Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Hair work with PEG-150 Distearate

  • work with PEG-150 Distearate

    Posted by MariaG on April 28, 2020 at 6:01 pm

    Hi there!

    Can anyone please help me with dissolving PEG-150 Distearate? I’ve tried everything I’ve read online and nothing seems to work. I’m obviously doing it wrong. I have SLES+CAPB shampoo.

    • I tried heating the surfactants to 40 C, then adding the PEG-150 Distearate, and then heating the mixture up to 75 C (stirring a bit), but didn’t work, the next day there were some kind of transparent bubbles.
    • I tried adding the PEG-150 Distearate to cold surfactants and then heating up, but it was even worse.
    • I tried dissolving it in water, but I got some kind of gel. 

    Any tip would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

    MariaG replied 2 years, 4 months ago 5 Members · 7 Replies
  • 7 Replies
  • MapX

    Member
    April 29, 2020 at 6:29 am

    You can dissolve PEG - 150 Distearate in hot water (approx 70 - 80°C) with slow mixing to avoid bubbles. Just dissolve it alone, you can add to your SLES before mix with CAPB. And what is percentage of PEG - 150 you are using?

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    April 29, 2020 at 5:17 pm

    The most important question is why do you need PEG-150 Disparate for SLES+CAPB? It would get thickened with plain table salt.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    April 29, 2020 at 5:20 pm

    By the way, PEG-150 Distearate is very hard to work with. Try to find crothix liquid if you want this type of thickener in general. But again, all of those thickeners are for sulfate-free hard to thicken preparations. Do the salt curve.

  • MariaG

    Member
    April 30, 2020 at 4:47 pm

    I’ll definitely work with the salt! Thanks :)

  • bill_toge

    Member
    May 1, 2020 at 8:13 pm

    +1 for PEG-150 distearate being hard to work with; also, the viscosity it provides is extremely temperature-sensitive

  • Fii

    Member
    September 18, 2021 at 9:37 am

    Im making a shampoo and i want to use peg 150 and no other thickener. I want to conquer this chemical. It wont dissolve in hot water, nor heated surfactants. So how does this chemical dissolve. Iv tried 2%, 1% and 0.5% but stil it clumps.

  • MariaG

    Member
    November 19, 2021 at 12:50 am

    Fii said:

    Im making a shampoo and i want to use peg 150 and no other thickener. I want to conquer this chemical. It wont dissolve in hot water, nor heated surfactants. So how does this chemical dissolve. Iv tried 2%, 1% and 0.5% but stil it clumps.

    Hi, I managed to dissolved it in heated surfactants! It didn’t dissolve completely al the beginning, it became some kind of gel, but I still put it in the mixer for a while, and then left it there overnight (with no hopes of anything, just tired). Next morning it was completely dissolved!

    So, next time: I heated it, got the jelly thing again, then just left it in the mixer for about an hour and saw as it dissolved. 

    I ended up not using it because it was creating conflicts with the pearl in my shampoo, but I was able to dissolve it at least.

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