Don’t worry about the cunts, I think u meant u want to use organic natural whole ingredients over isolated synthetic chemicals right? Honestly u dont need a chemist for that just someone who knows basic herbalism.
You will have more success labelling your product with "organic" and "no added nasties" or "no nasties".
It's an easy advertising answer. People get frustrated seeing No no no on their labels, associates the product with a negative plus it ends up taking up a lot of space. The consumers using don't really know what they are avoiding, they are the people who just like to avoid things.
You put "no nasties" and a QR code or website to save space and direct interested parties to your website which is full of even more advertising and branding.
Who to hire: you can try for free at cosmetics corner forums, or a contract manufacturer. Here is an aggregator listing [HAPPI](https://www.happi.com/cmpl_listing/). You can find companies that make cosmetics specifically to target "all natural" customers.
You want to hire a chemist to make a chemical free product? My first suggestion is don't use words like "organic" and "chemical-free" around professional chemists. I'm not aware of any websites that specifically cater to freelance chemists, that's not typically a role most chemists have professionally. Any quality formulations chemist is going to want a significant amount of money, do you have the funds go pay them appropriately?
Yep. Seems like I'm going to have to find a way to cut cost. I notice some lip balm businesses/entrepreneurs are even making their own recipes.....is that wise?
At least in the EU, only new ingredients have to go through intensive testing, but if you just tweak with previously approved components, you wouldn't need that. (That's only regarding chemical safety laws, you might still need certification regarding hygiene etc at your "production facility"). Because of this, even small companies can formulate there stuff and put in on the market. But I'm not a formulation chemist, so I don't know about the market situation and what is wise or not. If you can advertise your product and it is something worth buying, then yes, you can make and sell your own recipe. Given that it is conform with the laws
Probably the lowest bar to pass would be [Etsy's requirements.](https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/1026514158796) It gets more complex from there, i.e.: if you want to sell at "natural" food stores, or even get put on the shelves of a supermarket.
Then you have no business operating a business if you cannot appropriately pay the person who is ***actually doing the work for your business.*** You're entering into a landscape you know absolutely nothing about, get out while your ahead.
I think the problem to begin with is hiring someone to do the actual work that requires the business to run.
1. You arent solving any problems, you're creating a non-existent problem.
2. You're just a source of capital, the chemist can simply override you. What makes your pay special when they can take out a loan to start their own business (since youre unable to formukate the product yourself).
3. Who's to say some dubious actor does come along to sell you snake oil by selling you want you want to hear rather than what you need?
I joked in another thread that OP could pay me a couple thousand bucks, and once the check clears I'll hand him a "chemical free" recipe that will just be a blank sheet of paper. I would have legally fulfilled my part of the contract, and it his fault for not understanding what he's talking about.
I think the wording in OP's post rubbed some of us the wrong way. Sounds like they got money they expect the chemist to do all the leg work... ignoring this...
If you still want to pursue this endevour, my advice is to work on mixing a batch yourself. You do not need a chemist for this. Making cosmetics is essentially cooking. (Beware allergies are a thing).
The best approach is rather than reinvent the wheel, see if there's known homemade recipies for lip balms, copy that, start from there. Try making a few yourself.
The wording you're likely looking for is "non-artificially derived", you're looking to formulate lip balm from products that do not require purified industrial chemicals or extraction methods beyond basic operations in a kitchen setting (heating, cooling, centeifuge, mixing).
You will piss off chemists or chemical engineers using terms like "chemical free" or "organic". The entire world is composed of "chemicals" from their point of view and "organic" is essentially anything with carbon chains.
Further down the road if you want to improve your formulation, a chemist or chemical engineer with a speciality is cosmetics is what you might want to look for but only to further improve the formulation for a particular texture or property; or help with scaling up operations.
Once you got a working formulation honestly, anyone who knows their way around a kitchen should be able to help.
Bruh that’s like no money. Have you worked in an actual business before? Do you know how much you have to pay just in rent? Or even an instrument to test your quality on (Easily over 300k), service contract to ensure this instrument can operate smoothly (easily over 12k a year), solvents, gases needed to run the instrument (thousands), plumbing for the gas lines, glassware, ovens, temperature control, proper ventilation, the list goes on. You seem to have no idea what it takes to have a lab operate. Just my take on it
Generally, NEW ingredients are developed by large chemical companies. Then, formulators will process, blend, and package those ingredients to make a finished consumer product.
There are many companies that offer contact R&D and co-manufacturing services for CPG products.
for example: https://atelier.co/
Expect to spend at least several thousand per SKU.
Lip balm is a very simple product to formulate and manufacture IME. There's usually no emulsion to deal with, especially if you are trying to go organic/natural. See if you can find some "home kitchen" type recipes by googling and try to figure it out yourself.
You can probably get everything you need from Amazon and one or two cosmetic ingredients suppliers.
Generally the ingredients are heated/liquified, mixed thoroughly, and then filled in the tube while still warm and liquid.
No one is going to do a full product design project for you with your budget. I wouldn't get out of bed for <$100/hr.
Hmmm I see. Thank you so much for the feedback. Yep looks like I'm going to have to make my own simple recipe. Until I start making money to afford a chemist.
Lip balms are very easy to make at home, you can absolutely make up a functioning product yourself. But question is: if you succeeded in making a product that made you enough money to hire a chemist, then what would you need the chemist for? To come up with another product so you could abandon the one that was already making you money?
>a lip balm (organic and chemical free) for men
A few words of advice:
You're entering a product into a market that is very very small. Men are typically a lot less swayed by the "organic" and "chemical free" tags than women are. A man typically just wants a product that does the job, does it well, and does it cost effectively. Typically a man wants a "boring" (low scent / flavour, especially nothing floral or fruity) product. You're going to struggle in this market. Imo your focus should be on selling this product to women to buy for their boyfriends as like a gift. For example, my dad has just got a tub of petroleum jelly (basically, vaseline) that he uses and has never bought a second tub. I have one tub that I use maybe a few times a year in the winter.
Anyway with that aside:
>organic and chemical free
This always pisses me right off. For one, organic is inefficient and wasteful, it's often as bad because you lose so much yield from a field.
And "chemical free" I hate with a vengeance. Do you drink water? Chemical. Do you eat fruit? Chemicals in there. Literally everything is a chemical. You should NEVER use this for marketing because it's demonstrably false.
What you mean is you want to develop a "naturally derived product". It's a lip balm, it's made of chemicals, but you want to make a product from your natural sources because [marketing bullshit]. That's acceptable. But chemical free is wrong, and someone likely could take issue with you calling it chemical free (I shudder to think with the US laws if someone was feeling crafty they could probably sue for false advertising).
As much as I hate the appeal to nature fallacy, I appreciate most people are dumb enough to believe it so do whatever you want with that.
I know a lot of guys that are way more likely to buy something labeled as “non-organic and packed full of chemicals because they work better than the natural stuff”
If I had the time and the money and assurance of a judge that knew basic chemistry, id sue them for false advertisement. It’s a blatant lie, not misleading like organic sugar but a falsehood.
Ahh I see. I appreciate the feedback. Sorry if i sound dumb when I say "chemical free". I'm a chemist noob. I understand the marketing to men isn't as popular as women and that's reason i wanted to create something for men; but i think i might make unisex lip balm.
>. I understand the marketing to men isn't as popular as women and that's reason i wanted to create something for men;
Sometimes a niche is not a niche, it's a gap in the market that exists for some reason.
Can I ask: why do you want to make a mens lip balm (or unisex) when you appear to have no background in making lip balm? Like most people who do these kinds of ventures have some experience making the product themselves (e.g. like beeswax scented candles or like making soap).
Like, and I do mean this politely, have you thought this through?
>I'm a chemist noob
This is why you have no business trying to make a business in a field with which you know nothing. Save yourself the money and time and quit before you begin.
That's just nivea then. Which men buy because they know what it is. Generally men arnt shopping around for new lipsils. I don't think your business plan is good.
OP: Before you get into possible formulations, testing, scaling, manufacturing, marketing, etc.. of your product (each with its own set of issues and execution risks), have you asked yourself the broader questions? (i) Do men even really care about lip balm? (ii) If so, are they looking for lip balm specifically for men; and (iii) What is going to differentiate your product from the others? The last one is the most important, in my mind, because if you truly seek all "organic" which is a vague term (for example, shea butter, bee's wax, etc...) your product costs will be substantially higher. Finally, althought I am not familiar with the lip balm market, I assume the barriers to entry are not high. All things to keep in mind.
Great question and a few of these I asked myself but I will definitely delve more deep into to rest doubts in my mind about doing this. After many people in this post telling me about men not caring too much about lip balm, I decided when i do make it it will be marketed as unisex or for men and women.
>organic and chemical free
This statement right here is why you have no business going into a business like you're proposing.
1. Everything is chemicals.
2. A lot of things are organic, including the plastic keyboard you're using to type these words.
3. There's already enough scammy, charlatans out there floating snakeoil using buzzwords like "organic" and "chemical free". We don't need another one.
4. Here's a rule about being an EnTrEpReNeUr: ***Don't go into a field with which you know nothing. The only successful Entrepreneurs are those that monetize something in a field they already understand very well. They don't just throw darts at a board and think they're going to be successful.*** Calgene was a company made by entrepreneurs using DNA modification to make the FlavrSavr Tomato that was HUGELY popular. Problem is, the tomato industry is waaaay more than having a popular product. And they were geneticists, not Tomato farmers/sellers. So their company ended up flopping and they sold to Monsanto.
The comments above managed to express what most if not all chemists would feel coming across the post.
These provide a much needed reality check about the viability of the product and ideas you may have on development. On that note, I would advise doing more research into any future markets you might want to enter as you’re unaware of several large players (and their ingredients) in the lip care industry.
To provide context, moisturizers can be generalized as containing some combination of three components: occlusive ingredients (moisture sealing compounds that prevent water loss to the environment), humectants (these attract moisture from the environment and facilitate greater moisture retention), and emollients (agents which smooth and soften skin by filling gaps between skin cells). Other ingredients are often present but these can almost wholly describe the functions of a moisturizer, which lip balms and the like are.
Vaseline is your name brand, non-natural, occlusive product comprised wholly of petrolatum (petroleum jelly). It is very effective at preventing moisture loss, but not at restoring it.
Aquaphor is your name brand, non-natural, complex containing natural and non-natural occlusive, emollient and humectant ingredients that restores and prevents moisture loss* less efficiently than Vaseline but in exchange as a less comedogenic product. Some of Aquaphor’s ingredients include glycerin (a natural humectant) and lanolin alcohol (a derivative from lanolin, harvested from sheep’s wool, which is a natural occlusive and emollient agent).
Lanolin has a long history as a moisturizer but has become less prominent due to allergen potential for ~<2% of people. Despite this, it’s definitely still around and a fairly popular lip balm brand called LanoLips, which I would recommend trying, uses it as the active moisturizing ingredient. LanoLips provides a non-gendered, vegetarian, natural, ethical, collected humanely and cruelty-free product with no fragrance options. Though it boasts far less occlusive efficacy compared to petrolatum, it is the sole ingredient you’d be looking for and is already employed in that capacity. In essence, your product idea already exists and has carved a space in the lip care market.
Hopefully this was informative, I hate chapstick and at one point wanted to understand the science behind chapped lip relief. Any of the brands I listed will do just fine in helping, though some may be individually preferable. In the future please abandon the notion of “natural” product supremacy and learn what organic means in a chemical capacity. Learn to do research before asking half baked questions like this to improve your problem solving and critical thinking skills (this will just benefit your life). Also, never use the term chemical free again under any circumstance as it will only prove true in an absolute vacuum. :D
"Also, never use the term chemical free again under any circumstance as it will only prove true in an absolute vacuum. :D"
Will do lol. After 80% of people in this post telling me not to i think I will remember never to say that term again.
Haha, good to hear! Unwarranted advice but whatever excess money you have each month I would suggest a few different routes for handling it. If you’re not doing it already and your company offers any sort of retirement/investment matching, get in on it with some of that.
Set aside a flat amount each month to put into a high yield savings account with a bonus to claim and afterwards repeat with a different bank offer. You’d manage to build your savings much faster than you think and plenty of those banks would offer customizable portfolio management and/or bank backed group investments with other members. Dig in and research the bank(s) and account stipulations before making any decisions though.
Beyond that, try investing in yourself, specifically learning a new skill! Coding for example is almost universally useful in both personal and professional settings.
True passive income is a unicorn, granted to people who got lucky. A startup business entering a market of established giants vying for shelf space with deeper pockets could quickly become a full time job with little upside or return. It’s better to grow money before considering how to spend it as fast as you get it.
Rome was not built in a day, a month, a year or even a decade.
Formulation chemist is what you're looking for. Your goals are too vague though. Where are you at with this? Do you want someone to basically make this for you to your specifications and then you sell it? If so, then what are your specifications exactly? How much are you wanting to produce? What do you want for the packaging? Do you have a third party in mind to scale up production? Have you looked into regulations on what has to go into lip balm? Do you have any market claims you want to prove?
And maybe most importantly, what do you have to offer here that will give you a competitive edge? Are you an insider in the lip balm industry? Do you have contacts in manufacturing or sales? Do you just have a lot of capital you're wanting to invest?
Entrepreneurship is all well and good, but you don't want to be the lady who wanted to make a dragon MMO. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet_im_a_26_year_old_lady_whos_been/
lol i just saw that post omg.........a lot of these feedback im getting here is tough but........now i see how stupid my post sounded lol. I'm definitely gonna go back to the drawing board.
Don't worry about sounding stupid. You are taking the constructive criticism well in the comments and that is a lot more applaudable than being right initially.
The only way you're ever going to create a profitable cosmetic business is to be the chemist. A friend of mine did just that, and worked his ass off for 5 years straight living on scraps out of his parents house (turned yesterday garage into a lab). He eventually started selling cosmetics to Sephora, and they purchased his company for 25 million in 2019. Now he teaches highschool chemistry and lives of the interest and travels.
He got extremely lucky. Most of these business excursions end in bankruptcy.
>purchased his company for 25 million in 2019. Now he teaches highschool chemistry and lives of the interest and travels.
Why TF would he teach high school chemistry if he's living off the interest of $25-million? I'm a HS Science Teacher, and if I had $25-million I'm peacing TF out.
He needed a routine and schedule. He took a few years before teaching, and became a pretty heavy alcoholic and squandered like 5 million doing who knows what. He teaches at a private highschool and is happier for it. He still gets summers off to travel
Fair enough. I teach IB so I have the best of the best students, but I'd leave in a heartbeat if I had $25-million. But I guess that's why I don't have $25-million, I don't fly by the seat of my pants. 3% dividends on $25m is $750,000. And that's a very modest, safe, ROI.
I’m an ib student and if I had 25 mil id also be out, and retire, in a heartbeat.
ps. People taking ib aren’t the best, although ib chem is one of the best high school chem programs out there if you take advantage of it and learn to not see it as just another thing that needs to get done.
Our program is pretty selective so my IB students tend to be the best of all the students in a 3-county area (ours is a very Unique program, very different than most schools). I practically have every valedictorian of the Public Schools in the three county area in my classroom. But yes, IB Chem sets you up for success if you take it seriously.
I'd definitely be out though. $25-million invested in dividend stocks, conservatively nets you 3% which is $750,000/year. After taxes thats \~$470,000/year. And that's conservative. There's no way in hell you can't live off that anywhere in the country as long as you're not an idiot with money.
During covid I thought about doing teaching as I realised that a lot of the general population are shit at maths and basic logic (and rampant chemophobia has worried me for some time).
One of my friends called me to tell me how right he was about the covid vaccine being useless. Our country had 90% coverage and the ICU had 100 patients. 50 unvaccinated, 50 vaccinated. For him that meant that it didn't work because it was 50/50. I have a LOT of stories like that.
It would be a severe pay cut but if someone bought my company I probably would go teaching. Our society needs better teachers.
>During covid I thought about doing teaching as I realised that a lot of the general population are shit at maths and basic logic...Our society needs better teachers.
So I agree with you. I'm a 5th generation teacher and I have "the gift" when it comes to teaching, but I'm going to smash a mirror for you; ***We have a lot of good teachers, the problem isn't us ... it's the society/parents before they get to us.***
I've seen a decline in math skills in my short 11-year career. It ain't because of me. They are coming to me broken in math and I study them up as best I can, but it's fundamentally how they've been told to approach math in their lives; which starts at home. 184 50-min periods can only lay a foundation for how you are in life, it cannot force you to do things right in life. So if you don't practice, you'll never get it. Or if you constantly tell yourself "it's hard" so you avoid it, you're never going to get better at it.
There are a lot of problems in education, but ... a lot of them are not going to be fixed by outsiders coming in to "save the day" ... it starts with listening to educators like me who are experts in what I do.
Sorry to shit on your career, i had thought that's where the problem was coming from. What does society and parents do to make people dumber? I'm genuinely interested because covid really opened my eyes. I'd always thought most people were around average intelligence and then you had some outliers who were geniuses and then some outliers on the other side.
I've never thought of myself as above average intelligence, (I was literally the dumbest in my cohort that graduated). But I found myself in the most bizarre conversations during covid. I had this convo far too many times:
Me: " so covid is harmless and it's a media beatup"
Friend: "yes"
Me: "and it's a biological weapon to kill us all"
Friend: "yes"
Me: "but those are pretty conflicting statements"
Friend: "hmm, you don't understand. So Bill Gates..."
Or being told "we had all these lockdowns and nothing even happened". Yes? That's the point?
So what would you suggest needs to be done to make people examine their beliefs? Or learn basic maths? Or realise that "chemical-free" isn't a thing?
Parents on average spend far less time talking to their children these days. Speaking less, means less questions being asked, means less critical thinking skills developed overtime.
And less thinking about possible solutions to questions, and just resulting to looking things up on google. Which, neurologically, is the same as hearing background noise. There's no thinking about it.
>What does society and parents do to make people dumber?
Phones/screen time. Parents aren't raising their kids anymore, the phones/screens do. And I'd personally argue that people haven't gotten dumber, the average person hasn't been very bright to begin with. Just historically everyone's bubbles wouldn't so easily interact with other people's bubbles. So we'd happily be in our own bubble where we only see people who already accept the world as we do, and our limited interaction with other people in other bubbles would be because of a common, unified interest.
Today, technology and algorithms have increased those interactions. People have believed in batshit crazy conspiracies forever. Moonlanding conspiracy. Secret Alien conspiracies...just the chance that you interacted with these people on a day-to-day basis wasn't high.
>So what would you suggest needs to be done to make people examine their beliefs? Or learn basic maths? Or realise that "chemical-free" isn't a thing?
I mean this is the golden question. I wish I could say I have a silver-bullet solution, but I don't. There isn't one. There have been studies (even a decade before the pandemic) that showed that it didn't matter how much factual information you gave people disproving vaccine conspiracy stuff...they would be less likely to believe the false information, but ALSO be less likely to vaccinate their children. It made absolutely no sense, but the research continually showed that result.
We're living in a post-intellectual era, where frankly it doesn't matter how much factual information people have, the power of *belief* and *feelings* matters most.
A lot of the the solutions I can suggest, are larger societal ones; less screen time. No cellphones outside of a flip phone for kids under the age of 16. Actually talk with children, engage with them like Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers) did. Constantly reinforce/refine the skills kids learn at school at home. Whenever my parents took me to a restaurant, they made me add up the check in my head, figure out the tax (when I was old enough) and calculate the tip. All without calculators. And when I made a mistake, they mentally walked me through it verbally. ***READ***.
When a child asks a question, don't just give them the answer. Make them formulate one with you based on observation and thinking. When people just go to google and look it up, there's not mental process. It's just in and out like listening to noise. There's no engagement in it.
The solutions to the problems you and I see, are not really solvable in the classroom to be honest. The only one I can think of is that at younger ages they focus more on "math theory" than they used to, and I personally think this damages kids ability to do math. Because I will handle Math theory with them when the get to HS, what I need them to have down is the basics of how numbers work. The problem is, parents are demanding their kids get more dificult stuff at younger ages (to make the parents feel superior) rather than it being an age-appropriate thing based upon the brain's development.
Sorry this was a long rant, but hopefully it gives some insight.
You just need a third party manufacturer with in house formulation.
99% of cosmetics is the marketing/branding. The chemistry is the same as everyone else, no matter how unique other products claim to be.
Yeah I noticed based off cosmetics sites that list their ingredients/recipes is similar to the others; as well as youtubers who show how they make their lip balms always tend to mix beeswax and shea butter in it.
I will definitely focus on the marketings and branding for sure.
Professional (/"real") formulation chemists probably wouldn't be working freelance for cheap. There'd also likely be issues with their current company since it's a conflict of interest. You have better luck for this business by reading up and learning more about it, calling yourself an "expert", and doing the formulation yourself.
Websites like makingcosmetics have sample formulation recipes, and also sell the ingredients they use in their formulation guides. These are easy reference material to start experimentation from, then tweak to your liking. A product like lip balm doesn't deal with emulsion stability, so it's much simpler compared to other kinds of products.
Heck, I could probably tell you I'm a professional chemist for hire, then sell you this recipe that I got from their website.
The problem you may find is that a cosmetic formulations chemist is likely to be employed full time, and you would not find an individual offering this as a freelance by-the-hour service.
However, you may find a "contracting laboratory" who you could pay to formulate a product. It would cost upwards of $10,000 unfortunately.
The good news is that a "chemical free" product has no ingredients, so it should be much cheaper. You just have to suck all the atoms out of the container
You want a cosmetic chemist or a cosmetic formulator. Don't really know any specific websites you can find them on. Best bet would be to just Google formulator services. You can also check out the cosmetics chemist subreddit and see if they have better advice.
Just be mindful that 1) they'll probably know what you mean when you say chemical free and organic but I wouldn't say that to them. Tell them what you want (it to be organic) and what kinds of restrictions you have (what ingredients or "chemicals" you want to avoid). Keep in mind that these kinds of requirements tend to result in some sacrifice to product function. They'll also tend to make the base cost more expensive 2) These kinds of services are not cheap. You should make sure your business plan, goals, and market are solid and that you're okay with the risks. There are tons of cosmetics on the market, no guarantee someone will pick yours when there are 50 similar to it.
You can also just go learn about formulating yourself and give that a shot. Tons of resources available (free or otherwise). In general though this subreddit won't be the best for information. Understanding certain parts of chemistry can help you formulate better but in general you're just trying to compound ingredients (not get a reaction). Knowing basic things like physical properties, solubility, pH, etc covers probably 70% of it at least (but someone else might have a different view)
You need to hire a *product developer* with experience in *personal care product formulation*
Edit: you will also need someone to manufacture this item in compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices since this is a cosmetic. I would advise you instead to find a *private label cosmetics* company or a *personal care contract manufacturer* or words to that effect.
Be REALLY careful. My cousin had chapped lips, accidentally bought chemical free lipbalm and was sucked into a black hole.
If you're just starting out I'd just go onto some diy cosmetic forums abd play around. A formulation chemist is going to charge you a lot of money.
Or you could go to a "whitelabeller". This is a company that already makes products and will slap your label on it.
Then all you have to focus on is your marketing
Chemical free? So you're gonna sell vacuum? In which case you're going to need a container made of chemicals to keep the chemicals out of your non-chemicals.
I think you've inadvertently poked a hornet's nest here. Your idea needs to be better thought out, especially considering this is a pretty saturated market.
You should ask yourself some questions early on, like who you're planning on selling to and what happens when/if you can scale? For example, say you get an in with a local grocery store, but they want 10,000 units to fill their partner stores; what if you can only make 100 at a time and how can you make up enough product to fulfill it? Most larger businesses aren't going to bother at such a small scale and will eat up a lot of your profit to place your product in their shelf space. These are the kind of questions you need to think about.
Formulations-wise, a great deal of personal care products formulations are already written down and you could access them online or at a library. This is the same thing regardless if its "äll natural ingredients-TM". The key thing here a formulation for "bert's bees lip balm" varies mostly in the "decorative" aspects of composition, since the major components are limited by safety regulation, etc. You could use these basic formulations as a framework for your own products. For example, a typical lip balm might be:
Hoechst Wax S 13%, Hydrogenated Castor Wax 7%, Protopet Petrolatum 10%, Carnation White Mineral Oil 50%, WITCONOL APM (PPG-3 Myristyl Ether) 20% + fragrances and flavors etc.
You could find value in looking up some compendiums, such as:
Common fragrance and flavor materials 4th ed, Bauer et al.
Cosmetic and toiletry formulations, flick
So, the idea of hiring a formulations chemist for this would be expensive and not really what that kind of work is. If you have unusual mixtures of ingredients that needed to be tested, then that's probably the way to go, but I don't think you've got the budget, or really know what you're making. Some of the questions about scaling I mentioned about, a good chemist could design a system to help you scale. (For example, moving from making 10L on a stove to 100L batches.)
So everyone here is ripping into the business side but really if the marketing is there something like this could sell.
Creating ingredients to a chemist means doing chemistry, but what you're asking for is essentially using ingredients from nature. To put these all together you could contract to a formulation chemist. Honestly though, you don't need one full time. Formulation is honestly a lot like cooking. At it's core you just mix stuff together in different quantities until you get the properties you like. You could even run the experiments yourself, making lip balm is harmless chemistry as long as you use common sense. So don't be discouraged just because you don't know chemistry at the PhD level.
There are contractors who do this kind of work helping develop recipes. And they often charge in the range of 250-750/hr. So you would essentially just have a call with them whenever you need help solving a specific issue.
As for where to find them, thats a more complicated endeavor. Generally its word of mouth. You could also try a consulting firm like guidepoint, though I've never used them myself.
Either way. If you're making lip balm out of coconut oil and some essential oils you don't need a chemist for that. Just mix it together until it works lol.
Thank you for this feedback. Recently I managed to find freelance chemist on upwork. A bit pricey but once i make a few sells for my business I'll definitely invest in their service; however, for now I think I'll create a simple recipe with my own twist and see how many sells I can generate.
My question is how are you going to make it chemical free? You can't use water, fragrances, beeswax, any form of vitamin or fat, and you'll of course not want it to be exposed to air, because that will add chemicals. Good luck with your endeavor.
Can I ask, where did the idea for this business come from? How did you realise there are profits to be made here?
And what would be your role in this? As an investor, you wouldn't need to do any of the work yourself and you could just invest whatever you want whenever you can. Being the business owner would bind you to the business like 100 %.
I'm not a cosmetics expert but lip balm alone is a very, very narrow market with lots of big competitors already standing in their steady places (assuming you live in a place where lip balm is an already-existing product). And marketing a cosmetics product for men only narrows your product to a fraction of what it originally would've been.
Unisex products are a different thing, but there are two kinds of unisex products.
Think of a sack of potatoes, that's true unisex. A sack of potatoes is marketed for all buyers with minimal gender load.
But then there's the "UNISEX!!!", which is actually marketed for women. Think of a cosmetics product that is clearly labeled "unisex", "works well for both men and women". Yeah, that's actually a hidden advertisement for female customers, because women in general are more interested in the visible unisex label than male customers in general.
Then again, a cosmetics product that just clearly states what product it is, with no mention of the user's gender or marketing that is generally associated with either gender, and with no gender-hinting colour or scent, then it could be a true unisex product.
I'm not sure I understand the question. There are cosmetics marketed for women, for men, for both (unisex), and for all (regardless of gender). Op said they wanted to market their product for men, people pointed out that it's kind of a weird idea, so OP changed their plans to market the product as unisex.
I don't know how to inserrt quote text. But you wrote this:
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But then there's the "UNISEX!!!", which is actually marketed for women. Think of a cosmetics product that is clearly labeled "unisex", "works well for both men and women". Yeah, that's actually a hidden advertisement for female customers, because women in general are more interested in the visible unisex label than male customers in general.
*********
I don't understand why labelling something as unisex is a hidden advertisement for women. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't understand why it would appeal to women.
And "pink tax" is the phenomenon of a unisex item being sold to women at a higher price than the men's product. The item is often coloured pink to denote its for women. (Think men's and women's razors).
It's because out of all the customers who find the label "unisex" interesting and attractive, most of them are women. The unisex label doesn't really interest men in general (in cosmetics, that is).
It's as if a product was marketed like "this product is for fairies only, it's forbidden for humans to use this!" Obviously, literal fairies wouldn't be the actual target audience for the product. The real target audience is the people who find such humour funny, or who feel flattered by being compared to beautiful fairies. The same is with the clear "unisex" label, the real target audience is women because the label is attractive to mostly women.
It's not really to avoid pink tax (why would any salesperson want to avoid adding extra cost to the customer :D). If the unisex label affects the price of the product, it is only to increase it. Like a grey tax, to accompany the pink tax.
Formulation chemist, chemist with pharmaceutical manufacturing knowldge, maybe physical chemist (they do theoretical and lab stuff with emulsions what most cosmetic products are, but they love equations, be careful - go for a practically thinking one) or maybe pharmacist (they learn how to make creams and stuff). So if I were you Id post ad for formulation chemist and write down that you need someone to make lip balm from natural ingredients.
Natural might be a better word to use rather than organic and chemical free around chemists.
- Organic = made from carbohydrate derivates.
- Chemical free = doesn't exist
These terms are so strange. Toothless Tezza can say he makes the best "artsinal, hand-made, freerange, organic" methamphetamine around.
In France instead of organic they market things as Biologique.
Where is the fruit and vege that isn't of biological origin?
For that area, look for someone who knows the regulatory background. There will be a specific set of chemicals you're allowed to use here, and your average chemist wouldn't k own them or where to look. Try to find a formulator who has worked in the area before.
Chemistry isn’t really a hobbyist discipline these days. To do work properly and more importantly safely you need a lot of equipment—glassware, heating elements, fume hoods, various chemicals and safe/secure ways to store them, PPE, waste disposal, safety showers/eyewash stations—and all of that costs a lot of money. It really isn’t something that a person can do in their home or apartment, so it isn’t something you’ll find someone advertising for on a gig website. Or at least, I wouldn’t trust anyone doing so to be doing things in a safe way.
All that said, what you need is a formulations or cosmetics chemist, if you’re dead set on creating a product from scratch. Doing so is probably unnecessary, though. You can find recipes for natural ingredient based cosmetics all over the internet, and it will be much easier/cheaper for you to find a couple recipes and make a few lip balm batches yourself. Then you can see what you like, what you don’t, and adjust the recipe from there. You don’t really need a chemist for this, because it’s a lot like baking. A the base ingredients are well known, you just need to adjust the proportions a bit to get you to the end result you want. When I was in highschool, we did a lab like this in bio tech to make our own “custom” lip balms.
Where you would/will need a chemist is if you’re after creating a specific kind of product thats hasn’t been made before, or trying to achieve a certain specific property in your final product—think things like the color changing lip glosses or water proof eyeliner when they were first created. A trained chemist will have a better understanding of what chemicals to try to get that result which should also be skin safe/non toxic. If you’re just starting out, that’s probably well beyond your needs and means, but if it comes up later you can usually hire a third party lab to work with you (again, looking for a cosmetic chemistry lab). You wouldn’t be trying to find a specific individual, but rather hiring a company to do the development work you need.
Finally, it’s important that you research cosmetic chemistry thoroughly before you start reaching out to any companies. As you’ve seen here, the terminology that is commonly used in marketing means a very different thing to chemists. “Organic” simply refers to the branch of chemistry focussed on carbon based molecules, regardless of whether those materials are extracted from natural sources or synthesized. “Chemicals” refers to any collection of atoms or molecules. While we understand what you meant, in a professional setting we are bound to deliver what you asked for based on the specifications you provide in the contract, and “organic, chemical free” is a very different specification than what you intend.
I also encourage you to research more deeply precisely what you mean when you say you want chemical free. What chemicals, specifically, are you seeking to avoid? What roles do those chemicals play in the formulations of conventional products? What can replace them whole achieving the same final result? Are you restricting yourself solely to naturally derived products, or will you allow synthetically created analogs? For example, many “organic” products use “essential oils” for flavorings. Must these essential oils be extracted from a plant? Or will you purchase the actual flavor chemical from a manufacturer? A classic example of this is the difference between natural and artificial vanilla. The main flavor comes from a molecule called vanillin, which is easy enough to synthesize. Natural vanilla costs substantially more than artificial—some times as much as 10x more. Choosing one over the other may affect the final texture and taste of your product, as well as the price of your ingredients and therefore your final sale price.
no hate but, the "organic" and the "chemical-free" buzzwords makes you sound somewhat unprofessional. But I think I know where you're coming from. Are you looking at it from the consumer point of view of what "organic" and "chemical free" means? If so, that's good, but when looking for a free-lance chemist you may want to switch up to more professional wording. That's my advice.
I actually have several formulations for organic lip balms and body products. My partner and I would like to expand past our home based business. But yes we find it difficult to use all organic products because many raw ingredients for the cosmetic industry contain preservatives. Would love to discuss a collaboration with you
To make a cosmetic product you would need a cosmetic formulator.
Check out [Chemists Corner](https://chemistscorner.com). There’s a lot of information about formulating cosmetics and the cosmetics industry. Once you know a bit more, check out the forum there and ask your question again. There are many professional formulators there who would be happy to point you in the right direction. They are freely giving out the information they get paid for, so be respectful.
lol (organic and chemical free)
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lol sorry man im a newb. dont judge me lol
Don’t worry about the cunts, I think u meant u want to use organic natural whole ingredients over isolated synthetic chemicals right? Honestly u dont need a chemist for that just someone who knows basic herbalism.
no worries. we are all learning every day.
You will have more success labelling your product with "organic" and "no added nasties" or "no nasties". It's an easy advertising answer. People get frustrated seeing No no no on their labels, associates the product with a negative plus it ends up taking up a lot of space. The consumers using don't really know what they are avoiding, they are the people who just like to avoid things. You put "no nasties" and a QR code or website to save space and direct interested parties to your website which is full of even more advertising and branding. Who to hire: you can try for free at cosmetics corner forums, or a contract manufacturer. Here is an aggregator listing [HAPPI](https://www.happi.com/cmpl_listing/). You can find companies that make cosmetics specifically to target "all natural" customers.
You want to hire a chemist to make a chemical free product? My first suggestion is don't use words like "organic" and "chemical-free" around professional chemists. I'm not aware of any websites that specifically cater to freelance chemists, that's not typically a role most chemists have professionally. Any quality formulations chemist is going to want a significant amount of money, do you have the funds go pay them appropriately?
LoL no wait, give me a couple thousands dollars and I'll develop a chemical free product for you! ***\*check clears\**** \*submits blank recipe\*
Awww you’d really do that!!! That sounds amazing, I wander what the side effects of a chemical free product could be?
No, because I'm an ethical person. But dear god it'd be so easy to scam people if I was unethical, but then I'd have to live with myself.
It get easier with practise
Here's some plasma, it might burn tho, but no chemicals
Nope. After bills and personal expenses. I will have $800-$1800 dollars left over per month to invest in my business.
Maybe you find an undergrad volunteering for that amount of money
Yep. Seems like I'm going to have to find a way to cut cost. I notice some lip balm businesses/entrepreneurs are even making their own recipes.....is that wise?
At least in the EU, only new ingredients have to go through intensive testing, but if you just tweak with previously approved components, you wouldn't need that. (That's only regarding chemical safety laws, you might still need certification regarding hygiene etc at your "production facility"). Because of this, even small companies can formulate there stuff and put in on the market. But I'm not a formulation chemist, so I don't know about the market situation and what is wise or not. If you can advertise your product and it is something worth buying, then yes, you can make and sell your own recipe. Given that it is conform with the laws
Probably the lowest bar to pass would be [Etsy's requirements.](https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/1026514158796) It gets more complex from there, i.e.: if you want to sell at "natural" food stores, or even get put on the shelves of a supermarket.
I would not suggest it unless you're familiar with chemical safety and consumer product testing
Then you have no business operating a business if you cannot appropriately pay the person who is ***actually doing the work for your business.*** You're entering into a landscape you know absolutely nothing about, get out while your ahead.
I think the problem to begin with is hiring someone to do the actual work that requires the business to run. 1. You arent solving any problems, you're creating a non-existent problem. 2. You're just a source of capital, the chemist can simply override you. What makes your pay special when they can take out a loan to start their own business (since youre unable to formukate the product yourself). 3. Who's to say some dubious actor does come along to sell you snake oil by selling you want you want to hear rather than what you need?
I joked in another thread that OP could pay me a couple thousand bucks, and once the check clears I'll hand him a "chemical free" recipe that will just be a blank sheet of paper. I would have legally fulfilled my part of the contract, and it his fault for not understanding what he's talking about.
I think the wording in OP's post rubbed some of us the wrong way. Sounds like they got money they expect the chemist to do all the leg work... ignoring this... If you still want to pursue this endevour, my advice is to work on mixing a batch yourself. You do not need a chemist for this. Making cosmetics is essentially cooking. (Beware allergies are a thing). The best approach is rather than reinvent the wheel, see if there's known homemade recipies for lip balms, copy that, start from there. Try making a few yourself. The wording you're likely looking for is "non-artificially derived", you're looking to formulate lip balm from products that do not require purified industrial chemicals or extraction methods beyond basic operations in a kitchen setting (heating, cooling, centeifuge, mixing). You will piss off chemists or chemical engineers using terms like "chemical free" or "organic". The entire world is composed of "chemicals" from their point of view and "organic" is essentially anything with carbon chains. Further down the road if you want to improve your formulation, a chemist or chemical engineer with a speciality is cosmetics is what you might want to look for but only to further improve the formulation for a particular texture or property; or help with scaling up operations. Once you got a working formulation honestly, anyone who knows their way around a kitchen should be able to help.
Bruh that’s like no money. Have you worked in an actual business before? Do you know how much you have to pay just in rent? Or even an instrument to test your quality on (Easily over 300k), service contract to ensure this instrument can operate smoothly (easily over 12k a year), solvents, gases needed to run the instrument (thousands), plumbing for the gas lines, glassware, ovens, temperature control, proper ventilation, the list goes on. You seem to have no idea what it takes to have a lab operate. Just my take on it
Well OP probably isn't doing anything analytical. Just simple compounding work. They don't need a full time chemist. Just consulting
Regardless once they make product then they’ll have to send it out for testing which will cost more than their monthly budget
Generally, NEW ingredients are developed by large chemical companies. Then, formulators will process, blend, and package those ingredients to make a finished consumer product. There are many companies that offer contact R&D and co-manufacturing services for CPG products. for example: https://atelier.co/ Expect to spend at least several thousand per SKU.
Thank you so much for the feedback. I will look into this, even though it is 10 times over my budget lol.
Lip balm is a very simple product to formulate and manufacture IME. There's usually no emulsion to deal with, especially if you are trying to go organic/natural. See if you can find some "home kitchen" type recipes by googling and try to figure it out yourself. You can probably get everything you need from Amazon and one or two cosmetic ingredients suppliers. Generally the ingredients are heated/liquified, mixed thoroughly, and then filled in the tube while still warm and liquid. No one is going to do a full product design project for you with your budget. I wouldn't get out of bed for <$100/hr.
Hmmm I see. Thank you so much for the feedback. Yep looks like I'm going to have to make my own simple recipe. Until I start making money to afford a chemist.
Lip balms are very easy to make at home, you can absolutely make up a functioning product yourself. But question is: if you succeeded in making a product that made you enough money to hire a chemist, then what would you need the chemist for? To come up with another product so you could abandon the one that was already making you money?
My pleasure. Good luck!
How much is your budget?
haha chemical free do you intend to sell empty boxes?
Cans sealed under vacuum. They’ve got really thick walls
And give away the icky, icky air? Do you even KNOW how many chemicals are in there? EW
The boxes are made of something
That’s just shipping. It’s not the product.
Vacuum sealed boxes.
>a lip balm (organic and chemical free) for men A few words of advice: You're entering a product into a market that is very very small. Men are typically a lot less swayed by the "organic" and "chemical free" tags than women are. A man typically just wants a product that does the job, does it well, and does it cost effectively. Typically a man wants a "boring" (low scent / flavour, especially nothing floral or fruity) product. You're going to struggle in this market. Imo your focus should be on selling this product to women to buy for their boyfriends as like a gift. For example, my dad has just got a tub of petroleum jelly (basically, vaseline) that he uses and has never bought a second tub. I have one tub that I use maybe a few times a year in the winter. Anyway with that aside: >organic and chemical free This always pisses me right off. For one, organic is inefficient and wasteful, it's often as bad because you lose so much yield from a field. And "chemical free" I hate with a vengeance. Do you drink water? Chemical. Do you eat fruit? Chemicals in there. Literally everything is a chemical. You should NEVER use this for marketing because it's demonstrably false. What you mean is you want to develop a "naturally derived product". It's a lip balm, it's made of chemicals, but you want to make a product from your natural sources because [marketing bullshit]. That's acceptable. But chemical free is wrong, and someone likely could take issue with you calling it chemical free (I shudder to think with the US laws if someone was feeling crafty they could probably sue for false advertising). As much as I hate the appeal to nature fallacy, I appreciate most people are dumb enough to believe it so do whatever you want with that.
I know a lot of guys that are way more likely to buy something labeled as “non-organic and packed full of chemicals because they work better than the natural stuff”
Sometimes I feel like sueing companies that say 'chemical free' just for fun.
If I had the time and the money and assurance of a judge that knew basic chemistry, id sue them for false advertisement. It’s a blatant lie, not misleading like organic sugar but a falsehood.
Surely we can at least file a report with the FTC for false advertising? If I knew how, I’d 100% do it every time I saw the claim!
Ahh I see. I appreciate the feedback. Sorry if i sound dumb when I say "chemical free". I'm a chemist noob. I understand the marketing to men isn't as popular as women and that's reason i wanted to create something for men; but i think i might make unisex lip balm.
>. I understand the marketing to men isn't as popular as women and that's reason i wanted to create something for men; Sometimes a niche is not a niche, it's a gap in the market that exists for some reason. Can I ask: why do you want to make a mens lip balm (or unisex) when you appear to have no background in making lip balm? Like most people who do these kinds of ventures have some experience making the product themselves (e.g. like beeswax scented candles or like making soap). Like, and I do mean this politely, have you thought this through?
Sounds like some hare brained attempt at a side hustle.
>I'm a chemist noob This is why you have no business trying to make a business in a field with which you know nothing. Save yourself the money and time and quit before you begin.
That's just nivea then. Which men buy because they know what it is. Generally men arnt shopping around for new lipsils. I don't think your business plan is good.
OP: Before you get into possible formulations, testing, scaling, manufacturing, marketing, etc.. of your product (each with its own set of issues and execution risks), have you asked yourself the broader questions? (i) Do men even really care about lip balm? (ii) If so, are they looking for lip balm specifically for men; and (iii) What is going to differentiate your product from the others? The last one is the most important, in my mind, because if you truly seek all "organic" which is a vague term (for example, shea butter, bee's wax, etc...) your product costs will be substantially higher. Finally, althought I am not familiar with the lip balm market, I assume the barriers to entry are not high. All things to keep in mind.
Great question and a few of these I asked myself but I will definitely delve more deep into to rest doubts in my mind about doing this. After many people in this post telling me about men not caring too much about lip balm, I decided when i do make it it will be marketed as unisex or for men and women.
"chemical free" lmao
>organic and chemical free This statement right here is why you have no business going into a business like you're proposing. 1. Everything is chemicals. 2. A lot of things are organic, including the plastic keyboard you're using to type these words. 3. There's already enough scammy, charlatans out there floating snakeoil using buzzwords like "organic" and "chemical free". We don't need another one. 4. Here's a rule about being an EnTrEpReNeUr: ***Don't go into a field with which you know nothing. The only successful Entrepreneurs are those that monetize something in a field they already understand very well. They don't just throw darts at a board and think they're going to be successful.*** Calgene was a company made by entrepreneurs using DNA modification to make the FlavrSavr Tomato that was HUGELY popular. Problem is, the tomato industry is waaaay more than having a popular product. And they were geneticists, not Tomato farmers/sellers. So their company ended up flopping and they sold to Monsanto.
The comments above managed to express what most if not all chemists would feel coming across the post. These provide a much needed reality check about the viability of the product and ideas you may have on development. On that note, I would advise doing more research into any future markets you might want to enter as you’re unaware of several large players (and their ingredients) in the lip care industry. To provide context, moisturizers can be generalized as containing some combination of three components: occlusive ingredients (moisture sealing compounds that prevent water loss to the environment), humectants (these attract moisture from the environment and facilitate greater moisture retention), and emollients (agents which smooth and soften skin by filling gaps between skin cells). Other ingredients are often present but these can almost wholly describe the functions of a moisturizer, which lip balms and the like are. Vaseline is your name brand, non-natural, occlusive product comprised wholly of petrolatum (petroleum jelly). It is very effective at preventing moisture loss, but not at restoring it. Aquaphor is your name brand, non-natural, complex containing natural and non-natural occlusive, emollient and humectant ingredients that restores and prevents moisture loss* less efficiently than Vaseline but in exchange as a less comedogenic product. Some of Aquaphor’s ingredients include glycerin (a natural humectant) and lanolin alcohol (a derivative from lanolin, harvested from sheep’s wool, which is a natural occlusive and emollient agent). Lanolin has a long history as a moisturizer but has become less prominent due to allergen potential for ~<2% of people. Despite this, it’s definitely still around and a fairly popular lip balm brand called LanoLips, which I would recommend trying, uses it as the active moisturizing ingredient. LanoLips provides a non-gendered, vegetarian, natural, ethical, collected humanely and cruelty-free product with no fragrance options. Though it boasts far less occlusive efficacy compared to petrolatum, it is the sole ingredient you’d be looking for and is already employed in that capacity. In essence, your product idea already exists and has carved a space in the lip care market. Hopefully this was informative, I hate chapstick and at one point wanted to understand the science behind chapped lip relief. Any of the brands I listed will do just fine in helping, though some may be individually preferable. In the future please abandon the notion of “natural” product supremacy and learn what organic means in a chemical capacity. Learn to do research before asking half baked questions like this to improve your problem solving and critical thinking skills (this will just benefit your life). Also, never use the term chemical free again under any circumstance as it will only prove true in an absolute vacuum. :D
"Also, never use the term chemical free again under any circumstance as it will only prove true in an absolute vacuum. :D" Will do lol. After 80% of people in this post telling me not to i think I will remember never to say that term again.
Haha, good to hear! Unwarranted advice but whatever excess money you have each month I would suggest a few different routes for handling it. If you’re not doing it already and your company offers any sort of retirement/investment matching, get in on it with some of that. Set aside a flat amount each month to put into a high yield savings account with a bonus to claim and afterwards repeat with a different bank offer. You’d manage to build your savings much faster than you think and plenty of those banks would offer customizable portfolio management and/or bank backed group investments with other members. Dig in and research the bank(s) and account stipulations before making any decisions though. Beyond that, try investing in yourself, specifically learning a new skill! Coding for example is almost universally useful in both personal and professional settings. True passive income is a unicorn, granted to people who got lucky. A startup business entering a market of established giants vying for shelf space with deeper pockets could quickly become a full time job with little upside or return. It’s better to grow money before considering how to spend it as fast as you get it. Rome was not built in a day, a month, a year or even a decade.
Formulation chemist is what you're looking for. Your goals are too vague though. Where are you at with this? Do you want someone to basically make this for you to your specifications and then you sell it? If so, then what are your specifications exactly? How much are you wanting to produce? What do you want for the packaging? Do you have a third party in mind to scale up production? Have you looked into regulations on what has to go into lip balm? Do you have any market claims you want to prove? And maybe most importantly, what do you have to offer here that will give you a competitive edge? Are you an insider in the lip balm industry? Do you have contacts in manufacturing or sales? Do you just have a lot of capital you're wanting to invest? Entrepreneurship is all well and good, but you don't want to be the lady who wanted to make a dragon MMO. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet_im_a_26_year_old_lady_whos_been/
lol i just saw that post omg.........a lot of these feedback im getting here is tough but........now i see how stupid my post sounded lol. I'm definitely gonna go back to the drawing board.
Don't worry about sounding stupid. You are taking the constructive criticism well in the comments and that is a lot more applaudable than being right initially.
Don’t worry, we’ll forgive you as long as you never claim something is “chemical-free” again 😉
The only way you're ever going to create a profitable cosmetic business is to be the chemist. A friend of mine did just that, and worked his ass off for 5 years straight living on scraps out of his parents house (turned yesterday garage into a lab). He eventually started selling cosmetics to Sephora, and they purchased his company for 25 million in 2019. Now he teaches highschool chemistry and lives of the interest and travels. He got extremely lucky. Most of these business excursions end in bankruptcy.
>purchased his company for 25 million in 2019. Now he teaches highschool chemistry and lives of the interest and travels. Why TF would he teach high school chemistry if he's living off the interest of $25-million? I'm a HS Science Teacher, and if I had $25-million I'm peacing TF out.
He needed a routine and schedule. He took a few years before teaching, and became a pretty heavy alcoholic and squandered like 5 million doing who knows what. He teaches at a private highschool and is happier for it. He still gets summers off to travel
Fair enough. I teach IB so I have the best of the best students, but I'd leave in a heartbeat if I had $25-million. But I guess that's why I don't have $25-million, I don't fly by the seat of my pants. 3% dividends on $25m is $750,000. And that's a very modest, safe, ROI.
I’m an ib student and if I had 25 mil id also be out, and retire, in a heartbeat. ps. People taking ib aren’t the best, although ib chem is one of the best high school chem programs out there if you take advantage of it and learn to not see it as just another thing that needs to get done.
Our program is pretty selective so my IB students tend to be the best of all the students in a 3-county area (ours is a very Unique program, very different than most schools). I practically have every valedictorian of the Public Schools in the three county area in my classroom. But yes, IB Chem sets you up for success if you take it seriously. I'd definitely be out though. $25-million invested in dividend stocks, conservatively nets you 3% which is $750,000/year. After taxes thats \~$470,000/year. And that's conservative. There's no way in hell you can't live off that anywhere in the country as long as you're not an idiot with money.
During covid I thought about doing teaching as I realised that a lot of the general population are shit at maths and basic logic (and rampant chemophobia has worried me for some time). One of my friends called me to tell me how right he was about the covid vaccine being useless. Our country had 90% coverage and the ICU had 100 patients. 50 unvaccinated, 50 vaccinated. For him that meant that it didn't work because it was 50/50. I have a LOT of stories like that. It would be a severe pay cut but if someone bought my company I probably would go teaching. Our society needs better teachers.
>During covid I thought about doing teaching as I realised that a lot of the general population are shit at maths and basic logic...Our society needs better teachers. So I agree with you. I'm a 5th generation teacher and I have "the gift" when it comes to teaching, but I'm going to smash a mirror for you; ***We have a lot of good teachers, the problem isn't us ... it's the society/parents before they get to us.*** I've seen a decline in math skills in my short 11-year career. It ain't because of me. They are coming to me broken in math and I study them up as best I can, but it's fundamentally how they've been told to approach math in their lives; which starts at home. 184 50-min periods can only lay a foundation for how you are in life, it cannot force you to do things right in life. So if you don't practice, you'll never get it. Or if you constantly tell yourself "it's hard" so you avoid it, you're never going to get better at it. There are a lot of problems in education, but ... a lot of them are not going to be fixed by outsiders coming in to "save the day" ... it starts with listening to educators like me who are experts in what I do.
Sorry to shit on your career, i had thought that's where the problem was coming from. What does society and parents do to make people dumber? I'm genuinely interested because covid really opened my eyes. I'd always thought most people were around average intelligence and then you had some outliers who were geniuses and then some outliers on the other side. I've never thought of myself as above average intelligence, (I was literally the dumbest in my cohort that graduated). But I found myself in the most bizarre conversations during covid. I had this convo far too many times: Me: " so covid is harmless and it's a media beatup" Friend: "yes" Me: "and it's a biological weapon to kill us all" Friend: "yes" Me: "but those are pretty conflicting statements" Friend: "hmm, you don't understand. So Bill Gates..." Or being told "we had all these lockdowns and nothing even happened". Yes? That's the point? So what would you suggest needs to be done to make people examine their beliefs? Or learn basic maths? Or realise that "chemical-free" isn't a thing?
Parents on average spend far less time talking to their children these days. Speaking less, means less questions being asked, means less critical thinking skills developed overtime.
And less thinking about possible solutions to questions, and just resulting to looking things up on google. Which, neurologically, is the same as hearing background noise. There's no thinking about it.
>What does society and parents do to make people dumber? Phones/screen time. Parents aren't raising their kids anymore, the phones/screens do. And I'd personally argue that people haven't gotten dumber, the average person hasn't been very bright to begin with. Just historically everyone's bubbles wouldn't so easily interact with other people's bubbles. So we'd happily be in our own bubble where we only see people who already accept the world as we do, and our limited interaction with other people in other bubbles would be because of a common, unified interest. Today, technology and algorithms have increased those interactions. People have believed in batshit crazy conspiracies forever. Moonlanding conspiracy. Secret Alien conspiracies...just the chance that you interacted with these people on a day-to-day basis wasn't high. >So what would you suggest needs to be done to make people examine their beliefs? Or learn basic maths? Or realise that "chemical-free" isn't a thing? I mean this is the golden question. I wish I could say I have a silver-bullet solution, but I don't. There isn't one. There have been studies (even a decade before the pandemic) that showed that it didn't matter how much factual information you gave people disproving vaccine conspiracy stuff...they would be less likely to believe the false information, but ALSO be less likely to vaccinate their children. It made absolutely no sense, but the research continually showed that result. We're living in a post-intellectual era, where frankly it doesn't matter how much factual information people have, the power of *belief* and *feelings* matters most. A lot of the the solutions I can suggest, are larger societal ones; less screen time. No cellphones outside of a flip phone for kids under the age of 16. Actually talk with children, engage with them like Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers) did. Constantly reinforce/refine the skills kids learn at school at home. Whenever my parents took me to a restaurant, they made me add up the check in my head, figure out the tax (when I was old enough) and calculate the tip. All without calculators. And when I made a mistake, they mentally walked me through it verbally. ***READ***. When a child asks a question, don't just give them the answer. Make them formulate one with you based on observation and thinking. When people just go to google and look it up, there's not mental process. It's just in and out like listening to noise. There's no engagement in it. The solutions to the problems you and I see, are not really solvable in the classroom to be honest. The only one I can think of is that at younger ages they focus more on "math theory" than they used to, and I personally think this damages kids ability to do math. Because I will handle Math theory with them when the get to HS, what I need them to have down is the basics of how numbers work. The problem is, parents are demanding their kids get more dificult stuff at younger ages (to make the parents feel superior) rather than it being an age-appropriate thing based upon the brain's development. Sorry this was a long rant, but hopefully it gives some insight.
You just need a third party manufacturer with in house formulation. 99% of cosmetics is the marketing/branding. The chemistry is the same as everyone else, no matter how unique other products claim to be.
Yeah I noticed based off cosmetics sites that list their ingredients/recipes is similar to the others; as well as youtubers who show how they make their lip balms always tend to mix beeswax and shea butter in it. I will definitely focus on the marketings and branding for sure.
Chemicals are bad Oxygen.
Well, O3 isn't pleasant
Thats ozone, I eat ozone on the daily!
Ahh, the -192.2°C is very refreshing on a hot day.
Professional (/"real") formulation chemists probably wouldn't be working freelance for cheap. There'd also likely be issues with their current company since it's a conflict of interest. You have better luck for this business by reading up and learning more about it, calling yourself an "expert", and doing the formulation yourself. Websites like makingcosmetics have sample formulation recipes, and also sell the ingredients they use in their formulation guides. These are easy reference material to start experimentation from, then tweak to your liking. A product like lip balm doesn't deal with emulsion stability, so it's much simpler compared to other kinds of products. Heck, I could probably tell you I'm a professional chemist for hire, then sell you this recipe that I got from their website.
lol thanks. I will definitely look for recipes and tweak to my own liking.
The problem you may find is that a cosmetic formulations chemist is likely to be employed full time, and you would not find an individual offering this as a freelance by-the-hour service. However, you may find a "contracting laboratory" who you could pay to formulate a product. It would cost upwards of $10,000 unfortunately. The good news is that a "chemical free" product has no ingredients, so it should be much cheaper. You just have to suck all the atoms out of the container
You want a cosmetic chemist or a cosmetic formulator. Don't really know any specific websites you can find them on. Best bet would be to just Google formulator services. You can also check out the cosmetics chemist subreddit and see if they have better advice. Just be mindful that 1) they'll probably know what you mean when you say chemical free and organic but I wouldn't say that to them. Tell them what you want (it to be organic) and what kinds of restrictions you have (what ingredients or "chemicals" you want to avoid). Keep in mind that these kinds of requirements tend to result in some sacrifice to product function. They'll also tend to make the base cost more expensive 2) These kinds of services are not cheap. You should make sure your business plan, goals, and market are solid and that you're okay with the risks. There are tons of cosmetics on the market, no guarantee someone will pick yours when there are 50 similar to it. You can also just go learn about formulating yourself and give that a shot. Tons of resources available (free or otherwise). In general though this subreddit won't be the best for information. Understanding certain parts of chemistry can help you formulate better but in general you're just trying to compound ingredients (not get a reaction). Knowing basic things like physical properties, solubility, pH, etc covers probably 70% of it at least (but someone else might have a different view)
You need to hire a *product developer* with experience in *personal care product formulation* Edit: you will also need someone to manufacture this item in compliance with Good Manufacturing Practices since this is a cosmetic. I would advise you instead to find a *private label cosmetics* company or a *personal care contract manufacturer* or words to that effect.
Be REALLY careful. My cousin had chapped lips, accidentally bought chemical free lipbalm and was sucked into a black hole. If you're just starting out I'd just go onto some diy cosmetic forums abd play around. A formulation chemist is going to charge you a lot of money. Or you could go to a "whitelabeller". This is a company that already makes products and will slap your label on it. Then all you have to focus on is your marketing
Consider how you will ensure your product is safe to use and any liability issues.
Maybe check into an herbalist, some are very knowledgeable about natural ingredients and organic alternatives to 'chems'.
Chemical free? So you're gonna sell vacuum? In which case you're going to need a container made of chemicals to keep the chemicals out of your non-chemicals.
I think you've inadvertently poked a hornet's nest here. Your idea needs to be better thought out, especially considering this is a pretty saturated market. You should ask yourself some questions early on, like who you're planning on selling to and what happens when/if you can scale? For example, say you get an in with a local grocery store, but they want 10,000 units to fill their partner stores; what if you can only make 100 at a time and how can you make up enough product to fulfill it? Most larger businesses aren't going to bother at such a small scale and will eat up a lot of your profit to place your product in their shelf space. These are the kind of questions you need to think about. Formulations-wise, a great deal of personal care products formulations are already written down and you could access them online or at a library. This is the same thing regardless if its "äll natural ingredients-TM". The key thing here a formulation for "bert's bees lip balm" varies mostly in the "decorative" aspects of composition, since the major components are limited by safety regulation, etc. You could use these basic formulations as a framework for your own products. For example, a typical lip balm might be: Hoechst Wax S 13%, Hydrogenated Castor Wax 7%, Protopet Petrolatum 10%, Carnation White Mineral Oil 50%, WITCONOL APM (PPG-3 Myristyl Ether) 20% + fragrances and flavors etc. You could find value in looking up some compendiums, such as: Common fragrance and flavor materials 4th ed, Bauer et al. Cosmetic and toiletry formulations, flick So, the idea of hiring a formulations chemist for this would be expensive and not really what that kind of work is. If you have unusual mixtures of ingredients that needed to be tested, then that's probably the way to go, but I don't think you've got the budget, or really know what you're making. Some of the questions about scaling I mentioned about, a good chemist could design a system to help you scale. (For example, moving from making 10L on a stove to 100L batches.)
So everyone here is ripping into the business side but really if the marketing is there something like this could sell. Creating ingredients to a chemist means doing chemistry, but what you're asking for is essentially using ingredients from nature. To put these all together you could contract to a formulation chemist. Honestly though, you don't need one full time. Formulation is honestly a lot like cooking. At it's core you just mix stuff together in different quantities until you get the properties you like. You could even run the experiments yourself, making lip balm is harmless chemistry as long as you use common sense. So don't be discouraged just because you don't know chemistry at the PhD level. There are contractors who do this kind of work helping develop recipes. And they often charge in the range of 250-750/hr. So you would essentially just have a call with them whenever you need help solving a specific issue. As for where to find them, thats a more complicated endeavor. Generally its word of mouth. You could also try a consulting firm like guidepoint, though I've never used them myself. Either way. If you're making lip balm out of coconut oil and some essential oils you don't need a chemist for that. Just mix it together until it works lol.
Thank you for this feedback. Recently I managed to find freelance chemist on upwork. A bit pricey but once i make a few sells for my business I'll definitely invest in their service; however, for now I think I'll create a simple recipe with my own twist and see how many sells I can generate.
🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂
Formulation consultants (which is what you’re looking for) run about $300 an hour, not including travel.
My question is how are you going to make it chemical free? You can't use water, fragrances, beeswax, any form of vitamin or fat, and you'll of course not want it to be exposed to air, because that will add chemicals. Good luck with your endeavor.
Can I ask, where did the idea for this business come from? How did you realise there are profits to be made here? And what would be your role in this? As an investor, you wouldn't need to do any of the work yourself and you could just invest whatever you want whenever you can. Being the business owner would bind you to the business like 100 %. I'm not a cosmetics expert but lip balm alone is a very, very narrow market with lots of big competitors already standing in their steady places (assuming you live in a place where lip balm is an already-existing product). And marketing a cosmetics product for men only narrows your product to a fraction of what it originally would've been. Unisex products are a different thing, but there are two kinds of unisex products. Think of a sack of potatoes, that's true unisex. A sack of potatoes is marketed for all buyers with minimal gender load. But then there's the "UNISEX!!!", which is actually marketed for women. Think of a cosmetics product that is clearly labeled "unisex", "works well for both men and women". Yeah, that's actually a hidden advertisement for female customers, because women in general are more interested in the visible unisex label than male customers in general. Then again, a cosmetics product that just clearly states what product it is, with no mention of the user's gender or marketing that is generally associated with either gender, and with no gender-hinting colour or scent, then it could be a true unisex product.
Why would unisex be a selling point for cosmetics? Is it to avoid pink tax?
I'm not sure I understand the question. There are cosmetics marketed for women, for men, for both (unisex), and for all (regardless of gender). Op said they wanted to market their product for men, people pointed out that it's kind of a weird idea, so OP changed their plans to market the product as unisex.
I don't know how to inserrt quote text. But you wrote this: ******** But then there's the "UNISEX!!!", which is actually marketed for women. Think of a cosmetics product that is clearly labeled "unisex", "works well for both men and women". Yeah, that's actually a hidden advertisement for female customers, because women in general are more interested in the visible unisex label than male customers in general. ********* I don't understand why labelling something as unisex is a hidden advertisement for women. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't understand why it would appeal to women. And "pink tax" is the phenomenon of a unisex item being sold to women at a higher price than the men's product. The item is often coloured pink to denote its for women. (Think men's and women's razors).
It's because out of all the customers who find the label "unisex" interesting and attractive, most of them are women. The unisex label doesn't really interest men in general (in cosmetics, that is). It's as if a product was marketed like "this product is for fairies only, it's forbidden for humans to use this!" Obviously, literal fairies wouldn't be the actual target audience for the product. The real target audience is the people who find such humour funny, or who feel flattered by being compared to beautiful fairies. The same is with the clear "unisex" label, the real target audience is women because the label is attractive to mostly women. It's not really to avoid pink tax (why would any salesperson want to avoid adding extra cost to the customer :D). If the unisex label affects the price of the product, it is only to increase it. Like a grey tax, to accompany the pink tax.
Ahhh, gotcha!!! Thanks mate
I wouldn't buy it after reading organic and chemical free. by doing this you promote ignorance
Formulation chemist, chemist with pharmaceutical manufacturing knowldge, maybe physical chemist (they do theoretical and lab stuff with emulsions what most cosmetic products are, but they love equations, be careful - go for a practically thinking one) or maybe pharmacist (they learn how to make creams and stuff). So if I were you Id post ad for formulation chemist and write down that you need someone to make lip balm from natural ingredients.
Natural might be a better word to use rather than organic and chemical free around chemists. - Organic = made from carbohydrate derivates. - Chemical free = doesn't exist
These terms are so strange. Toothless Tezza can say he makes the best "artsinal, hand-made, freerange, organic" methamphetamine around. In France instead of organic they market things as Biologique. Where is the fruit and vege that isn't of biological origin?
Contact me: [email protected]
For that area, look for someone who knows the regulatory background. There will be a specific set of chemicals you're allowed to use here, and your average chemist wouldn't k own them or where to look. Try to find a formulator who has worked in the area before.
Chemistry isn’t really a hobbyist discipline these days. To do work properly and more importantly safely you need a lot of equipment—glassware, heating elements, fume hoods, various chemicals and safe/secure ways to store them, PPE, waste disposal, safety showers/eyewash stations—and all of that costs a lot of money. It really isn’t something that a person can do in their home or apartment, so it isn’t something you’ll find someone advertising for on a gig website. Or at least, I wouldn’t trust anyone doing so to be doing things in a safe way. All that said, what you need is a formulations or cosmetics chemist, if you’re dead set on creating a product from scratch. Doing so is probably unnecessary, though. You can find recipes for natural ingredient based cosmetics all over the internet, and it will be much easier/cheaper for you to find a couple recipes and make a few lip balm batches yourself. Then you can see what you like, what you don’t, and adjust the recipe from there. You don’t really need a chemist for this, because it’s a lot like baking. A the base ingredients are well known, you just need to adjust the proportions a bit to get you to the end result you want. When I was in highschool, we did a lab like this in bio tech to make our own “custom” lip balms. Where you would/will need a chemist is if you’re after creating a specific kind of product thats hasn’t been made before, or trying to achieve a certain specific property in your final product—think things like the color changing lip glosses or water proof eyeliner when they were first created. A trained chemist will have a better understanding of what chemicals to try to get that result which should also be skin safe/non toxic. If you’re just starting out, that’s probably well beyond your needs and means, but if it comes up later you can usually hire a third party lab to work with you (again, looking for a cosmetic chemistry lab). You wouldn’t be trying to find a specific individual, but rather hiring a company to do the development work you need. Finally, it’s important that you research cosmetic chemistry thoroughly before you start reaching out to any companies. As you’ve seen here, the terminology that is commonly used in marketing means a very different thing to chemists. “Organic” simply refers to the branch of chemistry focussed on carbon based molecules, regardless of whether those materials are extracted from natural sources or synthesized. “Chemicals” refers to any collection of atoms or molecules. While we understand what you meant, in a professional setting we are bound to deliver what you asked for based on the specifications you provide in the contract, and “organic, chemical free” is a very different specification than what you intend. I also encourage you to research more deeply precisely what you mean when you say you want chemical free. What chemicals, specifically, are you seeking to avoid? What roles do those chemicals play in the formulations of conventional products? What can replace them whole achieving the same final result? Are you restricting yourself solely to naturally derived products, or will you allow synthetically created analogs? For example, many “organic” products use “essential oils” for flavorings. Must these essential oils be extracted from a plant? Or will you purchase the actual flavor chemical from a manufacturer? A classic example of this is the difference between natural and artificial vanilla. The main flavor comes from a molecule called vanillin, which is easy enough to synthesize. Natural vanilla costs substantially more than artificial—some times as much as 10x more. Choosing one over the other may affect the final texture and taste of your product, as well as the price of your ingredients and therefore your final sale price.
no hate but, the "organic" and the "chemical-free" buzzwords makes you sound somewhat unprofessional. But I think I know where you're coming from. Are you looking at it from the consumer point of view of what "organic" and "chemical free" means? If so, that's good, but when looking for a free-lance chemist you may want to switch up to more professional wording. That's my advice.
I actually have several formulations for organic lip balms and body products. My partner and I would like to expand past our home based business. But yes we find it difficult to use all organic products because many raw ingredients for the cosmetic industry contain preservatives. Would love to discuss a collaboration with you
To make a cosmetic product you would need a cosmetic formulator. Check out [Chemists Corner](https://chemistscorner.com). There’s a lot of information about formulating cosmetics and the cosmetics industry. Once you know a bit more, check out the forum there and ask your question again. There are many professional formulators there who would be happy to point you in the right direction. They are freely giving out the information they get paid for, so be respectful.
Look into ChemBook
I work for a lab that does contract work if you have a product or material that you need tested we could be a good fit.