Ingredients for better formulation

The Formulary is a UK supplier of specialist cosmetic ingredients and formulation resources for independent formulators, skincare makers and small cosmetic businesses.

Our aim is simple: to make professional cosmetic ingredients more accessible, while providing the technical information needed to use them properly.

We supply a carefully selected range of cosmetic actives, botanical extracts, emulsifiers, emollients, humectants, preservatives, thickeners and other functional ingredients in quantities suitable for development, small-scale production and growing skincare businesses.

But supplying the ingredient is only part of what we do.

More than an ingredient supplier

Cosmetic formulation can be complicated.

Knowing that an ingredient exists is relatively easy. Understanding why you might use it, how much to use, when to add it, what it is compatible with and what can go wrong is considerably more useful.

That’s why The Formulary combines ingredient supply with practical formulation knowledge.

Our growing Formulation Library includes Ingredient Guides, Formulation Guides, troubleshooting articles and practical formulation advice designed to help you understand not just what an ingredient is, but how to formulate with it.

Whether you’re investigating a new peptide, choosing between emulsifiers, trying to reduce the greasiness of a moisturiser or wondering why an emulsion is soaping during application, we want The Formulary to be somewhere you can find a useful answer.

Carefully selected ingredients

We don’t aim to stock thousands of ingredients simply to create the largest possible catalogue.

Instead, we concentrate on ingredients that offer formulators a genuine purpose.

That includes established formulation essentials alongside modern cosmetic actives and newer ingredients that can improve skin feel, performance, stability or ease of formulation.

Where possible, we work with established cosmetic ingredient manufacturers and distributors and use supplier technical documentation as the basis for our formulation information.

We are also continually reviewing our range as cosmetic technology develops.

Professional ingredients in practical quantities

One of the difficulties facing independent formulators and smaller skincare businesses is that many excellent cosmetic raw materials are primarily sold to large manufacturers in commercial quantities.

The Formulary helps bridge that gap.

We make specialist ingredients available in more practical quantities, allowing you to experiment, develop and refine formulations without necessarily having to purchase industrial volumes of every raw material.

As your requirements grow, larger quantities are available for many of our ingredients too.

Formulation should be understood, not copied

We believe good formulation comes from understanding the function of the ingredients in a product rather than simply following a recipe.

A formula tells you what to combine.

Understanding emulsification, rheology, preservation, solubility, ingredient compatibility and processing tells you why it works—and gives you the knowledge to change it when it doesn’t.

That philosophy is behind the technical content we’re developing throughout The Formulary.

Our objective is to create a resource that is useful to someone making their first serious formulation while remaining relevant to experienced formulators and small cosmetic manufacturers looking for specialist ingredients and technical information.

Formulate Better

Formulate Better isn’t simply the message on our homepage.

It describes what we want The Formulary to help you do.

Better ingredients matter. But knowing how to select them, combine them and use them effectively matters just as much.

The Formulary brings the two together: professional cosmetic ingredients and practical formulation knowledge.