Of Ceteareth-5 and Water

Sometimes the only way to tell one cosmetic from the other is by the price tag. Competing products use many of the same ingredients, and what the customer buys is often the mystique and the prestige, as well as color or scent. Lipsticks are basically made of waxes, oils, fragrance and color, although 31 ingredients go into Revlon's Raspberry and only 23 into Maybelline's Toasted Brick. Perfumes are costly in part because of small quantities of exceptionally expensive natural oils. Among some of the exceptionally prized, the prices per lb. run: jasmine $4,091, oeillette $4,727, orrisroot $4,773, attar of rose $1,136 and ambrette seed $2,318.

Since 1977 the Food and Drug Administration has required that all cosmetics companies list the ingredients of each product on the package. But the consumer does not understand what many of those chemical names mean. Surely most buyers would be hard put to know after the longest head-scratching what might be the purpose of compounds like triethanolamine and imidazolidinyl urea, which are found in many cosmetics. One of them, for example, is Alexandra de Markoff s Countess Isserlyn Creme; it is a high quality makeup, commonly known as a foundation, that costs $25 for a 2-oz. jar. There are a few makeup creams that cost more and many that cost less. But for many years Alexandra de Markoff, which is a division of Charles of the Ritz, based its advertising on the theme that its products were better because they were expensive.

The Isserlyn Creme jar lists 20 ingredients, most of them common chemicals and none of them particularly costly. Six of these ingredients--decyl oleate, lanolin oil, propylene glycol, isostearic acid, acetylated lanolin alcohol and ceteareth-5--are moisturizers and emollients. These relieve dryness and protect the skin by softening, conditioning and lubricating it. Triethanolamine, stearic acid, glyceryl stearate, magnesium aluminum silicate and PEG-75 lanolin oil are emulsifiers that enable the other ingredients to mix and form a smooth lotion. Three of the ingredients are pigments, which give color to the skin when the cream goes on. They are titanium dioxide, iron oxides and talc. There are also three preservatives to lengthen the shelf life of the cream: methylparaben, imidazolidinyl urea and propylparaben. In fact, the most expensive ingredient is propylparaben, which sells for about $3.30 per lb. But a safe assumption is that scarcely 20 worth ever finds its way into the jar.

The Isserlyn Creme formula is finished off with fragrance so that it all smells nice. The largest single ingredient is--guess what--water. Mixing it with the other ingredients makes the cream moist and smooth.

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