Describe your current job
I make products—shampoos, conditioners, lotions, hairsprays, lipstick—you name it, I have made it. I have spent many years "at the bench" (meaning doing hands-on product creation). In my kind of job, once you know how to make a hair conditioner it is easy to make one for clothing—called fabric softener—and I have also discovered that house paint and face makeup have a lot in common. Sometimes our Marketing group will specify a product that they want—a light SPF 15 sunscreen that will come out of a tube, for example, and I will make exactly that kind of product. Sometimes I have my own ideas that I can just make, and the company will decide if they like it enough to sell it.
My job also involves all the other "parts" of making a product. I work with our Research Hair and Skin Salon, where hair stylists, for example, will try a new hair color product on models to see how it works. There is also safety and microbiology testing. I also work with our claims department, where we will do tests with machines to determine if a certain product helps to mend or damage hair. There is more testing to make sure the product will come out of the right package and not break down over time. Another part of the process is scale-up in our Pilot Lab, where products are taken from being made in a small beaker up to the point where we make 5000 gallons at a time. Just to give you an idea of what that means, a 5000-gallon tank is about as big as my first apartment and will fill more than 50,000 bottles of shampoo from a single batch. Imagine making spaghetti sauce in a pan on your stove and then working up to the point where you could make enough to feed 100,000 people at once—it’s about the same kind of thing.
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
I love getting my hands into "stuff"—creams, lotions, perfumes, powders—I leave as often as I can with my hands full of products. I love to mix and create things that I’ve never done before—the ability to do anything at all is wonderful, and if I can just let myself go and forget all of the reasons why something shouldn’t work, it results in some great inventions.
What do you enjoy the least about your job?
I am not so crazy about the paperwork part of what I do. As we all become more and more of a single global community, the need to fulfill requirements from many different countries grows and grows, and those requirements are all providing all sorts of documents. I realize it is important, and do the best job I can, but I also look for ways to streamline and automate a lot of that work.
What key events in your childhood most influenced your current career?
There are two things I remember. First, my mom was constantly using a large saucepan to sterilize bottles for my twin baby sisters. Over time, the bottom of the pan became encrusted with a hard deposit. I decided that I would try to figure out how to clean that pan, so I started with different soaps and detergents, then went on to salt, and then to bleach used on white clothing. Nothing was working. So I dug into a set of science encyclopedias and found out that acid would remove the deposit – which was from boiling hard water – and that vinegar is diluted acid. So I soaked the pan in vinegar - which did not work – and eventually boiled it. Success!! The hard water deposits broke up and floated into the vinegar. I was able to completely clean the pan. My point is – my parents supported every one of these experiments and made sure that I wouldn’t harm myself or anyone else. But imagine what our house was like on a hot summer day while I was boiling vinegar!! They were very tolerant and supportive.
The second event involved a teacher. Our 6th grade class took a standardized math test one day, and I really didn’t think much about it. A few days later our teacher announced the results, and it turned out that I had done very well. What is important is that my teacher made a very important announcement, with much excitement, to tell us the results of the test. He made me feel as if I had accomplished something wonderful – and from that day forward I was sure that I could conquer any sort of math that I tried. He had given me the priceless gift of confidence.
Do you have any funny stories about lab experiences or adventures in the field?
Oh boy – there are lots of different kinds of things. There is the time I was working very late on a product that I was very excited about. I ran out of an ingredient that was a lot like Vaseline Petroleum Jelly and needed to go into the manufacturing plant to fill my lab container. I was all alone, and I opened the barrel and leaned into it to scoop up some stuff. The barrel was almost empty so I had to lean in very far and wound up falling headfirst into the barrel, completely covering my head with this goop. Once I washed it out, my hair felt great – I learned something valuable that day (besides the obvious part about not leaning too far into a barrel while you are alone in a large building).
Sometimes we get letters from famous people who use our products. Once, for example, we received a very nice letter from Paul McCartney telling us he liked one of our products that just happened to be mine. Since I am a fan of his, that was a fun letter to get.
Then there is the day that I tried a new body masque and wound up dying several people’s skin a beautiful green with ground-up seaweed.
Do you play any sports or have any favorite hobbies/special interests?
I love the cold weather and spend as much time out of doors as possible skiing (downhill and cross-country) as well as heading out on snow shoes. I live in Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, and I am lucky enough to live at a lake year round, so summers are spent on the water. I was on the rowing crew in my college days and still love being in any kind of boat. Because I spend so much time in the sun and have very, very fair skin, I always use a huge amount of sunscreen. Because of my career, I am also lucky that I don’t have to buy it – I can just make it if I’d like.
What contribution would you most like to make to science in the next five years?
I would like to find a way to eliminate irritating chemical preservatives from personal care products (shampoos, conditioners, lotions) while at the same time protecting the product and the user from the harmful mold and bacteria that are the result of not using preservatives.
More than that, I would like to find a sure-fire way to keep young women excited about math and science and at the same time find ways to maintain funding in public schools for these essential programs. That is a wonderful, lifetime aspiration.
Do you have any advice for an aspiring high school student who might want to pursue your career?
By all means, absorb as much science and math as you possibly can. See it for the gift that it is. Expose yourself to as much information as possible just to broaden your experience. And be ready to work hard! I don’t mean giving up holidays to be at your desk, but I do mean realizing that school gives you two valuable things: first - excellent basic grounding in math and science, and second – the ability to solve problems when you don’t know the answer. If you master both of these, there is nothing that you cannot accomplish.
There are a few courses in cosmetic chemistry that exist, but they should be taken after you have some experience in the industry. My suggestion would be, if you are interested in this kind of career, to find a company that would start your training at the bench, then help you take these courses. The information will be much more relevant if you have some background first. The most important thing to remember is that if you have a solid background in science, you can change careers if you feel as if you don’t really like what you are doing. Without that background, you might be stuck in a career that you don’t like.
What is the approximate salary range for your profession?
Minimum $40,000 / year for an entry-level chemist. There is no upper limit – it can go to the sky!
