I really wanted to to like this! I received it as a gift (partially as a joke as I am addicted to lip balm) and looked forward to reading it. Sadly, it was quite a let down.

The authors are spectacularly bias in favour of large, mass-market companies; which isn't all that shocking when you flip the book over and learn they used to work for Proctor & Gamble and Unilever. Oddly enough these authors are giving you exactly what they are telling you to avoid - half-assed science. If you want to give me the science behind something, great! I want to read it! Don't just tell me you're going to give me science... and then skirt around it the whole time.

The one thing I DID really like about it was the easy-to-read tidbit-style format. And the cover is cute. ...But that's it. Quite a bummer because it really seemed like there was a lot of potential given the subject matter!

Based on what I've read in this book, I think these folks would be better to put out a book focusing on marketing jargon and actual ingredient purposes - I found these few references throughout the book to be the most interesting/helpful... and there was no way to put their bias spin on it.