Are Cosmetic Science Qualifications Valid Without a Chemistry Degree?
There seems to be an ongoing debate within the cosmetics industry about qualifications, particularly around who can call themselves a cosmetic chemist and whether qualifications gained outside of university are actually valid.
Strap in, this is a long one!
For a lot of people, the traditional route into chemistry or cosmetic science is university. You would do A-levels or equivalent qualifications and then go on to study chemistry or another science based degree. You may even get work experience or additional education at university such as a Masters or PhD. But for some people like myself, coming to it later in life (I sound 100! Let me put away my walking frame and bifocals and tell you at time of writing this I'm 46 - just turned!), your options are limited and there seems to be a fair bit of disrespect for the options available at that stage.
I wanted to to address some possible reasons why in this blog and to vent a little if I’m being honest!
If you want to work in the cosmetic industry as a cosmetic chemist for a big brand then theres a 99.9% chance they will expect you to have some sort of science degree, mostly preferentially, a chemistry degree. There is no getting around that. However, as many degree level cosmetic chemists themselves have said, the things you learn in your chemistry degree will not be that useful to you in your career as a cosmetic chemist and that there is a lot more learning to do to specialise and therefore most is done on the job via experience. I do have reference for these comments, but don't like to namedrop.
Don’t get me wrong though, they are absolutely saying to work as a cosmetic chemist for a company you will need a degree and that is the route to go, but there is so much to learn with cosmetic chemistry beyond a chemistry degree.
If you are 18 and know exactly what you want to do, university may be a perfectly realistic option.
It can look very different when you discover an interest in cosmetic science in your 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond.
You may like me already have a full-time job, a business, children (I don’t have these!), a mortgage and other financial commitments. You also may not have the required entry qualifications for a chemistry degree because the subjects you chose at school decades ago reflected an entirely different career path.
For transparency, I did Art and business at A-level and went on to do Art at university with the intention to do set design and prop work in movies. I even did a work experience stint at Nickelodeon in London in the late 90s. It’s an extremely difficult industry to get into though, unless you know people or get spotted, so I floated around doing various things whilst figuring out what to do with my life. Ended up as a hairdresser and hair extensionist- who know’s why, I didn’t enjoy it much and that led to starting a business selling hair extensions.
I did that for a long while until the pandemic shut the hair industry down and I decided to pivot to my hobby, cosmetics. I trialed various things, making, selling, digital goods and then regulatory services and YouTube which became what I do now. I started studying to become a cosmetic chemist, but on my own due the aforementioned issues such as time, family, full time work, but there was also the the financial reality. Going back to university for several years simply wasn’t an option. Even where part-time study is available, there is still the cost of tuition and the enormous amount of time required alongside work and family commitments.
But I’m stubborn and didn’t want to be denied what I wanted to learn, so I found a way to get qualifications that suit what I do and who I choose to work with.
There is an important distinction though.
A diploma, certificate or specialist cosmetic science course does not suddenly become equivalent to a BSc or MSc in Chemistry simply because it contains chemistry. I am highly aware of this.
A chemistry degree provides a much broader and deeper scientific education. Degree students study areas of chemistry that someone taking a vocational cosmetic formulation qualification may never encounter in anything approaching the same depth.
That education represents years of study, laboratory work, examinations and assessment. It deserves to be recognised as such.
Someone completing an alternative cosmetic science qualification shouldn't pretend that they have completed the same education, for example the Institute of Personal Care Science diploma is a recognised qualification and allows you to legitimately call yourself a Cosmetic Chemist upon completion. I say legitimately, as anyone could say they were a cosmetic chemist, as there is no official regulation, but I believe that titles should be earned.
For me to call myself Cosmetic Chemist after doing that diploma for a year or less and a degree student spend 4+ years of blood, sweat and tears earning their chemistry Bsc and then finding a job or placement to earn that title would be unfair. So here is where I say, use the titles you are given, but be transparent about their origin so as not to take away from those who did do a degree.
But equally, that doesn't make alternative education worthless. A chemistry degree does not teach you cosmetic chemistry unless specialised and thus cosmetic chemistry is often learnt on the job after the degree or via further courses such as the IPCS or SCS.
Cosmetic formulation draws heavily upon chemistry, but its educational focus can be quite different from studying chemistry as a broad academic discipline.
A cosmetic formulator needs to understand subjects such as emulsions, surfactant systems, rheology, ingredient functionality, preservation, microbiology, pH, stability, compatibility, manufacturing processes and the behaviour of complex mixtures.
You need to understand why an emulsion might separate, why a surfactant system suddenly loses viscosity, why a preservative may become ineffective, why an active ingredient might destabilise a formula or why changing one seemingly insignificant ingredient can completely alter the finished product. There is science behind all of this.
A chemistry degree gives someone a much deeper foundation in chemistry upon which specialist cosmetic knowledge can be built. A vocational cosmetic science programme approaches the subject from the other direction: concentrating on the science specifically required for cosmetic formulation.
There is an enormous difference between completing a substantial programme of study in cosmetic science and taking a short online course that teaches you how to follow a handful of recipes.
The existence of poor-quality online courses shouldn't invalidate every non-degree route and legitimate accredited online courses and diplomas which are audited and peer reviewed regularly to maintain their standards and recognised status. They don’t get this for pedalling misinformation, they get this for being good at what they do and providing valuable and accurate information.
There are legitimate specialist education providers offering structured study, practical formulation work, scientific theory and formal assessment.
For example, the Institute of Personal Care Science offers structured programmes specifically within cosmetic formulation and personal care science. That qualification should be described accurately for what it is a vocational diploma and it shouldn't be inflated into a chemistry degree.
But neither should somebody's achievement automatically be dismissed simply because they didn't attend a traditional university.
I myself am in the process of finally taking the official diploma with them to gain the Cosmetic Chemist title. After years of self study, working with cosmetic chemists, toxicologists and cosmetic safety assessors in the industry and finally being able to afford to do it.
Now having an insight into the course I can say that it is a lot more in depth and ‘sciencey’ than I was expecting, in a good way.
Belinda herself presents the information well and as a qualified teacher myself (yes, I also did a teaching qualification!) I can see how well she blends the different ways of teaching to ensure that no-matter how you learn, you will be able to follow it and get everything out of it that you set out to.
Having self taught and gained experience from the people I network with and work with day to day, I’ve found the course very manageable and have whizzed through a fair amount in a short time, but that’s not to say I haven’t also learnt a lot. I’ve learn lots that I didn’t know, I’ve learnt better ways to go about things and I’ve learnt the fundamental chemistry (though obviously stripped down from degree level) to understand what I’m making and why I process it the way I do.
I’m finding it very enjoyable and it’s great that things like this exist to give those of us too late or unable to do a degree a chance at doing something they love professionally.
For me, it was mainly for myself to be honest, as a personal achievement, but also for credibility for the regulatory and cometic safety and formulation work I do daily for my business.
Our safety assessor partner has a degree in Pharma and is a qualified cosmetic safety assessor, so when you pair my cosmetic chemist diploma with her knowledge we make a good team who can produce some very thorough and well researched reports.
So back to the cosmetic chemist title issue…
This is where I think transparency matters enormously.
If you have completed a qualification that awards you the title or qualification of Cosmetic Chemist, I don't think you should have to pretend you haven't earned it. However, I also think you have a responsibility to be clear about where and how you qualified.
Simply putting: Cosmetic Chemist after your name as I mentioned earlier can understandably create the impression that you hold a university chemistry degree.
Instead state the qualification you actually hold and the institution through which you got it.
There is nothing embarrassing about saying that you qualified through an alternative educational route. In fact, if you believe your qualification has value, you should be comfortable telling people where you got it.
Transparency protects both sides of this debate. It respects the degree-qualified chemist who has completed years of university-level chemistry while also respecting the person who has undertaken legitimate specialist education through another route. Each side should not take away from the others hard work and achievements. But I also understand why degree-qualified chemists can become frustrated. I’ve always been a very logical person. I can see things from both sides… the world isn’t black and white, it’s grey. You have to see the grey to get proper perspective.
The internet hasn't exactly helped this situation. To be frank it hasn’t really helped anything. You probably think I had AI write this blog because of paragraph spacing, the way I word things, the punctuation. I didn’t, and hopefully the odd grammatical error and spelling mistake will help convince you. People accuse me all the time because I used to used bullet points a lot. Its frustrating!
Anyway, I digress. There is an extraordinary amount of cosmetic misinformation online.
Social media has made it possible for somebody to make a few products in their kitchen, complete a very short course and immediately begin teaching others about cosmetic chemistry.
I mean I’m perhaps guilty of this with my YouTube channel, but the difference is I never claimed to be an expert. My bio and disclaimer always stated I was self-taught sharing my learning journey, including my mistakes. I’ve actually taken down many old videos as I want to redo them as ‘Roasts’ soon… not that they were wrong per-say, but there are improvements to be made.
Unfortunately though, there are others who do claim to be something they aren’t and charge considerable amounts for courses and those people don’t help with the stigma.
We see claims about “chemical-free” cosmetics, unsafe preservation advice, misunderstandings about pH (don’t get me started on this!), incorrect information about essential oils, confusion around regulations and formulas being sold without appropriate consideration of stability or microbiological safety, and then small businesses thinking they’ve out-formulated (yes that’s a word!) Big brands by simply whipping some Shea butter and they think they can claim it cures all sorts of conditions with no testing or proof. No. No wonder degree qualified chemists get annoyed!
I can understand why someone who has spent years studying chemistry finds that frustrating.
And when a small number of people exaggerate their qualifications, it inevitably creates suspicion towards everyone who has taken a non-traditional route. But that doesn't mean everyone following an alternative pathway should be treated as though they are pretending to be something they're not.
That brings me to professional gatekeeping and professional arrogance…
There is a difference between protecting professional standards and simply looking down on people. Someone having more education than another person doesn't make the other person's education worthless. Nor does knowledge belong exclusively to people who were fortunate enough to follow the traditional educational route at the traditional age.
I agree that we should absolutely challenge misinformation. We should challenge people who misrepresent their qualifications. We should challenge unsafe formulation practices and people teaching subjects they don't properly understand. But I don't think we should discourage someone who can’t realistically do a degree but wanted to better themselves and seek out the information in other ways. Self study and alternative routes and the desire to learn should always be commended. Surely studying is better than choosing not to learn at all. I mean I could just sit on social media all day looking at cats… oooo cats!
But I won’t.
But they’re so cute…
Ok… no… science.
There shouldn't be any shame in saying “I'm still learning” and one of the things studying cosmetic science has taught me is just how much there is to know. Learning more doesn't make you realise how clever you are. Quite often, it does the opposite. You begin to realise how enormous the subject actually is. There will always be somebody who understands organic chemistry better than you. Somebody who knows more about polymers. Somebody specialising in microbiology, toxicology, analytical chemistry, or regulatory affairs (hello!)
Even highly qualified scientists specialise.
The important thing is knowing the limits of your own knowledge. I would far rather hear somebody say, “I don't know enough about that yet” than watch them confidently provide an answer simply because they feel their job title means they should know everything. In fact admitting you don’t know something or made a mistake takes guts and it actually earns trust. At least with me it does. It shows me this person is willing to admit fault and show me that they can be trusted to tell the truth and admit when they are wrong.
I think we sometimes treat education as though there are only two possibilities:
You have a chemistry degree and therefore you are properly educated or you don't, and therefore everything you have learned is somehow meaningless. There is a huge amount of space between those two extremes, or as I called it earlier, the grey!
Someone might undertake a specialist cosmetic science diploma because their ambition is to formulate products for their own small cosmetics business. Another person might want to work as a professional formulation chemist for a major multinational company, where a relevant science degree may be an essential employment requirement. Someone else may study cosmetic formulation first and later decide to pursue a chemistry degree.
These people have different career goals, so it makes sense that their educational requirements will be different too.
An alternative qualification may provide exactly the education required for one person's intended career while being completely insufficient for another.
Employers are also entitled to decide which qualifications they recognise for a particular role.
For me, the path I’ve taken is actually enough, but I would like to have the respect it deserves. I am capable, I know what I need to know and some of my formulas have been commended by top chemists and toxicologists I very much respect, so I know I have enough knowledge to do my job, create great products for myself and my clients and help our customers with formulation and regulatory issues on a daily basis.
So ultimately, if you’ve got this far, I think the answer is transparency.
Don't make your qualification sound bigger than it is or imply you have a degree if you don’t.
Don't assume completing any course means you've finished learning. But equally, don't allow somebody else to convince you that education only counts if you followed exactly the same route they did. If university is accessible to you and appropriate for the career you want, it can provide an incredible scientific foundation. I do wish I’d found this sooner and gone that route, but I didn’t so I’ve put in the work to find the best and most suitable route for me and I’m pleased I did.
If the route you want to take isn’t accessible, find the best legitimate education you can. Research the provider. Look at what is actually taught. Study beyond the course material. Read textbooks and scientific literature. Learn from people who know more than you. Keep questioning what you think you know and most importantly, be honest about your qualifications and experience.
There is no need to borrow somebody else's credentials when you can be proud of the ones you genuinely earned. For those of us who discovered cosmetic science later in life, education may look a little different. Different doesn't have to mean equivalent. But it doesn't have to mean worthless either.