Coloring the Cosmetic World

Using Pigments in Decorative Cosmetic Formulations

Edwin B. Faulkner, Jane C. Hollenberg, Jane C. Hollenberg

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781119558132
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Industrial & Technical Chemistry

A comprehensive resource on the regulations, applications, properties and processing of pigments used in color cosmetics, now in its second edition.

Coloring the Cosmetic World is a highly practical guide to colorant selection for product formulations in the modern cosmetics and toiletries industry. Providing the essential knowledge required to successfully incorporate pigments into cosmetic formulations, this unique resource covers all essential aspects of color selection—including regulations, economics, color esthetics, and stability—as well as processing, color measurement, pigment testing, natural colorants, and more. This new edition contains carefully revised content and includes updated coverage of economic and regulatory criteria.

Drawing upon their decades of experience in the color industry, the author and editor focus on the specific color additives that are approved for use in cosmetics formulations. The book's twelve in-depth chapters include full masstone representations of numerous pigments to help readers appreciate subtleties and differences in absorption pigments, effect pigments, specialty pigments, and others. Appendices contain various pigment test methods, a glossary, and an up-to-date listing of treated pigment patents. Covering the chemistry, regulations, evaluation, processing, and properties of worldwide cosmetic pigments, this one-of-a-kind book:

• Covers the common pigments used in lipsticks, face makeup, eye shadow, mascara, nail lacquer, and other color cosmetics
• Provides detailed information on a variety of specific pigments, including their chemical properties, esthetic quality, and application in a wide range of products
• Discusses regulatory considerations and the economics of selecting colors for use in different decorative cosmetics
• Highlights practical concerns such as colorants' stability, interactions with other chemicals, manufacturing conditions, and packaging
• Explains how the effects of heat, light, pH, humidity, and other environmental factors inform pigment selection for different product types and use cases

Coloring the Cosmetic World: Using Pigments in Decorative Cosmetic Formulations, Second Edition, is an indispensable guide for cosmetic chemists, a useful reference for purchasing agents, supply coordinators, and marketers working in the cosmetics industry, and a valuable supplementary text for undergraduate and graduate university programs in the field.

Chapter 1
Color Basics

It's a Colorful World

Is color a necessity of life, in the same manner as food, water, and air?

The answer is no, but try to imagine a world without color. Nature would bear no brightly colored flowers, no green grass, no festively colored birds or fish. The blue of sky – rich and deep one day, only to yield a softer sky blue the next – would not be there. How could we call it sky without those colors? What would the word, the idea, “sky” even mean? There would also be no colorful manmade objects: automobiles gleaming red, silver, piercing black; brightly colored newspapers and magazines whose purpose is to give image and substance to ideas, concepts, and actions; children's toys and all that is implied by the joy given by their colorfulness; packaging materials that excite and endorse; the very houses we live in; and countless other objects that make up the world as we know it.

Even though color is not counted as one of life's necessities, it is an integral part of every human being's existence. It is a fact, beyond contestation, that there is color. Color pervades human life on two levels: the visual and the psychological. Visually, it is a welcome companion to human life. It provides texture, differentiation, and emotional value. In addition to the esthetic enhancement of life, color is functional in several aspects. It is used to communicate information. Think of a traffic signal. No matter in which part of the world a person may travel, he or she can, without speaking the local language, understand what the red, green, and yellow lights mean when they are illuminated, and act according to that meaning. Along these same lines, it is possible to determine the terrorist alert level in the United States simply by seeing what color it is. Color, in this case, corresponds to a set of criteria, upon which we may become informed or, if necessary, act.

A fine example of color communication can be found in the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) color coding system (http://www.ansi.org), which can be found in Table 1.1. This system not only assigns a valuation to color, as it is used in the public sphere of everyday American life, but also offers common examples of color function in places such as public utilities, traffic coordination, and general public safety.

Beyond these functional aspects, color brings other dimensions to everyday lives. First, it is a very powerful tool for use in brand identity. There are many large multinational companies that use color as an integral part of their identity, as the following examples will attest. Coca‐Cola has used red as an identifier for many years; in fact, the Coca‐Cola brand is so deeply tied to this color that one knows the brand identity simply from seeing this rich red accented by the silver wave, regardless of whether the word “Coca‐Cola” is present or not. Royal Dutch Shell selected yellow as its brand color and has used it very effectively in its seashell‐esque logo. The United Parcel Service not only uses brown as its identifier visually, but has also incorporated the word “brown” into its corporate tag line, “What can brown do for you today?”

Along the same identity lines, companies also use color to brand specific items within their product portfolios. Over time, the colors chosen to represent a given brand, through exposure and consistent marketing plans, become practically inextricable from the product itself. To go back to Coca‐Cola, no one picks up a Coke and expects to taste Pepsi, just as no one develops a taste for Coke and then looks for the Pepsi label's color scheme. Other examples of this type of color association are the bright, clean‐looking orange trimmed in deep blue and white of Procter & Gamble's Tide, but a white background and the text in blue and orange for the fragrance‐free version, or Cadbury Creme Eggs' distinct shiny purple wrapper.

Moving from brand and product identification, color usage is also very much a part of the foods we eat, both overtly and covertly. With regard to the former, each of us, dating back to childhood, has been instructed to...