How the science of sensory evaluation fits into your everyday skin care routine

The science behind Sensory Evaluation of skin care products involves many of our senses. The look, the touch the feel of the product on our fingertips, on our skin has become a major requirement in determining if we will buy it again or not.

The way the product looks, feels, performs, effects the mood, and creates a special “me time” experience. The feel of a skin cream has as much power as the scent of a product has immense powers that trigger purchasing behavior, and helps to create a strong brand loyalty when introduced as part of product launch marketing strategy.

This has led to an actual science in sensory evaluation where studies are performed in order to obtain full sensory profile of the cosmetic product. Research on sensory evaluation needs to be linked to research on product aesthetics, product meaning, and product emotions. Cosmetic ingredients are developed for their technical functions- but also for specific sensory targets.

Say we want to develop a new anti-aging serum, since the definition of a serum is not very precise, and the palette is therefore quite broad, ranging from melting jellies melting with the skin to nutritive oils. What, in this case, are the criteria that define a serum? Rather, they are qualities related to its use, such as.

Viscous liquid that makes it possible to put these highly concentrated in appropriate packaging – pumps, stylets, droppers.

It also has to be easy to apply, melt fast and have rapid penetration to give an impression of “fusion” of the active ingredients with the skin. It needs to have a non-greasy residual film, allowing the application in superimposition of a day cream.

This determines the scientist requirements for choosing the right ingredients to fit the profile of that particular serum.

The following criteria are usually evaluated by a panel of highly trained and qualified people, who know that a truly soft after feel cream means that it will feel like talcum powder and therefore will receive a 10 in the scoring ladder of 0 to 10

1. Visual appearance of the formulation in the jar (gloss, lightness, transparency and water-like appearance)
2. Feel of the cream in the jar (firmness, slipperiness, peaking and stickiness)
3. Skin feel during absorption (ease of spreading, cooling effect, absorbency, thickness, rich feel and wetness)
4. Skin feel after absorption (gloss, silkiness, slipperiness, film residue, rich feel and stickiness
   in the end the aim is to have our end user experience the cream or gel the way it was supposed to be felt.

Here are a couple of results from our two bestselling creams and lotions. Based on what our customers tell us, we know we have hit the mark of what they want

Here is a video of our owner explaining sensory evaluation: