 Cold cream is an emulsion of water and certain fats, usually including beeswax and various scent agents, designed to smooth skin and remove makeup. The name derives from the cooling feeling that the cream leaves on the skin.
The invention of cold cream is credited to a physician in Second century Greece, Galen:
GALEN, the celebrated physician of Pergamus, in Asia, but who distinguished himself at Athens, Alexandria, and Rome... was the inventor of that particular unguent, a mixture of grease and water, which is now distinguished as cold cream in perfumery, and as Ceratum Galeni in pharmacy.
In France, this substance is still known as cerat de Galien (cream of Galen). An 1814 poem credited to "Dr. Russell" gives the following account of the benefits attributed to cold cream in that day:
WHEN a pot of cold cream to Eliza you send, you with words to this purpose your present commend; Whoe'er with this cream shall her countenance smear, all redness and roughness will strait disappear, and the skin to a wonder be charmingly clear; If pimples arise, this will take them away; If the small-pox should mark you, those marks will decay; If wrinkled through age, or dawbing the face is, 'twill be smooth in a trice, as the best Venice glass is; All this and much more, could I spare time to write it, or my pen go as fast, as your lips would endite it. You affirm of your cream: and I would not abuse it, but pray tell me one thing - do you yourself use it?
Galen's cold cream was based on beeswax and water, also containing olive oil and rose petals for softness and scent, respectively. Modern cold cream has significant differences in formula, which were established centuries ago:
The modern formula for cold cream is, however, quite a different thing to that given in the works of Galen, in point of odour and quality, although substantially the same--grease and water. In perfumery there are several kinds of cold cream, distinguished by their odour, such as that of camphor, almond, violet, roses...
Cold cream now replaces the olive oil with mineral oil or other oils, which is slower to spoil. Another common ingredient in modern cold cream is borax, which is also responsible for the whiteness of cold cream. The most widely sold brand of cold cream in the United States is Pond's.
Beeswax
Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Beeswax is produced by young worker bees between 12 and 17 days old in the form of thin scales secreted by glands on the ventral surface of the abdomen. Worker bees have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body) on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker and after daily flights begin these glands gradually atrophy. The new wax scales are initially glass-clear and colourless (see illustration), becoming opaque after mastication by the worker bee. The wax of honeycomb is nearly white, but becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about 3 mm across and 0.1 mm thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax.
Western honey bees use the beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised and honey and pollen are stored. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax the ambient temperature in the hive has to be 33 to 36°C (91 to 97°F). To produce their wax, bees must consume about eight times as much honey by mass. Estimates are that bees fly 150,000 miles to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg). When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Wax from the brood comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb. Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use. The leftovers are called slumgum.
The wax may further be clarified by heating in water and may then be used for candles or as a lubricant for drawers and windows or as a wood polish. As with petroleum waxes it may be softened by dilution with vegetable oil to make it more workable at room temperature.
Olive oil
Olive oil is a fruit oil obtained from the olive (Olea europaea; family Oleaceae along with lilacs, jasmine and ash trees), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps.
Mineral oil
Mineral oil or liquid petrolatum is a by-product in the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline. It is a transparent, colorless oil composed mainly of alkanes (typically 15 to 40 carbons) and cyclic paraffins, related to white petrolatum. Mineral oil is a substance of relatively low value, and it is produced in very large quantities. Mineral oil is available in light and heavy grades, and can often be found in drug stores.
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