Harry's Cosmeticology
By Dr Martin Reiger
Revised eighth edition now in two volumes
Vol.1, & Vol.2 2009
185 x 260 mm, 7.5" x 10.5"
Hardback, 522 and 444 pages
ISBN: 978-0-8206-0002-4
RRP £236.00
*Click here for international postage details
After a long period of being unavailable Harry’s Cosmeticology is back. This is the same edition (the eighth) as before but the book has now been split into two volumes.
Ralph Harry published Modern Cosmeticology in one modestly sized volume in 1940. Harry was an analyst, a cosmetic chemist and a founder member of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists of Great Britain (later to be called The Society of Cosmetic Scientists). The book covered, in less than 300 pages, almost the whole of cosmetic science with the deliberate exception of perfumery materials. It was not, however, the first or only book to cover cosmetics comprehensively: in the USA Maison G. deNavarre published his The Chemistry and Manufacture of Cosmetics in 1941 and in Britain Poucher’s Perfumes & Cosmetics had first appeared in 1923. Less well known, but even earlier was Askinson’s Perfumes and Cosmetics: Their Preparation and Manufacture, which had first appeared In 1892 in the USA and by 1922 had reached a fifth edition.
In the early 1940s, in wartime Britain, many cosmetic companies were diverted to making goods more essential to the war effort, and the British Government, recognizing the psychological value of “beauty” products, encouraged pharmacies to prepare skin creams and other such products. Companies that we now call surfactant manufacturers, saw the chance to supply blended products (or “proprietary emulsifying agents” as Harry described them): blends of fatty alcohols and esters with soaps and other anionic or nonionic surface-active materials. These materials contained all the components, except water, necessary to make an emulsion. It is easy, then, to understand the popularity of Harry’s book, which gave people with some scientific training, but not nessesarily in cosmetic science, the background of, and the knowledge to prepare a variety of cosmetic creams.
Further editions of this book followed, and in 1982 the seventh edition was published, now edited by two people (J.B. Wilkinson and R.J. Moore) and with seventeen contributors. The seventh edition is now very much out of date and a totally new edition, under the editorship of Dr Martin Rieger, has been prepared. The book has been written by an international team of experts in different fields and describes the latest developments in cosmetic chemistry and its industrial applications. Ralph Harry always provided background information on the body part before suggesting formulations, and this style has been continued in this book.
Contents
Volume 1, Part 1 is headed The Substrates and deals with the skin, hair, nail, eye and mouth.
Part 2 is titled Formulation Approaches and Requirements.
Part 3 deals with Common Ingredients and Processes, with chapters on surfactants, emulsions, preservatives, botanicals, and many other types of material.
Part 4 on Formulation and Performance discusses many skin care products, for example sunscreens, skin-cleansing products and shaving preparations.
Volume 2 continues with Part 4.
Part 5, which concludes the main section of book, is called The Manufacture of Cosmetics.
An index completes the book.