Long‐standing scientist and ICS editorial board member passes away

Professor Dr. Johann Wiechers passed away on Saturday November 5, 2011. Johann was well known in the industry for his expertise in skin delivery, his promotion of the IFSCC (for which he was President from 2007 to 2008), being the scientific editor of the IFSCC Magazine (2001–2004) and for being an active editorial board member of the ICS for almost a decade (2002–2011). He was a visiting Professor at the London School of Pharmacy and the University of Queensland, Brisbane, positions well deserved with over 450 publications. His work was also recognized with scientific awards at 5 conferences. Johann had a very questioning and creative personality that can easily be read with many thought-provoking columns for the Cosmetics & Toiletries magazine which were recently brought together in: ‘Wiechers on Cosmetics: Memories of a Cosmetically Disturbed Mind’. Johann completed his doctorate in 1989 at the University of Groningen on skin delivery approaches before joining Unilever where I first met him. In Unilever, Johann and I went on many team-building events at which I learned of his love of not only science but also red wine! Within a few years, we had both moved into other parts of the Unilever organization and lost contact with each other for a while until we were both on the 2002 IFSCC scientific organizing committee which was a theme to repeat itself over the next decade. From this point onwards, I worked with Johann very closely while he was in Uniqema. We had lots of fun deciphering the mechanism of action of octadecenedioic acid as a skin lightening active with Professor Galibert, understanding the effect of moisturizers on the stratum corneum and identifying a novel mechanism of moisturization with Professor Joke Bouwstra and her teams as well as other members of the Skin Research Technology group in ICI. Most recently, Johann, after founding JW Solutions in 2007, was working with Kim Daniel to prove the effect of moisturizers on the appearance of scars. However, he will be most famous for his approach to ‘Formulating for efficacy’ which will live long after him with a software programme he launched this year (see http:// www.jwsolutionssoftware.com for details). Johann had stamina for life, a love of good food, red wine and music. He worked incredibly hard and would not allow his diabetes to hold him back. November 5, 2011, was a sad day for all of us. I lost a good friend, and the journal lost a very dedicated and active member of the editorial board. Dr A. V. Rawlings Chief Editor of the ICS International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 2012, 34, 1 doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2494.2011.00700.x