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.
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Gift & Gifting Encyclopedia
300 articles about thoughtful gifts: people, occasions, traditions, beautiful presentation and words that feel like you.
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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
Lemon-balm leaf extract
Lemon balm smells of citrus without producing a single lemon. Its crinkled leaves belong to the mint family, and their route into a shampoo can be just as surprising as...
Ingredient Atlas
Stearyl alcohol
A pale flake with a long molecular tail can help a cosmetic hold its body. Stearyl alcohol brings an unexpectedly wax-like chapter to the alcohol family: a material chosen for...
Ingredient Atlas
Hydrogenated Castor Oil · the oil that becomes a hard wax
Castor oil is famously thick and flowing. Give it another processing chapter and it can become a hard, brittle wax. Hydrogenated Castor Oil is a particularly clear example of how...
Ingredient Atlas
African-date fruit ferment extract
Fermentation can turn a familiar starting material into something with a different working character. In this hair-care ingredient, the most interesting story is that transformation: fruit, a named group of...
Ingredient Atlas
Knotted wrack extract
At low tide, a rock can be covered by what looks like a tangle of olive ribbons. Underwater, those ribbons rise into a floating canopy. Knotted wrack has a wonderfully...
Ingredient Atlas
Cetearyl alcohol
Cetearyl alcohol begins with a useful double act. It combines two fatty alcohols in one ingredient, giving formulators a way to build creamy body and a reliable structure. The result...
Ingredient Atlas
Kakadu plum fruit extract
Before Kakadu plum became a beauty ingredient, it already belonged to seasons, food traditions and the knowledge of Aboriginal communities in northern Australia. Its small green fruit has a much...
Ingredient Atlas
Behenyl alcohol
A solid needs more than a beautiful oil. It also needs materials that help the blend hold together, release neatly and keep a useful shape. Behenyl alcohol opens that architectural...
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...
