Who we are
We are Alba Volunteers, the recruitment division of Eurofins Alba. We are the same company. We are responsible for recruiting volunteers to take part in the studies that we run for our customers. We maintain our active panel of volunteers from around the UK and advertise to recruit for our studies. We are the first point of contact for our volunteers.
What we do
We test toiletries and cosmetic products for a large number of global brands. These products need to be tested with consumers before being released to the market, and this testing needs to be done independently, so that's why Alba Volunteers is here. We perform safety, efficacy and home-user studies. We provide our customers with study data which they can use to market their products or to drive their own product development processes. The data we provide our customers with is anonymous. You can find out more about this in our Privacy Policy. Your data is not used for anything else or provided to anyone else. To find more about our study types click here.
Our volunteer panels
We maintain 2 panels of volunteers. Our clinical panel perform on-site studies at our Broughton Street facility in Edinburgh. This panel is around 10,000 people in size, mostly from in and around Edinburgh.
Our Home-User panel is around 15,000 people in size. This panel consists of consumers throughout the UK who test products at home for us. At present we are not registering any new volunteers for our Home-User panel. If you can attend our Edinburgh test centre please register with our clinical panel.
Type of products we test
We test a variety of products. The vast majority of these products are already on sale on the high street. We run most of our clinical studies at our Edinburgh facility. Here, we test soaps to ensure that they do not dry the skin or cause any irritation. We test moisturisation and hydration products to ensure that they perform well over a period of time. We test spot and acne treatment products to see if they work. We also perform a variety of hair studies, testing everything from colour and dye-performance to dandruff reduction. These are just a few examples of the studies we run.
Our Home-User panel are sent products to test at home and provide us with feedback on. These types of product can vary, but typically these can be moisturisers, night creams, facial wipes, serums, make-up and cosmetic products, shampoos and conditioners.
Product safety
The safety and well being of our volunteers is paramount. All the products we test are certified to be safe to test and have undergone all necessary testing before coming to us. All our volunteers are provided with full information on the products being tested.
How we compensate our volunteers
For our clinical studies, run in Edinburgh, we pay expenses to each volunteer upon completion of each study. The amount can vary from £20 to £500, depending on the type and duration of the study.
For home-user studies, no expenses are provided. Instead, our home-users receive some of the latest products to test at home for free. The range of products varies from regular personal care or cosmetic products to some of the very latest designer products from some of the largest global brands.
Finding out more
We welcome any questions you may have and are happy to answer these for you. Please contact us.