useful story about multitasking: helping ingredients mix, contributing to...
Ingredient Atlas
Vetiver root oil
The grass above ground looks ordinary; below it, a dense aromatic root system supplies an oil with earthy, smoky depth.
Ingredient Atlas
East Indian lemongrass oil
A lemony fragrance can begin in a field without a lemon tree in sight. East Indian lemongrass makes that delightful trick possible: long, aromatic leaves become a vivid essential oil....
Ingredient Atlas
Vanilla fruit oil
The familiar sweet note begins with an orchid, a fleeting flower and a fruit whose aroma develops long after it is picked.
Ingredient Atlas
Palmarosa oil
The name suggests roses, but the field tells a different story: palmarosa is a tall aromatic grass. Its rosy fragrance begins in green growth rather than a basket of petals....
Ingredient Atlas
Clove bud oil
The tiny brown spice is an unopened flower. Distil it, and a familiar kitchen aroma becomes a surprisingly useful perfumery voice.
Ingredient Atlas
Coriander seed oil
Coriander seed oil can take you in two directions: towards a fragrant distillate, or towards a vegetable oil rich in fatty material. Both begin with the same modest spice crop....
