Try waterproof blush and mess-free face masks at this cosmetics showcase
Leila Deravi’s cosmetics chemistry course is holding a showcase of the products they concocted this semester.
Catherine Crombie has tried dozens of makeup products over, but has yet to find the holy grail of blush. Liquid versions require too much blending and sweat off quickly, while powders tend to leave her cheeks oversaturated with color. She often found herself having to reapply whenever she went to the beach and besides, none of them came with SPF which she knew she needed to wear.
But the 22-year-old fourth-year cell and molecular biology student recently found that the right formula might involve beeswax. Combined with vitamin E, zinc oxide and a silicone base, it creates a cream that goes on smooth, lasts all day and protects against the sun.
As part of their course, “Cosmetic Chemistry: Design and Innovation,” Crombie and her classmates are challenged to make their own personal care products, using what they’ve learned about the chemistry and biology of commonly used ingredients over the course of the semester.
Crombie and a team of three other classmates came up with an easy-to-apply and long-lasting blush that spreads easily on the skin and provides just the right amount of color and water/SPF-resistance to last throughout the day.
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Makeup and skincare enthusiasts can try out Crombie’s blush (which comes in four shades: berry, papaya, amber rose and toasted vanilla) at the Cosmetic Chemistry Product Showcase on April 9 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Mugar 134. The event will feature eight different beauty products made by students of associate chemistry and chemical biology professor Leila Deravi.
The showcase is the culmination of Deravi’s course, where students learn how personal care products are made before crafting their own.
Students spend the first half of the course learning about the chemistry and biology of cosmetic ingredients, the regulations (or lack thereof) imposed on them by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the way they’re marketed by companies. The students try their hand at making basic products and then apply what they learned to craft their own beauty items that they then showcase to the community.
The process is overseen by Deravi, who in addition to being an expert in chemical biology, also founded her own skincare line, Seaspire, to treat cosmetic and skin conditions.
For example, Crombie and her team’s first stab at a cream blush was way too thin in texture. Deravi suggested they add beeswax, which the class had learned was as a natural thickening agent. Crombie was worried at first about this creating a waxy solid — not what her team wanted — but when they added a bit of beeswax to their next rejiggered formula, they found “the perfect consistency,” she said.
“It was cool to see the theory that we had learned in class apply and work in real time,” she added.
When people enter the showcase, they’ll walk through a full beauty regimen from start-to-finish, beginning with sampling one group’s combo body butter/shower gel meant to cleanse and moisturize the skin in one go and finishing with another team’s nail oil/stain for a quick manicure before a night out. Each of the tables at the showcase will have samples, a use guide and a card with the product’s ingredients.
“It’s meant to be an experience,” Deravi told Northeastern Global News [NGN]. “It’s pretty comprehensive for what one would do in their day.”
This is the second year Deravi has taught the course and held the accompanying showcase. Last year, the class made a line of products from color-changing nail polishes to a wax- and oil-based cream that prevents windburn. This year, Deravi said the 34 students in the class honed in on a more specific theme of cosmetics that can be used to “renew and refresh” before or after a busy day.
“We really wanted to target busy individuals,” Annabel Cleary, a fourth-year bioengineering and biochemistry major in this year’s class, told NGN.
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Cleary, 22, combined green tea and strawberry extracts to make a bright pink face mask. Unlike some other products on the market, this mask dries quickly and peels off with minimal mess, leaving skin feeling soft and smelling of strawberries. She made the product for students who spend their whole day at co-op or in class and only have a few minutes to freshen up in the evening before going to a networking event or meeting up with friends.
“That was the storyline that all of us [in the class] were interested in,” Cleary said of the audience for the showcase items.
Many of the students this year, like Crombie, designed products based on where they personally saw a hole in the market. Grace Marnon, a fifth-year student studying biology, told NGN that her bathroom shelves are crowded with bottles of hair oils and serums promising shinier, more hydrated hair in just a few pumps or drops. But the 22-year-old finds most of these products just leave her freshly washed long, straight brown hair feeling greasy and stringy.
She ended up concocting a serum with aloe vera and grapeseed oil, which she knew to be hydrating, along with caffeine and niacinamide that stimulate blood flow to help hair growth. The resulting formula provides lightweight moisture without weighing hair down and it smells surprisingly like bergamot, Marnon said.
“The complexity of the designs have been different from last year,” Deravi said. “People took seedlings of the trainings we did in the first part of the lab and went far beyond…which is cool to see.”
