Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating What happens if you muck around with pH during formulation

  • What happens if you muck around with pH during formulation

    Posted by africanbug on June 2, 2020 at 1:42 pm

    Hallo..

    Will anything be affected or quality compromised if you over adjust the pH; i.e. over shoot from 5 to 7, then when you bring it down, you over shoot to 3 before bringing it to your desired pH? I know it sounds idiotic but my hands were not very cooperative today.. 

    what I am wondering is will there by any chemical reaction with pH sensitive ingredients though the pH arrear was short?

    africanbug replied 4 years, 9 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • EVchem

    Member
    June 2, 2020 at 2:45 pm

    Depends on what other ingredients are in the product and what you adjusted pH with

  • africanbug

    Member
    June 2, 2020 at 4:27 pm

    @EVchem
     it was a trial formulation so there was no active ingredients, Just a basic structure of water phase and oil phase emulsion. I use lactic acid and l-arginine.

    It does however make me wonder if there were pH sensitive ingredients, would they be compromised, generally speaking
  • letsalcido

    Member
    June 3, 2020 at 1:43 am

    @africanbug yes, some ingredients can be pH sensitive and their reactions may not be reversible. But it will really depend on the ingredients and will need to do due diligence to understand each of them in your formulas.

    One thing to consider too is the localized pH, if you’re using a highly concentrated acid or alkaline solution you‘ll want to adjust your pH before adding the sensitive ingredients, otherwise the are where the drop of solution enters your formulation will shoot up/down and destroy some of your sensitive material.

    If the ingredients also change the pH, you should also consider a buffered formulation.

  • africanbug

    Member
    June 3, 2020 at 3:18 am

    @letsalcido
    thank you so much, it makes the water murkier but at least now my speculation is confirmed :) 

Log in to reply.

Chemists Corner