Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Which Co-Emulsifiers work well with Stearic Acid (Emulsifier)

  • Which Co-Emulsifiers work well with Stearic Acid (Emulsifier)

    Posted by dtdang on July 12, 2018 at 11:42 pm

    I am new and still learning. Anyone can help Please!
    The oil phase : 18.2%: Coconut oil    8%
                                      Mango Butter  5%

                                      Vitamin
    E Tocopherol   0.2%

    The rest is water + preserve : 81.8%

    Thanks
      

    microformulation replied 5 years, 7 months ago 7 Members · 12 Replies
  • 12 Replies
  • belassi

    Member
    July 13, 2018 at 5:34 am

    Use the HLB system to calculate it. That will give you a starting point.

  • dtdang

    Member
    July 13, 2018 at 1:56 pm

    Thank you so much.

  • dr-catherine-pratt

    Member
    July 13, 2018 at 2:59 pm

    @Dtdang Use emulsifier (cetearyl alchol/ ceteareth 20) then Stearic as the secondary one

  • dtdang

    Member
    July 13, 2018 at 11:03 pm

    Thank you Dr. 
    i will do that.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    August 9, 2018 at 11:06 pm

    1) Combination of mango butter and coconut oil isn’t the best one. 2) You will never have a nice feel and smooth application with stearic acid. 3) You need humectants (at least glycerin). If you use conventional emulsifiers and thickeners, you have to add silicones. 4) If you want really smooth application you need polymers (sepinov, seppiplus 400, aristoflex etc).

  • dtdang

    Member
    August 10, 2018 at 2:09 am

    Thanks ngarayeva001! After trying different % wt, I got stable creams, but they had soaping effect. Plan to add silicones. I do have glycerin & aloe vera on water phase.
    I plan to change mango butter and coconut with others. Do you have any suggestions?

  • chemist77

    Member
    August 10, 2018 at 11:25 am

    Dimethicone is the best remedy to reduce/diminish soaping to a great extent. A very little goes a long way. 

  • Mamun

    Member
    August 10, 2018 at 3:13 pm

    I think it’s best to use Tween/Span emulsifier system but u need to use the concentrations of tween-span according to total HLB value of the oil phase. Use HLB formla for emulsification.  

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    August 10, 2018 at 3:15 pm

    @Dtdang oils/butters that assure the best application are: shea butter, argain oil, jojoba oil and squalane (normal to dry skin). I personally love rosehip oil. Olive oil and coconut oil are not good for face, as highly comedogenic (so your combination of light mango butter and coconut oil isn’t perfect). Use them for scrubs and body products if you want. If you formulate for oily skin argain is the least comedogenic oil. If you want a “light feel” you can try mango butter, peach kernel oil, apricot kernel oil and grapeseed oil.  Glycerin is good but anything more than 3% would cause a tacky feel. Consider adding butylene glycol and propanediol (the best).

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    August 10, 2018 at 3:27 pm

    Ingredients that I would add to almost any face moisturiser: 1)humectants: glycerin plus butylene glycol or propanediol (you can do all three) and low molecular weight hyaluronic acid, 2) silicones: light dimethicone (not dimethicone 500 or 1000) or cyclomethicone, 3) good quality refined oils/butters. I recommend refined, because not refined smell and compromise application (but if you are creating “natural” “hispter” product go ahead) 4) One of the best emulsification system is Glyceryl Stearate and PEG-100, combined with Cetyl Alcohol or/and Ceterayl Alcohol (not stearic acid). 5) If you want to go to another level get polymers. My favourite is Sepinov by Seppic. I order it from the US (lotioncrafter). Makingcosmetics has an easy to use one called GelMaker EMU (order from the US or from Amazon if you are in the UK). 6) Parabens are the best. Effective and don’t spoil the texture as Phenoxyethanol does. 

  • dr-catherine-pratt

    Member
    August 13, 2018 at 12:06 pm

    @Dtdang of course you want natural so use Olivem10000

  • microformulation

    Member
    August 13, 2018 at 12:54 pm
    I have moved away from Olivem1000. It was great 10 years ago. The issues with soaping were a problem, especially if you didn’t use it correctly. An issue that some Formulators never see is that it is very process dependent, especially in scale-up. The mixing process can have a great deal of effect on the final viscosity.
    I have moved onto Olivoil Glutamate Emulsifier by Kalichem. (More-Teccin the US). It fixes the soaping issues and is much less process dependent. My intern last summer even started calling it jokingly “Olivem 1000, 2.0”

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