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Ranges of Expected Water Content of O/W “Lotions” Versus O/W “Creams”?
What are the general ranges of the proportion of water content (range of percentages by weight) you would expect to find in an O/W body “lotion” versus an O/W body “cream”?
@Belassi helpfully informed me that the range of water content in an O/W body “lotion” is 96% - 60%. What would the water content range be for an O/W body “cream”?
More fundamentally, what scientifically defines the difference between an O/W “lotion” and an O/W “cream”? Can I assume the terms “lotion” and “cream” are marketing terms (with the exception of W/O creams) in cases in which they are both oil-in-water emulsions?
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7 Replies
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the terms “cream”, “lotion” and “milk” describe how the viscosity of the product varies with shear rate, e.g. when it’s applied to the skin, or pumped; they are not scientifically rigorous, or well-definedgenerally speaking:* milks decrease to water thinness with any applied shear* lotions are more viscous with applied shear, but are still relatively thin* creams remain relatively thick with applied shearthe viscosity/shear relationship of a given product depends on itsemulsification system, and any rheology modifiers and surface-active waxes (C16-18 alcohols and fatty acids) that are present; as relatively small changes in these parameters can produce large changes in the viscosity/shear function, it is not directly related to the water content -
The bottom line, you can have a very thick product with 90% of water or very thin product with 60% of water if change the amount of carbomer only.
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For viscosity tuning, recently the raw material manufacturers are coming back with liquid crystalline phase and highly concentrated emulsion
concepts to innovate from the carbomer strategy.I guess that for simple viscosity modification, carbomer is very easy, but if you look for adding other properties to your
formulation (skin penetration, stability, feeling, etc.), it may be interesting
to explore these options (LC phase, HIPE) -
One person who works for a major supplier described things in terms of heavy, medium, light. Thus a “light/heavy” cream would have a light skin feel and little drag, but take a long time to absorb. He said that different geographical markets have different tastes regarding this.
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@belassi … curious, what did he say was Mexico’s preference?
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@Belassi, it’s a very interesting topic. Any short summary by markets?
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To my embarrassment I have forgotten what he said about my market. I have the impression it was ‘heavy-light’.
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