As many of you know, the cosmetics industry doesn’t love me and most companies treat me and my team like pariahs. While they send most beauty reporters gifts along with products it is a rare occasion that they even return my team’s phone calls. Given our work that‘s completely understandable and we rarely take offense (okay, sometimes we take offense, especially when the attacks are personal but that is the exception, not the rule).

Occasionally, there have been cosmetic companies that have not only been cordial and helpful but have gone out of their way to provide us with an abundance of information and access to their chemists, research, or product development managers. Olay, Neutrogena, once in awhile L’Oreal and a few others have been terrific. But now I want to add Trish McEvoy Ltd. to the list for going above and beyond to help us with the upcoming edition of Don’t Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me!

McEvoy’s company has been nothing less then respectful and patient with my team. Their responses are epic in scope, forthcoming, thorough, and on every level cooperative and generous. Wow!

Geri Emmett, Vice President of Marketing and Product Development, sent us this email message along with an extensive update of their products: “We are so lucky that we’re a small company, and that Trish is still our owner. Everything we create is with Trish’s direction and touch, and we are incredibly lucky that Trish’s husband is a dermatologist and that we have a Skincare Center here in New York City, from where our skincare collection is developed. As you know, we continue to come out with new, exciting, innovative launches season after season, and we look forward to sharing them with you!”

This from a company higher up that knows we don’t like all of their products. Trish McEvoy Ltd. is a company that believes in what they are doing and is beyond reproach for transparency. So from our hearts and work schedule, we thank you Trish McEvoy Ltd. more then we can say!

One more thing about my trip to Los Angeles to meet with some of the labs that help us formulate our products, almost without exception the most common comment I get is how different it is when my team and I meet with them. Why different? Because we talk ingredients, we ask for studies, we want products with no fragrance and no coloring agents, we provide air tight containers, we ask for plant extracts and vitamins with proven benefits, we only want “natural” or “organic” ingredients that can make a difference for skin, we want effective exfoliants, effective anti-bacterial agents for acne, effective antioxidants, cell communicating ingredients, and skin identical ingredients, and we want an honest discussion about how to make a product stable. Primarily what we don’t want is the hype. It usually takes awhile to wade through all but eventually we do get to the other side.

Eternally perplexing to the cosmetic chemists we work with is the need to see in an ingredients deck (the proposed formula as it would appear on the ingredient label) before we see the product. I’ve been formulating products for more then 15 years and it is the rare lab that does this. Their system is to send the product because no one is all that curious about what the product contains (they only want the “special” ingredient they can showcase to the consumer); they want to know how it feels and smell. Feel and smell is important but if the ingredients aren’t healthy for skin why bother. From my perspective it is a waste of time and money, show me the ingredients.

At some point I’m always expecting this to change, that at some point there will be a learning curve and our account representative and chemist will cut back on the salespitch but that has yet to happen. They see dozens of companies a month and we appear to be the only one asking for formulation details. I shouldn’t be that shocked, that’s my learning curve, I never get used to the way my industry works.