Junior Jacob Henry enjoyed conducting his IB Chemistry Internal Assessment project because his topic has intrigued him since he was young.

“My IB Chem project is how pH of saliva solution can impact how lipstick is effected,” Henry said.  “When I grow up me and my friend want to make a make-up company and I thought this would be a really cool way to start looking into my future.”

According to IB Chemistry teacher Jennifer Magdal, juniors taking their third semester of IB Chemistry create their own lab where they test a hypothesis of their choice throughout a few weeks.

“All our IB sciences have what’s called (an) internal assignment (which is) a lab,” Magdal said. “They are doing an experiment that they have designed all on their own and they write a report on it.”

Henry said he was inspired by his makeup collection when determining his Internal Assessment (IA) subject.

“To come up with the idea it took me a couple of days,” Henry said. “I got the idea of doing something with make up and went from there.”

Henry said he used beeswax, coconut oil and liquid powder to conduct his experiment.

“I made the lipstick and saliva solutions first, then I submerged the lipstick covered popsicle sticks in the solution overnight and took observations the next day,” Henry said.

According to Henry the results of his lab were inclusive.

“(The) pH does not have significant impact on lipstick, although I’m sure it would if more cosmetic market ready products (were used), but since my lipstick was so simple it did not have a huge impact because mine is more organic so it’s more resistant to pH,” Henry said.

Magdal said this assignment challenged students to create their own ideas and apply their previous knowledge from the class.

“They should take a lot of pride from it, they take something they’re passionate about relating to chemistry,” Magdal said. “They should really proud of themselves for the hard work that they did.”