Cosmetic contract manufacturing — answered.

MOQ is 500 units across all four service paths — custom development, reverse engineering, BYOF, and private label. That's deliberately low for a manufacturer at this level of formulation depth. Most labs running custom formulations require 2,500–10,000 units; most low-MOQ shops can't develop a custom formula from scratch. Formula 117 sits in the gap.

Manufacturing runs $2–$3+ per unit at 2,500–5,000 units, with the per-unit cost depending on formula complexity, fill format, and packaging. Custom formula development is quoted per project rather than per unit — there's no fixed price because the work itself varies. Pricing details and lead-time breakdowns are on the how-it-works page.

Custom and reverse-engineering paths have a development fee that covers bench formulation and stability testing. Tooling, custom packaging, regulatory documentation, and label printing are billed separately because they vary by project. The brief intake captures everything needed to scope a real quote rather than a placeholder number.

Yes. With custom formula development and reverse engineering, the brand owns the formula outright at project completion — including the right to manufacture it elsewhere. There's no license, no royalty, and no clause that locks you to Formula 117 after the project ends. Private label is the one path where the formula stays in the in-house library, because that's the entire trade-off: speed and cost in exchange for shared use of a proven recipe.

Yes, when done correctly. Cosmetic formulas themselves are generally not patented; the legally protected elements are typically the trademark, trade dress, packaging design, and any specific patented ingredient technologies. Reverse engineering reads the publicly disclosed ingredient list (which the FDA requires every cosmetic to publish), tests the finished product, and builds a comparable formula that matches the performance profile without copying protected elements. Formula 117 won't recreate trademarked branding, copy patented delivery systems, or reproduce a competitor's exact ingredient ratios as a copy-paste — those are different work, and the lab declines them.

Every project runs under NDA. The chemist who works on your formula is the same person from start to finish; nothing gets passed to outside formulators, and nothing from your project is added to the private-label library without explicit written agreement. BYOF projects in particular are treated as fully proprietary — the formula stays the brand's, and Formula 117 manufactures only what's contracted.

The fastest way is the project brief — a structured intake that walks through the four service paths, gathers everything the chemist needs to scope your project, and lands in the inbox with enough context to skip the first three rounds of email. Brands typically hear back within 48–72 hours. If the project is still early-stage and you'd rather just ask a question first, the contact page has a quick-message form too.

Yes — by appointment. Brand visits typically happen during pilot batch approval or a kickoff meeting for a custom development project. The lab is in Chicago, IL, and the appointment-only model exists because the chemist runs the bench, the line, and the visit. There's no separate sales team to host walk-ins.

The chemist reviews your brief personally — not a sales-team intake. Within 48–72 hours, you'll get a reply with either follow-up questions, a scoping conversation, or a preliminary plan depending on what the brief contains. Briefs with clear product type, fill format, MOQ target, retail context, and any active or claim requirements come back faster because there's less round-tripping.