Essential Online Resources for Personal Care Formulators

George Deckner

 

Whether you need to research patents, find materials data, order competitive products or just browse articles for inspiration, the internet can be a powerful tool to increase productivity. But with so much information at your fingertips, where do you start? The sites below are reliable resources that I use personally in my work and would recommend to fellow formulators.

ULProspector.com

Prospector is the top internet resource for quick access to personal care ingredient information and samples. I use it extensively for both purposes.

Dermstore.com

Dermstore provides product and active information. It claims to be the #1 internet site for skin and beauty information.

Drugstore.com

Drugstore.com is an excellent site to get information on US personal care products and to order competitive products.

Freepatentsonline.com

This useful site provides a wealth of patent information. Check out my article from earlier this year for more information on mining expired patents as a strategy for developing new IP / products.

The Society of Cosmetic Chemists

The SCC has developed a new digital archive. All issues going back to the first issue have been digitized and are online and fully searchable. While most of the archive is available to the public, only members can access issues from 2006 forward. You can access the archive by clicking here.

BASF Skincare Forum

The BASF Skincare Forum has excellent articles on a broad range of different personal care topics.

Ip.com

IP.com is a pubic web site that allows you to both search and post public disclosures. These public disclosures are used to create prior art. In addition to providing ease of use, the IP.com prior art database has extensive safe guarding measures to provide evidence of document integrity. They also date-stamp in the event you need to present at trial.

ELibrary Research

ELibrary Research allows you to search any topic using a database of current newspapers, magazines, books and more.

Encyclopedia Britannica

An online version of the encyclopedia is always a great resource!

Internet Public Library

ipl.com offers an exclusive collection of over 20,000 books.

Library of Congress

Easy to use reference catalog for accessing the Library of Congress collections.

Skinwhiteningscience.com

This useful site gives information about skin lightening science and ingredients. Topics covered include skin types, melaninsynthesis, pigmentary disorders, top skin-whitening agents, and skin-whitening agent types.

The Antimicrobial Index

This site is great for discovering newantimicrobials, cross referencing antimicrobial potencies, finding the most effective antimicrobial for your needs and locating literature relevant to your research.