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Cosmetic grade turmeric?
I have a lotion with lots of vanillin in it, and have been unable get the browning under control with a number of different additives… Sodium Metabisulfite or Sodium Thiosulfate, ascorbic acid, vitamin E,….all the usual suspects.
Currently the formula naturally is pH of 5.5, so I was going to try and lower that before I threw in the towel.
However….it was suggested to me…. If you can’t beat them…join them! Meaning toss some turmeric in there, hide the discoloration…and make claim statements! :blush:
I am having trouble finding (small amounts of) cosmetic grade turmeric…any ideas? Is turmeric just gonna be super bug food??? I need just enough…to give it a nice color…hehehe.
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16 Replies
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Could you find quercetin? Also yellow, also nice for claims/disguise.BTW what I proposed was to use some turmeric extract to give customers the impression that your lotion should be yellow, not to actually colour it yellow. Because turmeric (or rather curcumin in there) is highly lipophilic, it will only colour oils (which is invisible because it’s the inner phase) and it will colour skin too!So, get some fancy label ingredient which is associated with the colour yellow (add trace amounts so it’s not going to be bug food) and combine that with a water soluble yellow colour. According to US law (from what @Perry mentioned) you are only allowed to use a very few colourants in cosmetics! -
@Pharma - correct. While it is not illegal to use turmeric in your formula, it would be illegal if you are using it to specifically modify the color of your formula. See this article for a list of approved natural cosmetic colorants.
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Forgot to mention: You could also use carrot or sea buckthorn CO2 extract or carrot oil because these are associated with orange colours or add a citrus/orange flavour to elicit a yellow/orange colour association in your customers. For different red colours (which would also nicely mask your off-tan) or rather the association therewith, you could go with hyped CO2 extracts of pomegranate, rose hip, raspberry seeds, prickly pear cactus, or mangosteen. Obviously, you’d have to add a corresponding water soluble colourants/dyes because most extracts aren’t that colouring and/or are oil soluble (except for aqueous cactus fruit and mangosteen extracts).@Perry: Thanks for the link… that list is really meagre ;( .
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Perry said:@Pharma - correct. While it is not illegal to use turmeric in your formula, it would be illegal if you are using it to specifically modify the color of your formula. See this article for a list of approved natural cosmetic colorants.Thank you Perry, good read. I was not aware of this situation….granted, I had never considered coloring a product before this.
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another option for yellow/orange is coenzyme q10 (ubiquinone), a good antioxidant..
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Why not just remove the Vanillin? Regardless of what else you throw in there, Tumeric, Sea Buckthorn, the browning of the vanillin will still discolor the product … it will just be a brownish yellow instead of beige.
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MarkBroussard said:@Graillotion:
Why not just remove the Vanillin? Regardless of what else you throw in there, Tumeric, Sea Buckthorn, the browning of the vanillin will still discolor the product … it will just be a brownish yellow instead of beige.
I have never come across an effective natural mosquito repellent….that did not contain vanillin. It is one of the best fixatives for EO’s. (When I say natural…that is without the big licensed products…PMD, Picaridin…etc) That being said…I have built in a multi layered fixation system….and at last resort I will kick the vanillin out. Hehehe….and the vanillin combined with the EO’s…makes a killer scent.
Someone very skilled….(hehehe….not me) is working on this oxidation issue, so if it can be licked, it will be! But the more great minds at work…the better.I did notice…all the other products that used vanillin…where sprays…I will be the first lotion….if success can be had.
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africanbug said:another option for yellow/orange is coenzyme q10 (ubiquinone), a good antioxidant..
I actually use something to this effect (comes in a squalane base)….in my premium lotion… at a 1% inclusion rate…and even though it is strongly colored…as is the rosehip oil I also include at .5%…. After emulsion….the product is still white.
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Graillotion said:
I actually use something to this effect (comes in a squalane base)….in my premium lotion… at a 1% inclusion rate…and even though it is strongly colored…as is the rosehip oil I also include at .5%…. After emulsion….the product is still white.
try the coq10 in its pure powder form orange in colour, I use 0.4% and my emulsion is a rich yellow, too yellow for my liking but any less would be useless as an additive..
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africanbug said:
try the coq10 in its pure powder form orange in colour, I use 0.4% and my emulsion is a rich yellow, too yellow for my liking but any less would be useless as an additive..
I will keep that under consideration, if I can not get rid of the discoloration. Do you source that in the US….if so…where? And who knows…that pretty yellow…plus oxidation….might equal puke brown!
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@Graillotion yes got it from lotion crafter
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Hi @Graillotion may i ask is your lotion going to be a natural mosquito repellent lotion alone or natural mosquito repellent plus beauty lotion in the same bottle?for discoloration i think a target group research conduct if they mild the not white (but natural) lotion or not. Some might not care about the color if the repellent performance is outstanding.turmeric in lotion the yellow color will stick to your skin and clothes, and hard to wash off. this will give your lotion a bad review by the customers like this lotion is super great but it ruined my white shirt 7/10. sorry i can’t offer any help about your formulation in a chemistry way :'(. -
@Graillotion Coenzyme Q10 ain’t going to work because of your antioxidants which are strong enough to convert it to colourless ubiquinol (which is the antioxidant, not coenzyme Q10 as most believe
).@Pattsi Again, the trick is not to add curcumin as colourant but to add turmeric extract as claim ingredient to ‘mask’ the addition of a yellow dye. It’s all a marketing ploy aka cover-up in order to hide eventual progressive discolourations of the product (which may be uneven and that’s why he can’t blamed ‘natural’ ingredients). -
thank you @Pharma TBH i had a turmeric + niacinamide lotion prototype project and did an in-housed small test group. it was a bad bad idea but it was fun
the smell the color were all over the place. now i use Tetrahydrodiferuloylmethane only for claim tho 
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Pattsi said:Hi @Graillotion may i ask is your lotion going to be a natural mosquito repellent lotion alone or natural mosquito repellent plus beauty lotion in the same bottle?for discoloration i think a target group research conduct if they mild the not white (but natural) lotion or not. Some might not care about the color if the repellent performance is outstanding.turmeric in lotion the yellow color will stick to your skin and clothes, and hard to wash off. this will give your lotion a bad review by the customers like this lotion is super great but it ruined my white shirt 7/10. sorry i can’t offer any help about your formulation in a chemistry way :'(.
If you read all my questions…you would definitely be confused. I am developing two lotions at the same time. A premium one, and a mosquito one. That being said…as I had tested various natural mosquito repelling lotions made by others…I was disgusted by the lotion based ones, and the awful feel and texture they exhibited. That combined with their ineffectiveness was almost enough to make anyone quit trying them. So after seeing what was on the market…I realized their was a niche for a product that 1) The actual delivery vehicle was a respectable lotion. 2) A HUGE market for one that actually worked. So…the easy part was putting the repellency into a respectable lotion…well….almost. My research suggested that the standard essential oil platform…was certainly not enough, so I therefore decided to create the lotion from a base of carrier oils thought to repel mosquitos. Then enhance them with an EO package. Many of those oils…are not the light weight and silky ones one would use to create a premium lotion!
I think it is pretty common knowledge, that the right EO’s will repel reasonably well…for about 18 minutes….hehehe….so you can guess where I have spent all my time and research and trials…..fragrance fixation. That is were the Vanillin issues arose from. Vanillin is one of the best fixatives for EO’s….as long as you do not mind the heavy vanilla fragrance it brings to the table, it is a marriage made in heaven. However….vanillin LOVES to discolor anything it interacts with, and is rather difficult to emulsify….as the loads of different emulsifiers on my bench can attest to.
So where am I now? I have an effective product….that is still a little too ‘greasy’…and starts to discolor after about a week.
Where will I be in a month? Who knows. So if a customer used the entire bottle within a couple weeks time….NO ISSUE. This is not likely, and the color progression is pretty marked….from an almost white at first….to a very yellow over the course of 2 months. Now that….is a recipe for poor reviews.
Don’t worry about the chemistry aspect…I have the best and brightest working on it. -
Thank you @Graillotion for your explanation. i like that you care for every detail of your products. i wish you the best. i love seeing a good product put on sell and it grows beautifully in the market.
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