Question on college majors. Please response!!!

[emilyy]

Hi! My name is Guyu and I am a 12th-grade student. I'm planning to do research on cosmetic ingredients as a career after graduating from college, what major should I choose for college? Is chemistry good enough? Any other recommendations?

Appreciating as much for your response!!

Guyu Yang

[mbdowell]

Dear Guyu,

Yes, chemistry is the major that you want. Depending on what kind of cosmetics interest you, you may want to take different advanced courses-- and you did mention cosmetic ingredients, not cosmetic products. If you were interested in facial products, for example, those ingredients include lotions (which are emulsions) but also solid fillers that get dispersed in them-- for example, titanium dioxide, talc and boron nitride. People who study performance of cosmetics, or who formulate them for a living, do a lot of instrumental analysis. So take analytical chemistry courses that have you working with instruments, take physical chemistry, take physics courses through optics and Elecricity & Magnetism, and when you take advanced organic chemistry courses, look for ones about natural products.

The cosmetic chemistry community is an interesting one! In addition to ACS, look up Society of Cosmetic Chemists and see if there is a section near you.

Best regards,

Mike Dowell

[karenwiz]

Guyu,

Mike has given you some good advice.  Having worked for a consumer products company for many years I can confirm that chemistry is a key science in cosmetic formulation and testing.  As he implies, Analytical, Physical and Organic chemistry are all important to this field - analytical for testing and analysis, physical for understanding colloidal science, surfactants and emulsions, and organic for understanding the structures and reactions of the organic chemicals used.  Surfactant science is key so if this is your professional aim you may want to consider colleges who have professors interested in surfactant science so that you may have opportunity as an undergraduate to do research in their lab.  If you are interested in products that have more than cosmetic (surface) effects on a human you might want to consider majoring in biochemistry in order to learn more about human physiology and skin structure and mechanisms.

The only other advice I would add is that companies in this area are intensely interested in consumer research and understanding.  A course in basic psychology or even better sociology and some in basic marketing or business would also be great electives to add to your chemistry major.

Best of luck in your studies

Karen Wisniewski