TRI Represented at the Society for Cosmetic Science Annual Conference in Liverpool, UK
- TRI Princeton
- 17 hours ago
- 2 min read
Networking and learning, two of our favorite things combined in one excellent conference!
Dr Paul Cornwell attended Society for Cosmetic Science Annual Conference in Liverpool, UK that was held on the 1st and 2nd July, 2026. He was also joined by Dr Philippa Cranwell, Technical Content Creator for TRI.
The conference was extremely interesting, with presentations from leaders in the field of skin research, hair research and product science. We’ve certainly take lots of ideas back to TRI! Throughout the conference, several themes were continually visited, including:
Strategies to understand hair damage levels, and how to prevent further damage
The use of peptides within hair-care products, as well as how to pre-screen their binding properties with keratin
Novel techniques for defining curl levels in textured hair
New techniques for assessing hair shine and appearance
How the skin barrier is affected by thermal stress, and how long recovery after thermal exposure takes.
Picture 2. Paul Cornwell chairing the first Session on Day 1. Picture 3. Paul Cornwell modulating the expert panel on Formulation, Processing & Design, with L-R: Dr Will Sharratt (University of Liverpool), Ben Slater (University of Liverpool); Dr Jeffrey Sanders (Schrödinger, USA).
Paul also presented a poster that highlighted work completed with Liverpool John Moores University, titled ‘Screening for Hair Damage: Effects of Hand Milling of Hair on ATR-FTIR Measurements of Hair Damage’. This project is important for quantifying hair damage through bleaching, as previous studies in our laboratories have shown that the surface damage levels from bleaching that are measured using ATR-FTIR can appear to plateau after multiple bleaching cycles, although overall damage continues to increase, which is reflected in hair breakage measurements. This study showed that hand milling of hair samples enables ATR-FTIR analysis of all internal hair components, rather than just the cuticle surface like in existing studies. The poster is available in the TRI library, and gives further details into this potentially new QA test for assessing damage to hair following bleaching.
We’ll be back next year!
