JOURNAL OF COSMETIC SCIENCE 408 background science and practical knowl- edge that can be used at the bench right away. The last chapter of this book is possibly one of the most entertaining ones. It does not discuss much about colorants, but rather provides some sage advice from a color formulator who has spent 40 years in the pigment and cosmetic industries. This is bound to make any cosmetic formulator smile. There are a number of useful pages in- cluded after the primary text. This section makes up almost one-third of the book and includes the aforementioned appendix on color testing methodologies, an extensive listing on the patent history of colorants, a glossary, and an index. The only weakness in this part is the index, which would have benefi ted from more listings. The title of this book suggests it will provide a detailed look at the world of pig- ments used in color cosmetics and it cer- tainly delivers. For cosmetic formulators who are just getting started, this could be the one and only book on color that you will ever need. In addition, its detailed regu- latory information, practical formulating tips, testing protocols, and description of pigment and color technology make it an in- dispensable reference for all color cosmetic scientists.—PERRY ROMANOWSKI— Brains Publishing.

J. Cosmet. Sci., 63, 409–412 (November/December 2012) 409 Letter to the editor RALF HAGENS, Beiersdorf AG, Bioengineering—Biophysics Hair Care, Unnastraße 48, D-20245 Hamburg, Germany. We published an article in the September/October 2011 issue of the Journal of Cosmetic Science, entitled “Qualifi cation of an automated device to objectively assess the effect of hair care products on hair shine” (1), which attracted some criticism since then. Since the paper is already published and cannot be amended any more, we feel obliged to address some topics of criticism and provide some clarifi cation by means of this letter. The data provided in the above-mentioned report were generated with a recording device called “opsira Shine-Box,” which was developed between 2006 and 2009 by the authors at Beiersdorf AG in cooperation with opsira GmbH, Weingarten, Germany, and Display Metrology & Systems, Karlsruhe, Germany. This device was developed to assess multiple components of hair shine in parallel, encompassing specular and diffuse refl ection, half width of specular refl ection, sparkle, hair color, and parallelism of hair fi bers using the software tool luca’tool developed by opsira GmbH. The publication describes the level of development in 2009. As a matter of course, neither the overall optical geometry nor the arrangement of illumination, camera, or tress holder inside the device, nor the polariza- tion technique, are genuinely new inventions. They are rather mandatory technical pre- requisites, as published by others before (2), and are found in a rather similar way in several other commercially available hair shine measurement systems such as the Samba system developed by Bossa Nova Technologies, Culver City, California., just to mention one alternative measurement system available in the market. The level of novelty relating to the “opsira Shine-Box” is not the optical geometry of the measurement setup but rather the use and development of new image analysis algorithms for the measurement of hair shine, the measurement of hair sparkle with a dynamic illumination setup, and the use of a cooled camera device. We want to point out that the intention of our report was the qualifi cation of the opsira device as an automated screening tool for hair shine, as routinely performed at Beiersdorf AG. Qualifi cation in this case was done using side-by-side comparison of opsira data with panelist assessments as the standard of reference. We decided to compare the opsira sys- tem with shine evaluation by panelists, because panelists are able to discriminate tresses treated with different rinse-off products, and the new opsira system had to meet all re- quirements of a panel and not the requirements of other measurement systems. Another intention of the report was the presentation of our new measurement of hair sparkle. This measurement of sparkle, which always contributes to the panelists’ subjective assessment Address all correspondence to Ralf Hagens at ralf.hagens@beiersdorf.com