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Emulsions in organic shampoo
I am making an all natural shampoo.
the recipe I just made is
5g castor oil
5g kokum butter
5g cetyl alcohol
5g silk amino acid powder
5g DL Panthenol
1/4 cup green tea
1/4 cup aloe vera gel
1/4 cup cocamidoproyl betaine
10g Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate
1/4 cup coconut oilThe problem I’m having is that the water and oils are separating. How can I fix this? Will adding my thickener (liquid crothix OR prehydrated xanthan gum) help fix this? Will adding more cetyl alcohol do anything?
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21 Replies
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You really need to measure by weight and % (w/w). No idea how big your cup is!
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Oils, butters and cetyl alcohol serve no function in shampoos and they just reduce cleansing, foaming and will need an emulsifier to avoid separation.
Panthenol does nothing in a rinse off product and it just ends up in the drain.
Remove them or at least reduce them to claims ingredient levels.That formula has no preservative, especially scary since aloe vera readily rottens itself.
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Thank you , I didn’t want to add the preservative yet until I figured out how to make the water and oil not seperate (to not waste product) because if I can’t I was just going to dump it and it makes sense all those ingredients serve no purpose in shampoo but I see big brands like Pantene has avocado oil in their shampoo. So I figured it was okay. Also I read that cetyl alcohol is used as an emulsifier and thickener so I also thought it could possibly work in the shampoo.
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The Aloe Vera gel weighed to be 54g
coconut oil 48 g
cocamidopropyl betaine 53g
green tea 50g -
Again. not really “all natural.”
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At most, you going to want to add 1% to 2% total oils … yes, you will need an emulsifier to make this concoction hold together.
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Thank you guys so much for your input
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Gunther said:Oils, butters and cetyl alcohol serve no function in shampoos and they just reduce cleansing, foaming and will need an emulsifier to avoid separation.
Panthenol does nothing in a rinse off product and it just ends up in the drain.
Remove them or at least reduce them to claims ingredient levels.That formula has no preservative, especially scary since aloe vera readily rottens itself.
Really Panthenol has nothing to do with rinse off shampoos ?
But reality tales different .
Entire line of Pantene shampoo use this product .
https://www.healthyhairplus.com/benefits_panthenol_hair_products_s/4245.htm -
@Aziz - Anyone can write anything about anything on the Internet. Just because healthyhairplus.com says panthenol does something doesn’t make that true. Especially since they assert claims and provide zero scientific evidence.
I know panthenol is a popular ingredient and brands like Pantene make a big deal of it being in their formula. But the reality is there is scant evidence that panthenol provides any measurable benefit to hair. I’ve personally evaluated it in formulas and on tresses and never found any benefit.
Additionally, it is water soluble so when you put it in a shampoo it rinses down the drain. The only reason to add it to shampoo is as a feature ingredient to support a story. If you want shine and detangling, panthenol will not help.
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Hi @Perry , thanks for valuable remarks .
Yes I am agree with you that any one can right anything on the internet . But in some point we have to believe something based on their knowledge, their motives , their expression of quality etc , e g in this site You , Belassi , Markbroussard, Ngrayava, Catherine Pratt and many more.
When I was facing difficulties in formulating shampoo I searched and study many of the ingredients. My problem was lack of ingredients, In our country only SLS , SLES ,AOS , CAPB , CDEA , POLY QUOTE 7 , Cetrimonium Chloride and Panthenol available. But I have no panthenol .
I searched about panthenol and found all most all sites claim about it’s benifits like humactant , thickening , shining and also nourishing etc .
In Poucher’s Perfume and cosmetics book , he classified Panthenol as a functional ingredients. So it is not only a claim by healthyhairplus.com only . Furthermore this site expressed the benifits of Panthenol from a chemical point of view. They very nicely described the benifits of panthenol. So how can I say their claim is baseless.
* I don’t know what methodology you follow to disprove all claims of Panthenol.
* Based on false claim how a company build an entire product line with this ingredients.
* How it is classified as a functional ingredients in Poucher’s book .
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Aziz, there are so many companies that build entire marketing campaign for multiple products on false claims. Take collagen for example. Companies use the fact it’s essential for youthful skin and make products with collagen. Consumer thinks, well skin ages because losing collagen, so using moisturizer with collagen is a good idea. Now the problem: does loss of collagen leads to signs of aging? The answer is yes. Can you replenish collagen in your skin applying it topically? The answer is unfortunately no.
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@Aziz - Thank you for your thoughtful reply. It is very difficult to know what to believe on the Internet.
So, I thought we could provide some tips to follow when you’re doing your own research on any beauty product topic.
1. Be humble about what you can learn. Real research is hard. There is a ton of information freely available on the Internet. Much of it is designed to get you to click on an ad or buy product. And the stuff that is interesting to read or understand is usually the less reliable. A 200 word blog post about Panthenol with a snappy headline is much easier to read than the 4-page, 2000+ word article filled with technical jargon in the “Analytica Chimica Acta with the title Direct determination of d-panthenol and salt of pantothenic acid in cosmetic and pharmaceutical preparations by differential pulse voltammetry” Real research means reading & understanding technical literature about studies that have been done. Your average beauty blogger, Instagram expert, or brand owner is not up to the task. Often, cosmetic chemists aren’t even up to it.
2. Look for reasonable experts and sources. First, ask yourself does the person sharing the information have a background that makes them a reasonable expert? I remember reading the book Skinny Bitch and was not terribly impressed with the information because it sounded dubious. Then I saw it was co-written by a former model & former modeling agent. And I just thought, Why would anyone seriously take diet & nutrition advice from people who have no background in the subject? I understand that the book was entertaining but these are not the kind of experts you should be looking to for education about the subject.
And in the beauty industry, people can be experts in product usage but that doesn’t make them experts in the chemistry or science of a product. I would take the advice from beauty bloggers about products and their experience and whether they liked using them or even how the products worked for them. But I wouldn’t take seriously anything that a non-scientist was saying about the safety of products. Especially if what they are saying goes against the general consensus of the scientific community.
3. Look for unbiased experts. Alright, when you’re researching even if you find a reasonable expert, they might not be telling you the whole truth. When someone works for a beauty company, they can’t be completely open with what they communicate to consumers. Often, to keep their jobs, they’ll have to shade the truth a bit to make competitor’s look bad and give you a reason to use their products. And some of them will just downright pass along wrong information. I once published an open letter to cosmetic chemists asking them to stop doing that! Still, I see chemists or dermatologists starting brands or working for brands where they pass off BS information about product safety or about how well a product will work or not. When an expert is working for a brand, be highly skeptical of what they are telling you. This is true whenever someone will gain financially from getting you to believe something, That doesn’t mean they’re lying, just remain suspicious.
4. Watch out for ideologues. Ideologues are people or groups who approach a subject with a biased agenda. For example, when someone calls themselves a “natural or organic formulator” the information they provide about ingredients and products will not be wholly reliable. They’ll exaggerate fears and ingredient benefits that will convince you to come to their way of belief. Usually, this means you’ll be paying more for products that don’t work as well.
And consumer watchdog groups like the Environmental Working Group are similarly not always reliable. They are only necessary if they can keep consumers concerned about products. And they don’t mind misleading people if it keeps you scared.
5. Be open to new evidence. It’s easy to be fooled. And it’s easy to develop beliefs that are mistaken. For example, if you’ve come to believe that natural cosmetic products are better for you or safer for you, you’ve been fooled. There is zero evidence for this. In fact, there is more evidence that they are less safe than that they are safer. You must always remain open to the possibility that new information will change your mind about a subject.
In 2005 when information came out about parabens and a potential connection with breast cancer and hormone disruption, it was reasonable for people to worry about that in their cosmetics. But in the subsequent years with more research and the reports by experts who say parabens in cosmetics are perfectly safe, it is not reasonable to continue to be afraid of them. It is not reasonable to avoid a product just because it contains a paraben. When new information comes to light, be open to changing your mind.
So there you have it, when doing your own research on any topic remember
1. Be humble because research is hard
2. Look for real experts who have a background in the subject
3. Look for unbiased experts who aren’t trying to sell you something (most important)
4. Watch out for ideologues who are pushing a biased agenda.Finally,
5. Always remain open to changing your mind if the evidence is good enough.Hopefully, that will help you in your quest to do your own research.
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But let’s get to panthenol. My evidence that it doesn’t do much is personally working with the ingredient and testing the ingredient at different levels in different formulas. In multiple, blind tested tress tests, salon tests, and consumer tests, I could not demonstrate that the ingredient had any benefit.
This is enough evidence for me.
Certainly, there are people (especially people who sell panthenol & products with panthenol in it) who can conduct lab tests and show there is some measurable difference. But I would argue two things…
1. These lab measured differences do not matter & can not be detected by consumers when they use the products.
2. These lab measurements are not science. These tests are done to prove something positive about the ingredient. This is how claims testing is done.
Unless research is done by someone who has no stake in the outcome & that research is repeated, there is no reason to take the research particularly seriously.
Also, people who write books & magazine articles are more inclined to write positive things about ingredients. Science journals are also more inclined to publish positive results than negative results.
The bottom line is be skeptical.
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@Aziz Just a small note: Vitamins and provitamins require living tissue and most are usually only active when eaten. It’s like pouring gasoline over your car instead of into the tank. There is a small chance that when drowning your car in enough gasoline, some will actually diffuse into the tank. In addition, the slippery covering over you car does reduce air friction: From a twisted scientific point of view, it is hence proven that showering a car in gasoline has it run longer and faster. It’s the same with panthenol
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ngarayeva001 said:Aziz, there are so many companies that build entire marketing campaign for multiple products on false claims. Take collagen for example. Companies use the fact it’s essential for youthful skin and make products with collagen. Consumer thinks, well skin ages because losing collagen, so using moisturizer with collagen is a good idea. Now the problem: does loss of collagen leads to signs of aging? The answer is yes. Can you replenish collagen in your skin applying it topically? The answer is unfortunately no.
Definitely we should not put mud on our skin rather we should increase the production of collagen . Thanks for your valuable comment .
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Pharma said:@Aziz Just a small note: Vitamins and provitamins require living tissue and most are usually only active when eaten. It’s like pouring gasoline over your car instead of into the tank. There is a small chance that when drowning your car in enough gasoline, some will actually diffuse into the tank. In addition, the slippery covering over you car does reduce air friction: From a twisted scientific point of view, it is hence proven that showering a car in gasoline has it run longer and faster. It’s the same with panthenol .
When sunlight fall on a car , it can produce vitamin D
. Oral dose of vitamin C is not sufficient to minimize the ROS of our skin . We have to apply vitamin C on our screen to increase collagen production . A vitamin is a chemical substance which may have other functions rather than the functions of only vitamins . This is not the point , the point is , a text book classified it as a functional ingredients of shampoo . I upload the screen shot of this . Also many sites support this claim . Hope you understand the point of discussion . -
@Perry I am so greatful to you for your valuable and indepth reply of this matter . I am completely aware of this and I am 100% agree with you .
I am owe to you in many ways .
I consciously avoid these Click to pay and affiliate marketers .
I like to read indepth articles and reviews and don’t like thin books .
You spend a lot of time to write this comment. It can be include as an article in Chemist Corner .
Again thanks a lot . -
@Perry So after posting this I have read more articles and formulas where people did describe Panthenol as a marketing ingredient more then valuable in shampoos BUT you said you ran tests for its effects on hair in general? Does this mean that even if I put it in a leave in hair oil spray it wouldn’t do anything for the hair still? Or is rinse off the only concern. Can it penetrate the hair follicle at all? A few more questions, if the claims about it being conditioning to the hair like the claims it’s good for skin? Can our skin absorb it? Is it beneficial at all and for what? If it is beneficial to skin only then it could probably be used in a scalp treatment formula. Possibly even shampoo targeted to create a healthier scalp? Or maybe only suitable for leave on.
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@Aziz If you look at Poucher’s book again, then you will notice 2 things.
- The panthenol subsection is the only one without a reference (I happen to own a copy of the book and yes, every other subsection of the “Functional Ingredients” in 9.4.3 has at least one reference, patent).
- It Reads: Vitamin B is essential for normal hair growth and it has been found that use of panthenol in hair preparations can deliver vitamin B5 to the hair through the oxidation to the acid. Panthenol has also been shown to improve body and texture of hair together with a moisturizing capability.
Hair is just keratin, it is not living tissue. Like Pharma correctly points out for this oxidation from alcohol to acid, living cells are required. The hair cannot perform such a conversion. Now arguably the follicle and skin may be able to convert this - but how long do you usually keep shampoo in your hair and on your scalp? Panthenol is water soluble and you rinse it right away.@Mallow631, when formulated correctly dexpanthenol (D-Panthenol), may penetrate the skin where it can be used for a “skin conditioning” claim.Panthenol is a humectant, it is hygroscopic (attracts water) and can keep water on your skin or draw it out of your skin, depending on the formula. It can also bring moisture to your hair, but to get shine and disentanglement cationic polymers are the way to go.You also mentioned earlier that you read cetyl alcohol is an emulsifier, but it is more of an emulsion stabilizer, it can indeed thicken emulsions but does not really function as an emulsifier in its own right.Often you will see it used in conditioners to give that slick yet somewhat heavy feel customers expect.Edit: Removal of large spaces in the text. -
@sibech I did realize I interpreted what I read initially wrongly and ended up getting btms50 to mix with my cetyl alcohol in my conditioner. And in what circumstances would the Panthenol in skincare draw out moisture? (So I can avoid this) I’m thinking about putting it in a hair scalp serum
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@Mallow631 Just make sure there is water in the formulation. It is a feature inherit in more or less all humectants. But at the same time, we do perspire water all the time and is not usually something that you need to consider. It was intended more as an interesting tidbit.
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