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Clay Face Mask Help
Hello everyone!
Very relieved to have found this wonderful informative community! My soon to be fiance and I are working on a face mask with 2 types of clay that are extracted from her property. In addition to the clay we are adding in some other ingredients to our formulation. If there is any major areas of concern in the lab formula then I would greatly appreciate any feedback. Again please excuse any ignorance on my part as I only have a limited chemistry background and am trying to help her out. Thanks!
Illite Clay 68.5%
Kaolin Clay 31.5%
Water 70ml
CBD .5g
Aloe Extract 1g
Vitamin B3 .2g
Hyaluronic Acid .4g
Sea Kelp Extract 2g
CQ10 1g
Green Tea Extract 2g
Retinol (Vitamin A) 1g -
18 Replies
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I have serious doubts the illite would be suitable. The kaolin, yes. No bentonite, it’s terribly harsh.
I take it the CBD is a claims item.
Retinol??? Doesn’t that put it into the category of OTC drug?The main thing though, is marketing. Have you evaluated this project properly? We have past history with masks. We assumed they would sell. We made mask kits (just add water and mix); ready made in a jar; plastic style ones that set and peel off; and we imported ones in lovely packaging from Korea and Taiwan.
… We no longer (try to) sell masks.
I saw Walmart try to sell packaged masks (like the Korean ones but boring looking). I observed for a while. No sales.
You never know, YMMV. But I do advise market research and pilot production.
I still have around 80Kg of kaolin and 10Kg of bentonite in my lab… I used to have some stuff very like illite, I can’t recall the name. Like illite it was also used in pottery glaze. It was pretty useless in a mask. I ended up using it to make some kind of building material… -
Hi @Belassi I just noticed your comment on bentonite, why is it harsh? Also, did you notice a difference in quality between suppliers in terms of the quality of bentonite? Which one did you prefer?
thank you -
I can’t see the preservative.
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I just noticed your comment on bentonite, why is it harsh?
It must be too alkaline. I tried it on myself and I was lucky I only left it on for a short time to test, my face became bright red and very sore. And this was a very pure grade from someone I know who owns a mine. -
My main concerns are the following:
1) Is this a backyard operation? Are you digging up your own clay?
2) Has the clay been tested? Most heavy metal contamination in cosmetics (lead, chromium, arsenic, cobalt, nickel, mercury, cadmium) comes from mineral pigments and clay. Did you have a laboratory test those clay?
3) Do you have a microscopic analysis to confirm the absence of >5 micron fibers? (aka asbestos-like fibers)
4) How are you processing the clay? Washing, removal of organic matter, removal of coarse material, drying, roasting, sanitation?
That is all, and I haven’t gone past the first two items.
After that we may discuss items 32 through 12 (and the missing 13th). -
ngarayeva001 said:I can’t see the preservative.
Ahh I left the preservative out by accident. I plan on using Phenoxyethanol SA. Would that be sufficient?
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lmosca said:My main concerns are the following:
1) Is this a backyard operation? Are you digging up your own clay?
2) Has the clay been tested? Most heavy metal contamination in cosmetics (lead, chromium, arsenic, cobalt, nickel, mercury, cadmium) comes from mineral pigments and clay. Did you have a laboratory test those clay?
3) Do you have a microscopic analysis to confirm the absence of >5 micron fibers? (aka asbestos-like fibers)
4) How are you processing the clay? Washing, removal of organic matter, removal of coarse material, drying, roasting, sanitation?
That is all, and I haven’t gone past the first two items.
After that we may discuss items 32 through 12 (and the missing 13th).lmosca,
Thank you for your response.
1) Not a backyard operation at all. Her family owns and runs a mining research company and the clays are two bi products that are pulled out of the ground.
2) The clay has been tested and there is no worry for heavy metal contamination. The clay has been tested in their lab on site and test results came back as “background” levels
3) I spoke to the engineer this morning at there was an XRD analysis done and no fibers were present.
4) The clay is mined out of the ground, ran thru a wash plant, milled, and then roasted
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Hi @mudbug
That is great, and automatically solve many of the potential issues.Roasting will take care of calcinating away eventual organic matter, and with it potential bugs. I will still suggest to roast the clay separately before production batches. A roasting oven at 180 C for 20 minutes will do the job at destroying all spores that might have deposited in transit.
Get rid of the water, you do not want to make a wet product. With clay the safest bet (and the other potential microbial food you are adding) is to make anhydrous products that the customers can hydrate however they want.
I am also concerned that none of the other ingredients will do much. Clays are extremely adsorbent materials. In your formula, retinol, B3 and CoQ10 will be irreversibly adsorbed on the surface. The leaching of those will be basically neglectable. Same thing for the hyaluronic acid. Even more so for CBD.
Even if they could work, they will not be effective as the mask would be a rinse off product, and after 10 minutes would go flushing down the drain. They would only increase your production costs, and give no benefit whatsoever.
If you want to keep some vegetable extracts keep the cheapest you can find, add it as 0.5% as a marketing claim ingredient. And CBD if you want to enter this niche market, but do not expect any benefit.
Aside from that, I concord fully with @Belassi about the cost of a small-batch mask. It may sell a farmers markets or a small town brick and mortar store, but your sales would be incredibly low. People will still go buy packets of masks at Walmart for 99 cents.
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Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate the input.
In regards to the marketing plan, we have a good road map of how we are going to go about it.
If we were to be “stubborn headed” and went the route that we’re going in now and still doing a “wet” mask, what preservative would you recommend?
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I wouldn’t in general. If you decide to go ahead with water:
Phenoxyethanol and parabens, hands down, will be the best preservatives.
Combined together, you can buy them as Phenonip.
Perhaps chloroxylenol, if you have access to it?I would definitely avoid formaldehyde donors, as I fear they might be decomposed by the clay.
I would sanitize everything that might, even remotely, come in contact with the mixture using bleach or hydrogen peroxide, or sanitizers like starsan. Packaging in airtight containers of the smallest size (single use sealed packets will be the best, in this case).
On top on that I will preserve myself with the best product liability insurance I could afford.
I’d go overboard and say that if it was possible, I would buy a pasteurization plant, or a gamma-irradiation setup (but those run for $$$millions), and definitely the 60-Co irradiation will have additional administrative burden.
But I am being excessively cautious. -
@Imosca
When referring to roasting the clay, you simply mean putting it into a sanitized dish in the oven for 20 mins at 180 C?
Also what are your recommendations for creating an anhydrous product with clay? Powder packet, dehydration of final product or something else?
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@Belassi Which form of bentonite did you use? Sodium or Calcium? I’ve used it in facials for years with great results, although everyone’s skin is different.
Also, what happened with your mask kits?
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Which form? I had no idea there is more than one. It is green, I still have some left. The whole thing is market related. I loved playing with the clay, but we could not get any consumer interest at all.
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I’ve used Calcium and never had a problem. I’ve seem many people complain about other forms of bentonite when trying to use it the same way Calcium Bentonite is used like you’ll see in these reviews. There is a form of Bentonite clay that’s used for filling cracks in sidewalks so have to make sure you’re getting the right version
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The main problem with clay masks is that they are useless. All they do is absorbing extra sebum, but you can get the same result with paper napkin. People just love this idea of applying a mask. They think mask => SPA => relaxation =>skin benefits. The only masks that have skin benefits, in my opinion, are those that contain a form of chemical exfoliants. If anyone can prove me wrong happy to change my mind. I am not only persuaded in this as a formulator, I thought the same as a consumer.
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I missed the question on phenoxyethanol SA. Clays are very hard to preserve. I would go fo phenonip, or top up phenoxyethanol SA with germeben II (or as MakingCosmetics call it Paraben DU). Still not guaranteed. Only preservative efficiency test would tell you.
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@ngarayeva001 - If cosmetic companies stopped selling useless products, the cosmetic industry would probably shrink by 20%. If they stopped selling unnecessary products, the industry would be less than half its current size.
But performance is only one measure of the value of a cosmetic treatment. Much of the allure of cosmetic products are the experience of using them. Masks (whether they do anything or not) provide an experience that many consumers enjoy.
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True. I guess the distribution of useless products is uneven too. Most of useless products are concentrated in face skincare: masks, toners, serums (99% of them), micellar water, face oils, creams with useless botanicals and actives without enough scientific backup, face mists (except for setting mists with PVP), questionable exfoliating products… Well consumerism is good for the economy anyway.
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