The year-long program “focuses on product formulation and cosmetic production while emphasizing the industry's evolving regulatory environment,” affirms the college website.
In the lab
The Cosmetic Science Co-op Program (as it’s officially titled) centers on cosmetics and personal care product development. Courses teach formulation chemistry and offer concepts and strategies for working with raw materials all the way through to finished products.
CSPC is billed as a combination of art, science, and business. And the college’s program description notes that “the product development process, global regulations/challenges, sales and marketing, biological systems and claims substantiation as well as sensory evaluation are key topics within the program.”
Find out more about the Cosmetic Science Co-op Program on the Seneca College site.
Across the hall
Seneca College already has a program for students aspiring to work as makeup artists, beauty advisors, marketing assistants, and the like. The Cosmetic Techniques and Management program takes 2 years to complete and requires field placement for graduation.
Classes address “aspects of the cosmetic business, from practical makeup techniques and skin care analysis to marketing and management with a focus on the bottom line,” according to the online product description.
School choice
In Canada, university-level training for cosmetic science is rare, but not so regionally. In North America there are numerous programs.
NYU announced a new one earlier this year. A master’s degree program offered by the University’s Tandon School of Engineering focuses on translational surface engineering, a chemical engineering discipline that’s all about molecules and nanoparticles. After leaning the ins and outs of material interaction, cosmetics is just one of the career fields students of this program will be going into.