More unusual cosmetics ingredients

Unlike the food we eat, we rarely consider the ingredients that go into cosmetics. To our eyes, they are something in themselves - they are ‘facial cream’ or ‘lipstick’. However, this obscures the fact that many different things go into every beauty product and not all of them are appealing.

For example, shark liver oil is often used. Moisturisers, suns cream, eye make-up, lipstick and bath oils are all likely to feature this ingredient, known as squalene.

Or what about ambergris? It sounds innocent enough, but it’s actually the substance that protects a whale’s stomach from squid beaks and the like. And how do people get it out of the whale? Well, actually, the whale gets rid of it in two ways. You don’t want to know about either. Amergris is used in perfume.