Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating General polysorbate

  • Christopher

    Member
    November 10, 2018 at 9:50 pm
  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 10, 2018 at 11:12 pm

    80 and 20 are solubilizers, 60 is a thicknener.

  • jeremien

    Member
    November 12, 2018 at 9:18 am

    the 3 are surfactants. The structure and the HLB is
    different. 

    Polysorbate 60 and 80 are very similar and have almost the
    same HLB, only difference is the saturation of the aliphatic tail. If you are
    using a saturated oil better to use the polysorbate 60 and for unsaturated oil
    better the polysorbate 80.  

    Polysorbate 20 is more hydrophilic 

  • nara

    Member
    November 12, 2018 at 11:29 am

    Thank you very much jeremien

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 12, 2018 at 11:10 pm

    @jeremien, I don’t understand your point. Polysorbate 60 is a thickener. You can’t use 60 and 80 interchangeably unless you are using them as high HLB emulsifiers to mix with a low HLB emulsifiers like glyceryl oleate

  • jeremien

    Member
    November 13, 2018 at 9:05 am

    I cannot understand why you classify tween 60
    as Thickener and not Tween 80. The only difference between both surfactants is
    the alkyl tail, that have the same length (C18) but it is a stearyl in the case
    of Tween 60 and Oleyl in the case of Tween 80I understand that tween 60 is semisolid at room temperature and tween 80 is liquid, but when you solubilize them, both are soluble in water. 

  • jeremien

    Member
    November 13, 2018 at 9:12 am

    Looking to phase diagram of both surfactants, due to its slightly differetn structure, Tween 60 tend to form liquid crystalline phases in a larger region than tween 80, maybe that is the reason why you classify it as a thickner?

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 13, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    @jeremien

    https://www.makingcosmetics.com/Polysorbate-60_p_133.html

    Google polysorbate 60 and you will get many sources that classify it as a thickener.

    That aside, I run dozens of experiments with it and can confirm, it thickens emulsions. If you do not believe me, make a basic o/w lotion, then make another batch but with 2% of polysorbate 60 and compare.

  • jeremien

    Member
    November 14, 2018 at 9:13 am

    @ngarayeva001 i trust you J, i have never formulate a product with only
    this surfactant. I believe that thickening effect is due to liquid crystalline
    phase and stronger interactions with other co surfactant such as cetostearyl
    alcohol.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 14, 2018 at 4:39 pm

    @jeremien, I don’t think an emulsion with polysorbate 60 only will be very stable. I usually combine it with either low HLB emulsifiers+fatty acids or polymers. Goes well with Sepinov EMT. If I am not mistaken, I saw Poly 60 and Sepinov mix in a couple of La Prairie’s products.

    I read recently that glyceryl oleate, which is w/o emulsifier acts as a thinkener in o/w emulsions. Ordered it recently to see how it’s going to work.

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