Oh, Patents! - Cosmetics - Mascarca (2)

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Ladies, there’s a patent in your mascara! And it’s a long and intricate formula! Your mascara won’t stay on just like that, with the flick of a wand or the twitch of someone’s well connected nose!... It takes a lot of lab work and research to figure out the smudge resistance, water tightness, and easy removability of your favorite mascara! But, you can trust L’Oréal to come up with a LONG-WEAR MASCARA COMPOSITION that pushes the frontiers of mascara formulas and resolves all the problematic situations of the prior art.

Just in case you are wondering what’s in your mascara, here’s a list of some of the hydrophobic homopolymers and/or copolymers, included in the “wax” part of this “Long-wear mascara composition”:

“[0027] Suitable monomers for the hydrophobic homopolymers and/or copolymers include, but are not limited to, cyclic, linear or branched, substituted or unsubstituted, C2-C20 compounds such as, for example, styrene, ethylene, propylene, isopropylene, butylene, isobutylene, pentene, isopentene, isoprene, hexene, isohexene, decene, isodecene, and octadecene, including all ranges and subranges therebetween. Preferably, the monomers are C2-C8 compounds, more preferably C2-C6 compounds, and most preferably C2-C4 compounds such as ethylene, propylene and butylene.” [US2012020907]

Of course there’s more to it than this single list of suitable monomers. The patent runs 0110 paragraphs of suitable components, preferred, particularly preferred and most particularly preferred compounds and embodiments, as well as references to the processes for producing the Long-wear mascara composition.

It’s just that there’s more than meets the eye, that’s got: 
“excellent shine, water-proof and/or smudge-resistance properties, having improved properties relating to removability from their containers, removability after application using water and/or volumization”….[0001]

Not to mention a scope of smudge-proof resistance that extends to lipsticks, eye-liners, eye shadows and foundations…

Oh!, and Gentlemen, please be patient…! There are some cosmetic patents for you too – especially brought to you by Gillette Co!