Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Ozone preservative

  • Ozone preservative

    Posted by david on October 5, 2016 at 9:08 am

    Can ozone (Ozonidealone be used as a preservative in cosmetics?
    I can see it could kill microbes but would such a cosmetic product pass a challenge test?

    bill_toge replied 7 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • johnb

    Member
    October 5, 2016 at 9:47 am

    Ozone is a very unstable compound and quickly decomposes back to its original oxygen. In the presence of organic matter, ozone can form explosive ozonides. It also has a strong “electrical” odour - mainly due to our association with the electric sparks forming ozone.

    I also doubt it would pass health and safety requirements.

  • bill_toge

    Member
    October 5, 2016 at 10:04 am

    first of all, ozone and ozonides are two different things

    ozone is a dark blue, acrid-smelling gas that acts as a strong oxidising agent and decomposes readily in aqueous solutions; if you put it in a cosmetic product I very much doubt it’d remain stable for long enough to act as an effective preservative

    ozonides are either inorganic salts of ozone (just as unstable as ozone itself, and often explosive), or adducts of ozone to organic compounds; the latter are also unstable, and the majority of them don’t even have INCI names

    in my view, even trying to create a stable formulation with either of them, let alone trying to get it to pass a challenge test, would be completely impractical

  • david

    Member
    October 5, 2016 at 10:13 am

    @johnb @Bill_Toge ;
    Sorry, my fault - this is about ozonides.

  • bill_toge

    Member
    October 5, 2016 at 10:14 am

    @johnb funnily enough, ozone actually has a registered INCI name and it’s not subject to any restrictions in the EU - probably because nobody uses it

    in the dim and distant past I can remember using it for ozonolysis reactions in the lab; the smell is very harsh, nearly as bad as sulphur dioxide, and once you’ve smelt it you never forget it!

  • bill_toge

    Member
    October 5, 2016 at 1:09 pm

    @David as I said above, to the best of my knowledge there are no ozonides, organic or inorganic, that have registered INCI names, or are stable enough to be used in consumer products

    the only time I’ve ever come across them are as reactive intermediates in an organic synthesis

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