Lip balm's core formula has barely changed in 3,500 years, but many of the ingredients added since can actually make chapped lips worse.

Crude oil processing produces a variety of fuels and the building blocks for plastics, but it also distills out the hydrocarbons used to make aspirin, Teflon, vinyl, crayons, candles, Tupperware, roofing shingles, asphalt pavement, hair dye, anesthetics, food-grade lubricants, polyester, synthetic rubber, and resins for items like dentures.

Clinique launched in 1968 as an entire product line, as opposed to just a single product, which was rare for cosmetics brands at the time. Clinique marked Estée Lauder's first venture into a younger, less luxury-oriented retail market.

The lipstick index is an economic theory that breaks down to this: when consumers think an economic downturn is looming, sales for affordable luxury items (such as lipstick) go up. While it's not an economically proven theory, it's still worth considering. So why do consumers exhibit this behavior? Read more about the lipstick index to find out.

Sunscreen is helpful all year round. Experts argue a minimum level of protection is SPF 30. There are two kinds of sunscreen: mineral (a physical barrier) and chemical (absorbs UV light). No new sunscreen ingredients have been approved in the US in decades, so foreign products are common.

Amid Napoleon's invasion of bitterly cold Russia, soldiers succumbed to frostbite by the thousands. Nineteenth century doctors recommended walking and rubbing snow around the affected area. Fast forward to recent years, and the FDA has approved its first ever drug to treat frostbite. Listen to this podcast to learn the history of this wintry affliction.

Leonard Lauder was known for being an innovator, both in business and in product. He's credited with creating the now-standard slant of a lipstick tube, slicing the top off a then-bullet-shaped lipstick to better fit women's lips.

This article explores the ancient roots of romantic kissing. Current archaeological evidence dates sexual and romantic lip kissing to about 2,500 BCE. A Mesopotamian clay tablet from the time shares a tale of two deities locking lips. There's also...

Essential oils are a big business, with industry estimates pegging its market size at $10B last year—a number expected to double by 2030. These distilled plant compounds have a long history of both legitimate and exaggerated uses, and many marketed oils are, as the author of this long read claims, just selling wish fulfillment. Revisit some of the history and contemporary use of essential oils with this piece.

Youth Dew, originally launched in 1953 as a bath oil, was wildly successful in the American market and one of the early products that cemented Estée Lauder as a luxury cosmetics brand. When the Galeries Lafayette in Paris hesitated to sell the perfume, Lauder "accidentally" broke a bottle of Youth Dew, causing the smell to spread throughout the department store. Shoppers began asking for the scent, and the department store agreed to sell it.

Opium reached the US at about the time early colonists were itching for ways to soothe aches and pains. The active ingredient in the substance was isolated in the early 19th century, eventually leading to the manufacture and commercial sale of morphine, heroin, and other opium-based drugs.

Most modern processed foods rely on a number of preservatives to stay fresh from production to our plates. The most common include citric acid (preservative and flavor), sodium benzoate (preservative), xanthan gum (thickening and stabilizing), carrageenan (thickening), and red dyes 3 and 4 (for color).

There are two types of vitamins: lipid soluble and water-soluble. Water-soluble vitamins like B vitamins and vitamin C are in the watery parts of fruits and easily pass through the human body before being taken up by the bloodstream or exiting your body. But lipid (fat) soluble vitamins must be absorbed through the intestinal wall, carried by proteins, and then may be stored in the liver and other body parts—meaning there is greater risk of overdosing.

The product was marketed toward women and framed excessive sweating as a medical disorder that needed to be addressed with the product.

For people with allergies, their immune systems recognize substances as a harmful "other"—cuing an inflammatory response. This podcast explores allergy details and related topics, including how scientists are interested in if the same allergic response mechanisms could underpin other health issues, including severe, painful symptoms around the time of menstrual cycles. Since estrogen acts on white blood cells called mast cells, which leads to the release of histamines—similar to what happens during allergic responses—an understudied question is whether the same process is fueling some of the uncomfortable symptoms around menstruation. An allergist guest notes this raises questions about if antihistamine medications like Pepsid might alleviate them, something that hasn't yet been explored in clinical trials.

Soap has been produced since at least 2,200 BCE via a chemical reaction between fats or oils and a base. This creates salts that act as molecular bridges, helping water lift dirt and grease from surfaces. The same chemistry produces scum when metals in hard water bind to soap molecules, as well as white spots in paintings when metal ions in pigments react with fatty acids in the oil binder.

Asphalt is derived from bitumen, a naturally occurring byproduct of decomposed organic materials. As one of the thickest forms of petroleum, the substance has been in use by humans and their ancestors for at least 40,000 years for various purposes, including as a sealant, an adhesive, decoration, and more. Learn more about this ancient material here.

While certain items under the LVMH umbrella can cost thousands of dollars, like large Louis Vuitton bags, others, like coin purses or lipstick, cost significantly less. Some argue that these comparatively lower-priced items allows LVMH's target audience to be much larger in size than it would have been if it only targeted the world's wealthiest shoppers, whereas others argue that it makes the brand more vulnerable to economic downturns.

Once used by the ancient Sumarians—extracted from willow bark—but now synthesized in the lab, the active ingredient of this popular medication has been used to treat headaches and pain for thousands of years.

While Lauder herself was just starting her cosmetics empire, she knew wealthy people who could afford high-quality products would always be her target market. In order to make her products as appealing to this market as possible, Lauder held up different colors of glass bottles in people's bathrooms to see what would look best with their decorations before landing on a turquoise bottle with a gold cap.

Love vanilla-flavored foods? Well, it was once made from castoreum - a yellowish exudate from the castor sacs of mature beavers. And the FDA regards castoreum as “natural flavoring."

Dermatologists recommend applying antiperspirant at night for the best results. When applied to clean, dry skin at night, the active ingredient in most antiperspirants (aluminum salt), combined with the skin's natural moisture, forms plugs that block sweat glands, limiting sweat and related odors.

One of the fun aspects of the contemporary Advent calendar, making them irresistible to children, are the numerous little chocolates often tucked inside little paper flaps, marking each day leading to Christmas. That chocolate tastes different because it’s likely made from inexpensive fats like palm kernel oil, not cocoa butter.

If you look at the ingredient list on your Oreo packaging, you may discover that you don't recognize—or can't even pronounce—some of the listed ingredients, let alone know what they're used for! For instance: Did you know that soy lecithin helps makes oil and water mix? Or that cocoa processed with alkali becomes darker and less acidic? A food scientist breaks down what's inside an Oreo in this seven-minute video.

In 1939, a team at Oxford—including Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, and Norman Heatley—revived Fleming’s forgotten discovery. Using makeshift equipment like bedpans and milk churns, they purified enough penicillin to prove it could treat deadly infections.

Those involved in the predecessor of the modern scientific discipline engaged in experimentation to develop recipes that would transform ordinary matter into gold and to create medicines, cosmetics, dyes, and alloys. Over the course of centuries, scientists identified unique elements, organized them based on their properties in the periodic table, and eventually developed the technology to discover the internal structure of atoms.

The beard has gone in and out of fashion for centuries in Britain. It was hated in the 18th century but became a must in the 19th. This quick list rehashes 15 fascinating tidbits about the beard, including possible useful functions for them (a beard is equivalent to an SPF 21 sunscreen) and how barbers were often also surgeons.