The Secret to Formula Revival

Dear Valerie: I have a product from the 1990s that I really love and would like to replicate. There’s one little problem—I don’t have the actual product, only the ingredient list. Where do I start?

—BACK TO THE FORMULA

Dear Back, 

The good news is I wouldn’t worry too much about not having the physical product on hand because the bottle you would have probably wouldn’t be representative of the formula when it was freshly in market anyway. The even better news is that if you don’t have the product, it’s probable no one has the product. People’s memories aren’t that great, so you just need to get the look, feel and performance of the product in the ballpark. 

What people do remember is the fragrance. If your intent is to capture the nostalgic customer, I recommend to nail the fragrance as close as possible. Now you may say, “Well, that’s a bummer. I don’t actually have the product. How am I going to duplicate the fragrance?” Don’t worry, I think there’s a fragrance house that can help you out. Fragrance houses have been duplicating on-market products for decades, and they keep a repository of all their formulations.

My recommendation is to collaborate with one of them to search through their archives and see if the fragrance can be recreated. The challenge may be that fragrance regulations have vastly changed since the 1990s and the fragrance is probably no longer compliant. In my opinion, fragrances become unusable antiques after a handful of years. Anyway, a good fragrance house can get it in the vein or pretty close. 

If you’re not trying to capture the same consumer base, it must be that you really like the performance and just want to bring it to a modern market. This is actually a good position to be in because I feel there is less pressure to identically match a product that people probably don’t remember the finer nuances of performance.

In this case, you have all the information you need to get started, like you would any other reverse engineering project. Group together ingredients that are obviously part of blends, find the one percent line. Peek through old literature from (or even talk to!) raw material suppliers for ingredients you think you can identify. Even try trolling old patent literature, if it is a product from a larger company.

Another great resource? Chemists who have been around in the industry a long time! Use common sense on what pH or viscosity outcomes should be. Not a lot of formulations are that unique and you probably can get it really close in the first couple of tries. 

For more answers to your questions from Valerie George, click here.

Valerie George

[email protected]

Valerie George is a cosmetic chemist, science communicator, educator, leader, and avid proponent of transparency in the beauty industry. She works on the latest research in hair color and hair care at her company, Simply Formulas, and is the co-host of The Beauty Brains podcast. You can find her on Instagram at @cosmetic_chemist or showcasing her favorite ingredients to small brands and home formulators at simply-ingredients.com