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Nail Polish Pre-Gel / Tixogel Preparation
Hey guys,
I’m having some issues hopefully someone here can shed some light on.I’m trying various methods to create a pre-gel / tixogel with stearalkonium hectorite (Bentone 27V). The problem I’m having is that no matter how much I homogenize / shear this stuff, it still ends up adding small particles to the lacquer and reduces gloss.I’ve tried preparing the gel with a high speed rotor-stator homogenizer for roughly an hour and I’ve also tried with a disc impeller. I’m always left with the same result.Is there something I’m missing here? Is this supposed to be filtered somehow or prepared with something like a 3-roll mill?It’s driving me crazy!I’ve tried both of these approaches for the gel:10% Bentone 27V37.3% Ethyl Acetate37.3% Butyl Acetate15.3% IPA—-35% Butyl Acetate33% Ethyl Acetate16.5% Nitrocellulose10% Bentone 27V5.5% IPA -
1 Reply
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You do know that all Bentones are made of clay particles, right? It may be that the Bentone 27 clay particles are simply too large, and will reduce the gloss of your nail polish no matter what you do.
Have you tried making as thick a dispersion as possible to get the maximum effect from your mixer, then diluting it, and then adding the polar activator? Also, I’m not sure that IPA is a good enough/polar enough activator. You might want to try methanol, or propylene carbonate.It may turn out to be that you need a 3-roll mill or a colloid mill. I’ve even heard of some companies using a micro-fluidizer for this. Elementis has dispersion instructions: http://www.elementis-specialties.com/esweb/webproducts.nsf/allbydocid/453D5010B4D81A4685257743004208E7/$FILE/ELEMENTIS-BENTONE%2027.pdf The best test for you might be to get some of the pre-made gels from Elementis or Altana, which are almost perfectly sheared, and see if they work in your nail polish. If they do, you need to step-up your processing. If they don’t, no amount of shear will help you.
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