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Why is the Hair Cream so watery?
HI EVERYONE!
Please save my soul on this…
I made a hair treatment cream with the listed matetial but instead of having a nice, smooth and creamy - hard cream, its watery and pours out as oil instead.
Under room temperature it melts.
please what hav I done wrong????
1.5 kilo Emulsify Wax
2.0 Petroleum Jelly
250g Menthol CRYSTALS
4.5 kilo Olive oil
10 tsp Salicyclic Acid
250g Sulpur powder
1.5 kilo Shea Butter
400g peppermint oil
1tsp golden brown colour
500g lemon fragrance
10tsp Stearic Acidthese were my chemical, please help me.
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8 Replies
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For accuracy, it’s best to use weight measurements rather than volume (tsp) and use % for your base formula so you can see the proportions.
I would advise to first learn the very basics of making a lotion/cream and then once you have a few successful lotions/creams under your belt, then progress onto learning how to add more tricky ingredients like salicylic acid etc.Here’s a tutorial - http://makingskincare.com/how-to-make-a-lotioncream-part-1-equipment-and-ingredients/ and swiftcraftymonkey also has tutorials. -
@Martinkul Can you tell us how did you get the idea about the ingredients mentioned above, just a random mixture or you went through the literature of these materials to make your cream. First rule, make basic emulsion cream or lotion and then add your essential oils, fragrance or any other additive.
How did you add your salicylic acid and menthol crystals in this formula?
Get the emulsion right first by selecting the correct ingredients and then think of moving further. Once you have a stable cream or lotion then you add other additives either directly or after solubilizing them in right solvents. -
this might sound like a stupid question, but have you got any water in this formula?
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@Billtoge
there is no water in the formula@millachemist
I Got the idea by reading various articles on hair creams online.
I melt the wax and shea.then afterwards add the salyclic and menthol then other oils.Are suggestions on how I can make tjings bette???
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that’s the root of your problem right there
if you’ve got no water, you won’t get a cream (i.e. an emulsion) - just a blend of oils and waxes
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@Bill_Toge is right. Hair creams require water. What you are making is what we call a pomade in the US.Water-based hair creams are very tricky - you’d be better off fixing your failed pomade into something nice. Don’t try water-containing products without more experience.
What’s going wrong is basic cosmetic chemistry:
Waxes are firm solids, and oils are thin liquids. When you mix the two of them together, you get a mixture of their properties. If you have mostly wax in your mixture, you will get a firm solid. Mostly oil, and you get a thin liquid. If you use less oil, or more wax, your product will firm up.Also, you are using the wrong wax. Emulsifying wax is really only useful when making emulsions. But that can be for next time.To save this batch, you need about 8 kilos of petrolatum (petroleum jelly) and about the same amount or more (~10-11k) of microcrystalline/parafin wax. If you use a high melt point petrolatum, or a low melt point microcrystalline/parafin wax, you might get away with a little less than 10k. Beeswax might be a good substitute for the microcrystalline/parafin wax. Basically, you should be about 35% Petrolatum, 45% wax and waxy solids (yes, the shea butter is a waxy solid), and 20% oils. You may need to filter some things out - they are more water-soluble.Basically, I’d take a 1 kilo sample of your batch (it makes the math easier), melt it down and, and start adding petrolatum and parafin wax until I got a product I could sell, then fix the big batch using the same proportions. That way, If you add too much wax to the small sample, you can try again with a fresh sample. If you keep careful records, you should be able to put the sample batches back into the large batch when you fix it. (http://books.google.com/books?id=iHEWCNUetvMC&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=pomade+formulations+microcrystalline+wax&source=bl&ots=61v9QMJtUp&sig=qf7S-67xZ-EORXnTlQmc52ymh3s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2Ix2U8iHJcKQqAaLmYKgAQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pomade%20formulations%20microcrystalline%20wax&f=false )Not the recommended way of product development, but probably better than throwing away many pounds of materials. You may also want to test throwing in a decent amount of coconut oil after you get the oils gelled up with the wax/petrolatum mixture, depending on the extent to which coconut oil is considered a good hair dressing. -
Notice that your original formula has 4.5k of Olive Oil and only 3k of wax (The stearic acid isn’t doing much, if anything) Since the emulsifying wax is really the wrong kind of wax for this product, it might as well not be there. I got the numbers I did by back calculating - 4.5k of olive oil is 20% of x - and then applied the general formula I gave above to the total batch size (x = 22.5 kilos)
You should also do some business calculations - can you mix, fill and sell 22.5 kilos of product? Is the cost of the adjustment (8 kilos of petrolatum and 10-11k of microcrystalline/parafin wax or beeswax) more than the cost of the materials in the batch you’re fixing? Basically, you need to figure out if this is worth fixing, or if you’d be better off by throwing it all away and starting over. You may want to postpone this decision until after you see how your 1 kilo test adjustment comes out, first. You might get something nice that’s easy to sell, or you might get something…not so nice. If you can’t sell it relatively quickly, you could have a bunch of money tied up in inventory for a long time.Good Luck -
I am most elated to say a big thank you.
you expert advice has really helped me remedy this cream.Am really grateful!!!
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