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Good Ingredient for pressing
I am trying to make a line of pressed foundations using dimethicone added to powdered foundation and after it’s pressed (after extensive mixing) spots of dimethicone peek through so fines pressed foundation has oil like spots. Would premixing this with oil dispersed Titanium Dioxide help or am I using the wrong thing to press?
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13 Replies
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Guess dimethicone is not getting properly absorbed by your solids, maybe you need to mix it more appropriately or try replacing dimethicone with some other binder oil.
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@milliachemist is correct. Spots of oil binder on a pressed powder is a classic, textbook example of insufficient mixing before the powder is pressed. The usual solution is to increase the amount of mixing time and/or mixing intensity before pressing the powder.
Dimethicone is not known for being an oil binder that easily spreads out over the powder particles surface, either, (which is what an oil binder must do to work) and, depending on it’s viscosity, may take up to 2 or 3 times more mixing to be properly dispersed than an alternative oil binder would.What viscosity dimethicone fluid are you using? They are not all the same - 350 cst dimethicone is an entirely different material than 20 cst dimethicone is. -
Well let me ask then please, what would you suggest as a good binder?
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@NancyT oh well there so many light ester oils which might act as good binders and won’t trouble you with agglomeration and peeking oil droplets.
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There are valid reasons for using dimethicone as a binder - what are you trying to achieve by using the dimethicone?
Have you looked at using dry binders?What are you using for a powder mixer and/or powder grinder?Also, what press are you using, and how are you loading the powder into the press?Before I make a binder recommendation, I need some questions answered: Is this a standard foundation powder, or a wet/dry product? Are you using treated or untreated pigments? Lastly, what are you using as a primary powder carrier/excipient (talc, mica, sericite, etc.) -
I am binding a mineral makeup with a l-lysine treated serecite base, oil dispersable Titanium dioxide, zinc oxide and iron oxides with boron. Dimethicone was chosen for it’s silky feel.
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What cst is your dimethicone?? Have you also tried using powder binders too like magnesium stearate?
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A frequently useful strategy is to mix a much lower viscosity dimethicone with a higher viscosity dimethicone to improve the spreadability.
Another approach would be to mix the dimethicone with enough of an organo-silicone to allow the compatible use of a light, high-spreading ester in the binder mixture.Finally, you may need to examine how the binder is being introduced into your powder. It is very likely that you are creating the spots you refer to by adding the liquid binder using a method that creates large droplets. The larger the droplets are, the longer the powder mass will need to be mixed to distribute the liquid binder evenly. If your mixing time is fixed, you will need to find a way to create smaller droplets.I am deliberately being somewhat vague, to avoid stepping on toes, but I worked on pressed and loose powder development for Estee Lauder, Maybelline, and Intercos for almost 10 years - If you want to message me to discuss this privately, so that we don’t reveal too much information on the open forum, that’s fine with me. -
Have you looked at the supplier formulations available on the web to see what binder systems are being used?
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This is an old article, but still a good reference:
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