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CREST Awards
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These resources have been reviewed and selected by STEM Learning’s team of education specialists for factual accuracy and relevance to teaching STEM subjects in UK schools.
Gold award: the perfect colour lipstick
In this project, student investigate the ingredients of lipsticks, and work out why lipsticks are certain colours, and work out how to change the consistency of lipstick and how to control its ‘spreadability’. Then they could:
- Carry out some research into how lipsticks are coloured, pigments, colour spectrums, and colour mixing
- Work closely with a local university or similar institution to use a spectrophotometer, and try contacting an analytical chemist working for a cosmetics company.
- Make their own lipstick using one colour pigment, and use the spectrophotometer to measure the absorption spectrum of the lipstick.
- Melt the lipstick and add another pigment, each time measuring the absorption spectrum.
- Explain why the lipsticks are the colour they are.
- Take some shop-bought lipsticks of varying colours. Measure their absorption spectrum, and set about making lipsticks of the same colour.
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The perfect colour lipstick 437.54 KB
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The perfect colour lipstick 437.54 KB
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