🧪 Cosmetic R&D Formulation Chemist (Sun Valley)

🧪 Cosmetic R&D Formulation Chemist

📍 Sun Valley, CA
🕒 Full-Time | Monday–Friday
💰 Compensation: Based on Experience

✨ Join Our R&D Team!
Spa de Soleil, Inc., an established cosmetic, personal care, and OTC product manufacturer, is looking for an experienced Cosmetic R&D Formulation Chemist to join our growing team.
We’re looking for someone who is creative, hands-on, organized, and passionate about product development — with real-world experience formulating innovative skincare, body care, hair care, and personal care products.
If you love turning an idea into a great formula and seeing it make its way from the lab to full-scale production, we’d love to meet you!
🔬 What You’ll Be Doing

• Develop new cosmetic and personal care formulations from concept through commercialization
• Formulate products such as serums, creams, lotions, cleansers, toners, gels, oils, masks, scrubs, shampoos, conditioners, and other personal care products
• Create prototypes and make formula adjustments based on performance, aesthetics, stability, cost, and client feedback
• Improve and troubleshoot existing formulations
• Research new ingredients, technologies, textures, trends, and product concepts
• Conduct and evaluate stability, compatibility, pH, viscosity, appearance, odor, and other product testing
• Prepare formulas, specifications, procedures, and technical documentation
• Maintain accurate and organized R&D laboratory records
• Work with raw material suppliers to evaluate new ingredients and obtain technical documentation
• Collaborate with Regulatory, Quality Control, Production, Purchasing, and Sales
• Assist with transferring formulas from laboratory batches to pilot and full-scale manufacturing
• Troubleshoot formulas and processing issues during scale-up and production
• Help identify opportunities to improve formula performance, manufacturing efficiency, and cost
• Maintain a clean, organized, and GMP-compliant laboratory

✅ What We’re Looking For

• 1-2 years of hands-on cosmetic or personal care formulation experience strongly preferred
• Degree in Chemistry, Cosmetic Science, Chemical Engineering, Biology, Pharmaceutical Science, or a related field preferred
• Strong understanding of cosmetic raw materials and formulation principles
• Experience working with emulsions, surfactants, rheology modifiers, preservatives, actives, oils, humectants, and other cosmetic ingredients
• Ability to independently develop and troubleshoot formulations
• Understanding of pH, viscosity, emulsification, stability, preservation, and ingredient compatibility
• Experience taking formulas from the bench through scale-up and manufacturing
• Strong attention to detail and excellent documentation skills
• Ability to manage multiple development projects at the same time
• Creative problem-solving skills and a genuine interest in cosmetic innovation

⭐ Even Better If You Have Experience With

• OTC skincare products, including acne and sunscreen/SPF formulations
• Natural, clean-beauty, or organic formulations
• K-Beauty-inspired formulations and emerging skincare technologies
• Stability and packaging compatibility testing
• Preservative efficacy/challenge testing
• Raw material qualification and technical documentation
• Formula costing and cost optimization
• Manufacturing scale-up and production troubleshooting
• Working directly with private-label or contract-manufacturing clients

💡 The Person We’re Looking For
You’re someone who enjoys being at the bench and creating products, not just managing paperwork.
You’re curious about new ingredients and trends, but you also understand that a great commercial formula needs to be stable, manufacturable, cost-effective, and reproducible.
You’re comfortable experimenting, troubleshooting when something doesn’t work, and collaborating with different departments to get a product successfully into production.
🌟 Interested?
If you’re an experienced cosmetic formulator looking for an opportunity to create, innovate, and work on a wide variety of products, we’d love to hear from you!
Please send your resume along with a brief description of your cosmetic formulation experience and the types of products you have personally formulated.