• PH

    Posted by bella82 on January 5, 2020 at 9:11 pm

    I have made a body butter and added 1% citric acid but the ph is 2.2. What can I use to increase the ph. 

    Please advise 
    pharma replied 4 years, 2 months ago 4 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • oldperry

    Member
    January 5, 2020 at 9:43 pm

    What else is in your formula?  Probably NaOH would generally work.

  • pharma

    Member
    January 6, 2020 at 5:23 pm
    Why did you add citric acid?
    (Weird, I already replied to that post but somehow my answer isn’t there anymore…)
  • bella82

    Member
    January 6, 2020 at 7:41 pm

    This is the formula.  I don’t see any Na0h in the formula. Is 1% citric not recommended 

    water       qs
    glycerin    5%

    Caprylic Capric Triglycerides 10%
    Petrolatum 8%
    Shea Butter 3%
    Cetearyl alcohol 3%
    Parfum qs
    preservative 1%
    Citric acid 1%

    Ph is 2.2

    please advise. I really need to raise ph to 4.5. 

  • pharma

    Member
    January 6, 2020 at 8:19 pm
    Again, why (= for which purpose, what is citric acid supposed to do in your formula) do you add citric acid?
    See, adding NaOH or the like will solve the problem of a low pH but it may not be the solution you’re looking for. There might be better options such as adding less citric acid in the first place. But to answer that, you’d have to be more specific on the ‘why’.
  • bella82

    Member
    January 6, 2020 at 11:01 pm

    Pharma, am really new to formulation but I have always believed that one has to add some sort of acid to adjust an aqueous formulation. 

    And citric acid being affordable; has mostly been the acid of choice. 
    Everyday being a school day; please advise on what to do.
    Should I completely get rid of it? Will this help with Ph? 
  • natzam44

    Member
    January 6, 2020 at 11:44 pm

    If the pH is currently 2.2 with around 1% citric acid then do some test batches using lower amounts.

    Make some samples using 0.5%, 0.6%, 0.4%, etc.

    To get a pH of 4.5 you will have to experiment with the amount of citric acid present.

  • bella82

    Member
    January 7, 2020 at 9:02 am

    Thank you Natzam, will try this out. 

  • pharma

    Member
    January 7, 2020 at 8:11 pm

    Okay. Suppose it’s in there as chelate in which case 0.1% is already more than you need and you are free to adjust pH since chelation with citrate works even better at higher pH.

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