ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF COSMETICS 83 REFERENCES (1) In re Hass & Susie, 60 U.S.P.Q. 548. (2) Ex parte Carson, 78 U.S.P.Q. 93. (3) In re Henze, 85 U.S.P.Q. 261. (4) Ex parte Matheson & Mikeska, 92 U.S.P.Q. 255. (5) 57 U.S.P.Q. 324. (6) U.S.P. 2464284. (7) U.S.P. 2537998. (8) U.S.P. 2443138. (9) U.S.P. 2554826. (10) Ex parte Wagner, 1951, C. D. 3. (11) In re Bloomer, 84 U.S.P.Q. 135. (12) Reissue Patent 22922. (13) "Industrial Research and Development--a Preliminary Report," Research and De- velopment Board, Department of Defense, Washington 25, D.C. EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF THE PSYCHOLOGIGAL PROPERTIES OF COSMETICS By DEAN Direct/or of Laboralories, U.S. Testin,• Company, Hoboken, N. A GREAT DEAL IS heard currently about pane] testing, consumer re- search, market surveys, motivation analysis, and other approaches to eval- uating consumer products. Unfortunately, many of these approaches are purely trial-and-error methods, executed by non-professionals, and failing in their purpose, namely, to answer the questions that the manufacturer needs to know and wants to know. To compete successfully today, the progressive manufacturer is asking specific questions about the quality of his prodtact: How uniform is it? What are its positive and negative properties? and, How can it be improved? These questions can be answered satisfactorily only after a systematic study of the reactions of people to these products. Since human reactions are the principal subject matter, it is only logical to turn to psychologists for the solutions. Actu- ally, however, these specialists in human behavior have rarely applied their science to product evaluation. The principles of psychological meas- urement, carefully formulated during 100 years of experimentation, have usually been ignored, and each investigator elects to begin again. There is another side to the issue, however. The industrial psychologists have too long delayed the application of the basic principles, so well known to them, to consumer commodities, including toilet goods and other per- sonal products. Presented at the May 15, 1953, Meeting, New York City.

84 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS The present criticism of unsophisticated attempts at measurements is by no means directed exclusively at cosmetics. It is easy to list numerous examples of inexpert applications from other classifications of consumer commodities. Within the field of cosmetics, however, Wenzel has pointed out that the so-called tests of chlorophyll effectiveness are perfect models of what experimental procedure should not be (1). On very much the same level are some of the attempts at measurement of quality uniformity and quality improvement of foods, textiles, and related materials (2, 3). By contrast, some reports by non-psychologists describing consumer product analyses show a refreshing awareness of the principles of psychophysics and psychometrics. Reading, study, and experience have taught these investigators to avoid the mere common sense approaches employed by others. For the purposes of this paper, we must answer the question: How is the psychologist by training and experience better prepared to as- sist the cosmetic manufacturer in product evaluation? The answer rests, at least partially, with his orientation. As a behavior specialist his policy is never to test a product itself, but to study the reac- tions of individuals to certain stimuli, which, in this case, happens to be in- dustrial products. He focuses, then, not on the hand cream, but on the consumer's reaction to the hand cream. In addition, the psychologist enjoys other advantages. He is equipped to apply methods of known value and reliability without the need for a series of trial-and-error developmental procedures he will arrange his experimental situation in the best interest of his respondents. Let us state the thesis in another way. When we are measuring human reactions, the emphasis must be placed on the respondent and not solely on the prod- uct. (The ideal control of the environment for psychometric and psycho- physical studies will be illustrated at a later time.) Finally, the psychol- ogist is specially equipped to interpret the responses he obtains and then to adjust his methods in relation to the results obtained. T•. INDtR•.CT APPROAC• In many instances, it is of interest to obtain considerable information about consumers' attitudes toward certain products. Advertising and other educational media have o•ken produced a general bias or set of prej- udices which may influence response to an object being tested alternately, they may suggest new ways of approaching the problems of totally new test hypotheses. In such cases, we have employed sentence completion or word association approaches of the type listed below. Complete the following sentences: Cake make-up is a skin covering for the Under-arm deodorants are The best use of rouge is