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new formula for natural cosmetics
I have heard that cosmetic products that are made from herbal and natural ingredients are better for skin and hair. But the fact that they don’t foam or sometimes don’t smell good at all. There isn’t a way to fix these problems?
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22 Replies
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What you have heard is incorrect. Herbal products are not better for skin or hair. They are not safer. They do not work better. They are not even more environmentally friendly. They often contain ingredients that actually cause irritation to human skin (e.g. poison ivy).
Foaming problems are fixed with surfactants. Odor problems are fixed with fragrances.
There are numerous entities on the Internet that benefit from tricking people into falling for the natural fallacy. Don’t fall for this trickery.
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Can you explain more? Maybe they don’t have the effect of normal products on the skin and hair. But how are they not better for the environment? This is unreasonable!
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i agree too
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The reason they are less sustainable is that you have to spend a lot of water, soil and processing power to make natural ingredients. Then shorter storage time and quick spoilage leads to more amounts of waste.
Synthetic ingredients are easier to manufacture, control quality and store. It requires much less resources and processing power.
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See what @fareloz said
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The fact that products made from natural ingredients don’t foam and/or don’t smell good is because of poor formulation.
Since 2006 I have formulated for global brands using only natural ingredients, and these products have been very successful. And have elevated these brands to become very successful.
But having said that, there are challenges in formulating with all-natural ingredients. It can take time. For example of have spent three months on some products to get them right. Then I send samples to my clients for their evaluation and customer feedback. This can take another two to three months.
So, to answer your question”There isn’t a way to fix these problems?” yes there is. The key is a competent formulation by a formulator experienced in using natural ingredients. And more consumers these days are looking for all-natural products.
And with surfactants, I have perfected ways of saponifying plant oils. And with the correct choice of oils, these foam very well.
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I made a toothpaste with tree root. It has a good formula and it cleans teeth but I wish I could offer it 100% natural but it is not possible due to the problems I mentioned. can you take a look at it?
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“Hurdle” is a poor preservative approach in consumer use. There’s nothing esp. “intelligent” about it.
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Yes, the cosmetics products that are made with natural ingredients are having better performance with less side effects (cytotoxicity) as compared with synthetic ingredients loaded products.
But, you need more hands-on experience and literature to optimize that formulation with appropriate active and in-active ingredients. The stabilization of the product process takes more time in terms of physical and chemical stability. The only difficult part of 100% natural formulation is microbial contamination and description (color), to overcome these problems we have to compromise with product shelf life or we can use synthetic preservatives and claim 99 % natural.
There are many natural surfactants available in the market with good foaming properties with which you can achieve the desired ASM for your products by using the mixtures of surfactant, which also provide micro and macro foams.
For smell, you can use essential oils or supercritical extracts (CO2) to overcome the unpleasant smells.
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“Yes, the cosmetics products that are made with natural ingredients are
having better performance with less side effects (cytotoxicity) as
compared with synthetic ingredients loaded products.”Citations, please.
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Microcontamination need not be a problem. You can use Hurdle Technology which has been used in the food
industry since the 1970s. It has also been applied to cosmetics.Hurdle Technology is the intelligent combination of different preservation factors. Combined, these will restrict Microbiol growth. However it must be applied by a qualified cosmetic scientist, and the production facility should have a laboratory for testing results.
The key elements of self-preserving cosmetics include strict good manufacturing practices (GMP). Combined with appropriate packaging, low water activity, and low or high pH values. These elements appropriately combined can restrict microbial growth in cosmetic formulations. Also important is the need to formulate with non-chemical multifunctional antimicrobial ingredients. These include plant-derived essential oils and extracts.
Essential elements also include production premises that are certified GMP. Every product must pass a Preservative Efficacy Test (PET) in an internationally certified laboratory. All products are microbial tested in your laboratory before being released by the QC Manager.
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I was asking for an Academic citation for the specific statement I put inside the parentheses. I certainly understand the Hurdle technique as we use this almost daily. I understand the principles of preservation, testing, safety substantiation, and cGMP.
“Yes, the cosmetics products that are made with natural ingredients are
having better performance with less side effects (cytotoxicity) as
compared with synthetic ingredients loaded products.”
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I too await the citations. Pretentious claims for natural ingredient safety are typically based on absence of any safety data. As a toxicologist pal commented - “the only totally safe ingredient is the one that no one has tested”.
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This forum is being invaded by the plant people.
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And where would we be without plants?
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There is no absolute. Naturally-derived ingredients are not necessarily any better, nor worse, than synthetic ingredients and there can be advantages to using both to create the best product you can. It all depends on the specific ingredients you choose.
In my opinion, you are much better off using a synthetically manufactured, nature-identical equivalent ingredient than a plant extract, for instance. Why? Ingredient purity, you can control the dosing and it can be more environmentally benign (all depends on the waste products of the manufacturing process). With plant extracts, it chews up an enormous amount of biomass to create a plant extract that contains at best 8% plant extract in water or water/glycerin and you end up with only 0.0008% actual extract when included in the formula at 1% … that will do absolutely nothing to improve the appearance of the skin.
So, if that is your concern, look for ingredients that are derived from bio-tech manufacturing. They’re expensive, but address some of the issues you raise.
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Agree. This is good advice.
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@mikethair Did the GMP production of the lightly or self-preserved natural products also require or involve washing empty bottles with water, spraying with ethanol, or any other procedure to remove possible dusts and contaminations?
Or was it OK to fill empty bottles bought from bottle manufacturers without further procedure?
I am wondering whether people wash or sterilize empty bottles before filling for microbial safety.
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If you’re speaking of virgin bottles - you should put on the specification visual observation of dust and filth. Most do not treat them further. I know some may check 1st 3 receipts from a new supplier by checking microbial content of rinse water of a few bottles. If excessive counts OR Gram neg., bacteria, find another supplier.
Washing with anything is a bad idea as (tap) water typically includes Gram neg bacteria. Don’t try to make up for a sloppy supplier.
If you refer to bottles recovered from the market and reused for fresh production - STOP IT!!
If you plan to produce “lightly or self-preserved natural products” - STOP IT!
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you mean visually inspect of every single bottle before using it in semi mass production?
Or you mean visually inspect random few to get an idea?
Also why do you expect/are concerned most about Gram neg bacteria in tap water as opposed to mold, yeast etc? Are they just more often found in tap water than others
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Right - a specific number of bottles. As trivial as it sounds, this should be a SOP with trained assessors - trained in what is acceptable.
Gram negative bacteria are BY FAR your greatest risk - the primary cause of recalls for micro. Yeast and mold are not commonly found in tap water at any significant level. Gram negative bacteria are common and usually as biofilm chunks.
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Our bottles were supplied in large sealed plastic bags contained in cardboard cartons, so they arrived clean. We would do a visual check for dust and any other contamination. In the early days with our supplier, we did a microbial test for rinse water in our on-site microbial lab. We used the same bottle supplier.
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