Scientist Shares Photos of Lipstick Under a Microscope

If you’re a hardcore beauty buff, you’ve probably found yourself obsessing over swatches, poring over product reviews and perhaps even studying ingredients lists. But this week, one woman took the art of studying cosmetics to a whole new level — and the results are mesmerizing.   Amy Oyler is a science educator and makeup enthusiast with a love for lipstick, a microscope, and an unbridled sense of curiosity. Recently, all of those passions came together for Amy in a totally fascinating way, when she decided to study her lipstick collection under her microscope. The resulting slides feature about a dozen lipsticks, from drugstore staples (Wet n Wild) to mid-end brands (like Tarte and Benefit), and show hypnotizing arrays of color, flecks of metallic mica, color-changing particles and mesmerizing swirls of oil.   It’s not the first time that Amy’s dual loves for makeup and science have intersected. “I’ve looked through ingredients before, and with a general knowledge of chemistry have been able to familiarize myself well enough with some of the ingredients that can be listed [in cosmetics],” she tells Teen Vogue. “For instance, carotenoids are compounds that are found in leaves that give them the orange and red colors you see in fall. Seeing those listed in lipsticks is really fun, as the pigments in plants can be used as pigments in our makeup.” She adds that this was the first time she’d gone as far as to study makeup from such an analytical perspective, but it certainly won’t be the last. (Next on her to-do list: getting up close and personal with her eyeshadow collection.)   Despite Amy’s existing love for both makeup and science, it was actually her 11-year-old daughter (likely a future STEM genius in the making) who came up with the idea of studying makeup under the microscope together. “My daughter and I have been a team of science explorers since she was about three years old,” says Amy. “When she started asking ‘why does this happen?’ or ‘why does this work?’ we started pursuing her questions with excitement and curiosity.” The duo have since fully embraced a shared nerdiness for all things science together, even regularly appearing on their local news affiliate to conduct experiments on camera. “She has grown up with the mindset that even the smallest question can spark and adventure in learning and discovery, and because of this, has the confidence and the tools to seek the answers to any question.”   And it was a question — what exactly does makeup look like, up close and personal? — that inspired the pair to do this project. The answer? Entire galaxies of color, glitter and light. “There were so many surprises in store under that microscope,” Amy says, adding that she expected to see things like color and crushed powder — “but what I actually saw was a dazzling array of crystals, waxes and oils, and pigment powders that were filled with bursts of color,” she says. She cites the iridescent, glimmering crystals in Benefit’s Dandelion lip gloss as one of her favorite finds. “It turns out, these are actually bismuth crystals,” she says. “Bismuth occurs naturally on the earth, but when it’s grown in a lab setting, it grows into these towers of iridescent rainbow cubes that stack on top of each other and change color depending on how the light hits it. To think that these minerals were responsible for the shimmer on our lips made it all the more impressive when I choose to wear it.”   As for some of the more surprising discoveries made? Amy says she was fascinated by the striking differences between drugstore products and high-end brands: under the microscope, things like pigment quality and the size and quantity of crystals were often noticeably superior in more expensive lipsticks. It’s reassuring to know that those higher price tags just might hold up when put under the scrutiny of a microscope. (Though diehard drugstore fans should take heart in knowing that Amy was also pretty blown away by the array of pigments in Wet n Wild’s Liquid Catsuit line of lipsticks.)   Looking closely at what exactly goes into our makeup can obviously reveal a ton of interesting findings, and it can encourage beauty buffs to really understand what actually goes into that velvety matte lipstick or highlighter. (Cue “The More You Know” theme music.) But, in addition to encouraging that sense of curiosity, Amy says she also hopes that this project inspires others in a bigger way, by seeing the power and beauty inherent in makeup. “Knowing that light waves are bouncing around on your lips, bending through minerals, and reflecting back with a glittery shine makes me feel powerful, and I hope that others would feel the same,” she says. “The beauty found in science, just as the beauty we embody ourselves, with or without makeup, can be a very empowering thing indeed.”