Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating How to integrate herbal extract powders in topical skincare products? (When no liquid form is avail)

  • How to integrate herbal extract powders in topical skincare products? (When no liquid form is avail)

    Posted by zink on May 9, 2014 at 5:24 am

    Herbal powders are often used in skincare as non treatment treatments. A good example is licorice root, which is used to reduce inflamation in both atopic dermatitis and acne - Dan of Acne.org even uses it in his Glycolic acid formula: Water, Glycolic Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Cetyl Palmitate, Sorbitan Stearate, Glycerin, Cyclomethicone, Glyceryl Stearate, Butylene Glycol, Licochalcone (Glycyrrhiza glabra(Licorice) Root Extract), Tocopheryl Acetate, Squalane, PEG-12 Glyceryl Distearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Xanthan Gum, Sorbic Acid, 1,2-Hexanediol, Caprylyl Glycol.

    Now, in the case of licorice root it’s easy, just buy the liquid extract e.g. from lotioncrafter. But for say Pine Bark extract, do you a)  try to solubilize the powder (I assume this won’t work) b) make a liquid extract using glycerin c) make a liquid extract/tincture using alcohol or d) find someone who can make b or c for you?

    Basically I’m asking for best practices in making liquid glycerin based extracts from powdered standardized ones :)

    dr-catherine-pratt replied 5 years, 7 months ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • bobzchemist

    Member
    May 9, 2014 at 11:07 am

    Making extracts is not something we typically do in “industrial” cosmetic chemistry. Generally speaking, we would go for option d) find someone who can make b or c for us. 


    You also have to recognize that the vast majority of cosmetic chemists work with the assumption that extracts do not actually do anything. In fact, if an extract actually produced some physiological effect on the skin, any product made with it would  possibly, arguably, be a drug, not a cosmetic, and would be illegal to sell in the US without filing a NDA (New Drug Application) with the FDA. So, there is no need for a standardized extract, or a best practice in making them, since their only legal use is to provide a marketing claim. This is also why almost all extracts are used at levels of a tenth or hundredth of a percent.

    That being said, if there was an extract that we wanted to get a real effect from, we would still want it done by someone else. The reason for this is that, while making an extract isn’t that difficult, making a standardized liquid extract, even from a standardized powdered one, takes a level of analytical equipment and expertise that most of us don’t have access to. The problem is that we would have to prove, after the extract is made, that 1) it has a standard level of ingredient in it and 2) it is safe for use in our products and on our customer’s skin. Too much work for most cosmetic companies - we’d be more comfortable paying someone else to do this for us, and there are a number of suppliers who do nothing but that.

    On the other hand, making extracts is not that hard, and if you are making cosmetics at the level of a home crafter or a mini-business, it might pay to do it yourself. Information on making water or alcoholic extracts is readily available on the web.
  • zink

    Member
    May 9, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    Yes, I was reading about glycerin, water, alcohol and acid extraction - all with extracting different classes of chemicals. Often times alcohol extraction is done first, then the extract is reconstituted in glycerin.

    There is def a market for standardized skincare products by prosumers and doctors who want to legally? experiment on their patients with e.g. topical pycnogenol or sulforaphane.

    Thanks for the detailed response!
  • Anonymous

    Guest
    August 2, 2018 at 8:15 pm

    Hey Zink,

    I found your question when I was looking for the solution myself. I’m not sure if you’re still interested in this but I found some answers and some work that addresses this. Turns out those extracted powders don’t serve much or any use topically, rather the more cost effective solution in terms of both time and money, is to use essential oils. This is especially true if you don’t want to add water to the solution, you can always use polysorbate 20 or 80 and other solubilizers. The powders and herbs are generally used for oral consumption (think capsules, teas, coffee, etc.)or as poultices. 

    Moreover, the method or alcohol extraction is often seen as time consuming and counterproductive due to the doubling up process of extraction and also due to the fact that alcohol hands down will preserve most of the plant properties anyway, or the most out of the commonly used methodologies. There are some glycerite extraction processes that are a thing but I can’t find the literature on them unfortunately, I can only surmise that it’s a large scale operation, or an expensive one. 

    You can also create or extract most of the plant chemical compounds needed for topical creams as most medications do and then emulsify them via elusion or using a surfactant. Here are some cool things I found in terms of research here and here also Wikipedia explained this stuff in detail over here

    Hope this helped!

  • amitvedakar

    Member
    August 3, 2018 at 4:00 am
    for Topical use of herbal powder they should be in water soluble form.
    They are available as Spray dry extract- Water soluble.  

  • dr-catherine-pratt

    Member
    August 6, 2018 at 10:19 am

    @Zink I am from aus but I found a really good place called Aromatic and they provide you with the extract already in glycerine. Good luck!

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