Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Guessing preservative/s

  • Guessing preservative/s

    Posted by Anonymous on November 23, 2014 at 8:15 am

    So to move any further with my own goals I want to be able to look at a list of ingredients of basic skin and/or hair product and understand basic components in it and to some extent process of how they were made. Just basics  (as I do not have even those). So I selected few products that I used to purchase regularly and looked into each ingredient, recommendations of use, etc. With some of those ingredients I already ‘played’, with some not. The most difficult I find figuring out preservatives and understanding of what type preservative is sufficient for each product. So for example, I have two different brands of skin care gel, I understand all other ingredients on their lists of ingredients as well as purpose of using them in formulation. 

    First brand has also 
    Magnesium Chloride
    Magnesium Nitrate
    Citric Acid
    Methylchloroisothiazolinone
    Methylisothiazolinone
    Potassium Sorbate
    Sodium Benzoate

    All of them used below 0.1%. I doubt each of those added separately, my guess they all are part of one or two preservatives (please correct me if I am wrong)

    Second brand for same product instead has 
    Phenoxyethanol
    Ethylhexylglycerin 
    Disodium EDTA 
    Each below 1%

    I looked briefly into each of those ingredients (caused more question than answers to be honest) 
    So the questions I have: 
    Is properties (purpose to use) of ingredients on first list matching properties (purpose to use) of ingredients on second list?
    What would be your choice of preservative/s in skin care gel?
    Is ingredients on both lists used individually or they are by themselves sub-ingredients of particular ingredient?

    Any advice, directions, information will be very much appreciated. 
    Anonymous replied 9 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 2 Replies
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