Is this a sensible or an indecent question? Assuming that you are not working for a supplier of emollients and emulsifiers (they have a tendency to always use their own materials), you could argue that an independent cosmetic formulator is the least biased person on Earth! So who tells me that cosmetic formulators are biased?
I can think of at least two reasons (apart from using your own chemicals because you sell them, a perfectly understandable reason for being biased) why cosmetic formulators are biased in their opinions; a cosmetic formulator always feels what he or she wants to feel in a skin care formulation. My point is that if a cosmetic formulator included a certain ingredient in his or her formulation to create, say for the sake of argument, a silky feel, (s)he will always feel this. After all, as a cosmetic formulator you will feel what you formulated and you know what you are looking for. And you know which product you are testing. Are you trusting yourself not a little bit too much? Why are you amazed if your marketer tells you that the product is not at all what (s)he asked for?
Secondly, a cosmetic formulator will always use a couple of (the same) standard formulations to test a new active ingredient. A common practice that I have seen in so many companies. They have a couple of standard formulas, insert the active at a lower concentration than the supplier recommended, do some stability tests and finally select from the remaining formulations that one formulation that has the best feel for the application. When they do a clinical efficacy test, they get no effect. So who gets the blame? The supplier, cosmetic formulator or the marketer that chose the final formulation?
Prof. Dr. J.W. Wiechers
Independent Consultant for Cosmetic Science
JW Solutions
www.jwsolutions.com
www.jwsolutionssoftware.com