Hello and welcome to Module 1,

Lesson 1 in the Diploma course, where we
start talking about cosmetic ingredients.

Just a bit of warning,
this is going to be a long one.

Normally, I try to keep the lessons

relatively short,
but there's quite a lot to know about

cosmetic ingredients and how
you find your way around them.

But let's get started.

So first, as a formulator,
knowing your ingredients is essential.

This is a never-ending learning process

because the industry is
changing so much and so fast.

If you want to keep up with the market,

especially if this is something you want
to do full-time,

you will spend a lot of time researching
and understanding the right ingredients.

When it comes to designing a product,

you need to choose the right ingredients
based on various criteria such as function

or compatibility, or whether it's the
right one for your packaging and so on.

As I said, this is something
you need to research and learn.

While I can give you directions,

no course will ever tell you every
single ingredient you will be using.

My aim is that you understand
how to do your search,

how to take notes, how to approach
formulating with ingredients,

but the actual research will
come back to you, ultimately.

Okay, so there are four main categories

of ingredients, which are structural,
functional, supportive, and added extra.

Let's look at them a bit more closely.

First, structural ingredients.

As the name suggests,

they are used in cosmetics to create
a body or a structure for the product.

So I've given you a lip balm in a tube

as an example because we need to use waxes
for the lip balm to keep that shape.

Therefore, waxes are
structural ingredients.

They don't melt in hot
weather or not that fast.

They are not like butters.

So this is why if you see
lip balms in jars, they may have different

percentages in them because
they don't necessarily need to keep

that shape because they are
in a closed container (jars).

But if you want the balm to keep

the tube shape, wax will
be your go-to ingredient.

Functional ingredients basically
depend on the product you are making.

So whether you are making an

AHA toner, or you are making a shampoo,
or you are making a body butter,

a whipped body butter,
every single product will need to have

a functional ingredient that is there
to work as you want that product to work.

In the case of a shampoo, you want
your shampoo to cleanse your hair.

You want it to cleanse your scalp.

You want it to foam.

And using surfactants,

which are functional ingredients,
will do just that.

Bear in mind that in one product,
you can have many functional ingredients.

Next up are supportive ingredients.

Supportive ingredients in a product are

used to create a good stability
and good shelf life for that product.

So in the case of the shampoo,

we need to use a preservative,
and that is a supportive ingredient.

We want to protect it from contamination,
and we want it to have a good shelf-life.

And finally, the last category
would be added extra.

Now, added extras don't necessarily have

structural or functional
roles in the product.

In the case of a shampoo,

if you want to add a colour or a scent,
it would be considered added extra because

they just contribute
to the user experience.

But for example,

if you want to use essential oils and you
are choosing essential oils because

of their benefits, not just
the scent as such,

then they would also become functional,
not just an added extra.

One ingredient can fit into multiple

categories, so don't get
confused about this.

For example, I've given you cocoa

butter, where we use cocoa butter as
a functional because it's a wonderful

emollient, which means it keeps
your skin soft and supple.

But because it's a hard butter,
it can also be a structural ingredient

because it can help build
the viscosity in a product.

Let's have a look at ingredient functions.

Now, these terms are used in cosmetic
chemistry, and the way we are going to do

research, these are the terms
we're going to be using.

So that's why I listed them, and this
is the longest part of this lesson.

As I said, you will need to do more
research regarding this topic.

So first up, antioxidants,

which are used in a product
to protect lipids from going rancid.

Anytime you use any lipid,

you should also add an antioxidant to
protect that oil or oil, ester or butter.

Next up are astringents.

Astringents basically have
tightening effect on the skin.

They tend to be used in products designed

for oily skin or acne-prone skin
because they have that tightening effect.

Examples would be alcohol or Witch hazel
with some alcohol content.

The next topic can be a bit confusing
because it's about exfoliants.

Now, when we talk about exfoliants,

we tend to say chemical exfoliants
or physical exfoliants.

But the terms, actually, there are
two terms to describe these two.

The "exfoliant" would be for chemical

exfoliants, and "abrasives" would
be for physical exfoliants.

They both basically work the same.

They are designed to remove the dead skin,

the outer layer of the skin,
but they work differently.

The chemical exfoliant: they work by
dissolving that glue between the cells.

They need to have a low pH
environment to do that.

Whereas with abrasives,
you do the scrubbing.

So it's a physical scrubbing motion.

And for example, this would be the sugar
in a body scrub or silica toothpaste.

The end result is basically the same, but
they may not be suitable for everyone.

Next, we have chelators.

Now, chelators are basically
ingredients that we add, most

commonly, into surfactant products,
so your shower gel, your shampoo.

And they are designed to bind metal ions

that can be present in either
ingredients or in water.

Otherwise, chelators are only used if

one ingredient in your product is asking
for a chelator to be included with it.

Otherwise, as I said,
think of any foaming products.

They help with preservation because
they bind the metal ions.

They also help with stabilising the foam,
and they help avoid build up,

a soap scum build-up when you shower
and you live in a hard water area; you can

have this layer of scum build
up on the tiles or in the bath.

They help with preventing that.

Colourants, this category we
are not going to use a lot.

Basically, these are
functional in makeup products.

They give colour to the skin
when the makeup is applied.

Next, we have fragrances,

which are used to provide a nice scent
in the product you are using them.

Under fragrances, we use both synthetic
and natural, naturally-derived fragrances.

Your essential oils,

your natural perfumes,
they all come under this category.

Then we have pH adjusters, which we will
learn more about in the coming lessons.

They are used to adjust the pH,

so you can increase or decrease the pH
using pH adjusters.

Next category would be preservatives.

Again, that will be in the coming lessons.

Basically, a preservative is used to stop

bacteria, yeast, or mould
growing or multiplying in a product.

This will obviously protect you,

your customer, your product,
and create a safe cosmetic.

Thickeners or Rheology modifiers
depends which one we talk about.

So the waterbased one would be gums
and oil based one would be waxes.

So thickeners basically
alter the viscosity.

They thicken the product they are used in.

And now we've got two huge groups.

One would be the skin conditioning agents.

Within skin conditioning agents,
we've got some subcategories.

One is emollients, which is basically
your butters, your oils, your esters.

They have skin-softening properties, so
this is why they are called emollients.

They don't go too far in the skin,

so they don't work the same way as,
let's just say, peptides would.

They would normally sit on the surface
and they soften the skin.

Humectants are used
to hold water in the skin.

So there's a difference between
a dehydrated skin and a dry skin.

For dry skin, you'd use emollients.

For dehydrated skin,
you would use humectants.

And basically, they hold onto the water
and they pull water either

from the atmosphere, from the air,
or from the deeper layers of the skin.

Examples that we always use is
glycerin or hyaluronic acid.

It could be propanodial
or even sodium lactate.

So there's quite a few.

Occlusives are used to stop the trans
epidermal water loss or TEWL.

They basically create a small,

a thin layer on the skin,
and they protect the skin

from... Basically, the water
doesn't evaporate from the skin.

Quite often using this particular
group of ingredients is desirable.

So if you think about your hand cream or

your lip balm, you want
that film to protect your skin.

Quite often, occlusives and emollients are
interchanged.

Quite a few of them, a few ingredients
can belong to both categories.

And next, we have surfactants.

Now, surfactants
basically have three subcategories.

You've got your emulsifiers, your
cleansing agents, and the solubilisers.

We are going to take these three
apart in the coming modules.

However, let's talk about emulsifiers.

So basically, they bring
oil and water phases,

which otherwise would separate (so you
can't blend them permanently). By

using emulsifiers, we can
create a new homogeneous mix.

This is what emulsifiers do, and this is
what we use to make lotions or creams.

On the other hand, cleansing agents,
they tend to do what it says: they clean

the skin, they clean the hair,
and they foam.

And finally, solubilisers.

You use solubilisers to disperse a small
amount of substance in a different medium.

Again, otherwise, these two would not mix,
but they are not like the emulsifiers.

So you have a small amount
of otherwise insoluble substance

in a medium, and you use a solubiliser
to disperse it properly.

A common example here would be a toner,

and you want to solubilise
a fragrance oil in that water.

Okay?
So again, don't worry about these now.

We are going to take every single

ingredient that we talked about here,
the preservatives, the rheology modifiers,

we take these apart when we
use them in formulations.

And finally, let's talk about how you
find ingredients and their functions.

Now, ingredients will have an INCI name.

I'm sure you are familiar with it.

They will also have a CAS number,

and then you will have
to check the Cosing database.

What I'm going to need you to do is move
on to the next video,

where I'll show you the actual Cosing
database and how you need to use it.

That will explain what
I'm talking about here.

So I'll see you in the next video.