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Bi-phase make-up remover - droplets of cyclomethincone in water phase
I am working on bi-phased makeup remover. I analysed eight commercial product and they all are made pretty much the same (I marked ingredients that I noticed in most of them bold). The LOI below is Cellular Eye Make-Up Remover by La Prairie:
Water, Cyclomethicone, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Butylene Glycol, Rosa Centifolia (Rose) Flower Extract, Centaurea Cyanus (Cornflower) Extract, Glycoproteins, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, Equisetum Arvense (Horsetail) Extract, Sodium Chloride, Panthenol, Citric Acid, Bisabolol, Tetrasodium EDTA, Potassium Chloride, Fragrance, Benzyl Alcohol, Linalool, Potassium Sorbate, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Ethylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylparaben
I have a couple of questions regarding this type of system:
1) What is the function of Sodium Chloride in this formula? It is very typical ingredient for these products (and I tried many, they all are noticeably salty)
2) Do I need to add oil soluble preservative to the oil phase? I can see both oil and water-soluble preservatives in the LOI above.
3) I tried to experiment with it. Removes waterproof makeup well, but doesn’t look right, because after I shake it there are droplets of cyclomethicone trapped in the water-phase. What can be done to make sure it separates nicely into two phases?
Thank you all in advance!
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24 Replies
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To illustrate the issue. -
I see that you are looking at other materials Ingredient Declarations which is helpful but you could get some benefit at looking at starting Formulations and some of the Journal documents that address this Market niche. It would be more effective in my opinion to look at fully defined Formulas and the accompanying Process instructions. As many can tell you, these starting Formulations are rarely useful as final Formulations in my experience, but great starting points. Ingredient lists are helpful, but only a small part of Formulation Design.
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Thank you @Microformulation. I am subscribed to a couple of resources with starting formulations. I agree some information there is useful (typical % of ingredients and combinations of ingredients). My typical way of learning is to analize 10-15 benchmark products, find what’s in common (maybe lookup some info through INCIdecoder) and then start experimenting. Depending on complexity might take 30 attempts or more. I managed to get access to Croda recently (with sample formulas) and it’s helpful. I would appreciate if you can share a couple of resources that you find helpful. Regarding this formula, I suspect that salt has something to do with improving separation of water and oil. My next experiment would be increasing amount of salt (or just mix salty oil with cyclomethicone shake them and see what happens).
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Off the top of my head, I have seen numerous examples of similar products. Lubrizol has a Biphasic Formulation that is nearly exactly what you are working with. Also, in the “Formulary” of “Formulating” columns of HAPPI, Cosmetics, and Toiletries and Personal Care Magazine as well. You should be able to access these Formulations easily or in some cases get free online access.
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Here’s some starter formulation websites:
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Thank you @Microformulation and @Christopher. I am reading content on Personal Care Magazine. My main problem with most of these resources is that they do not allow registering with personal emails. I tried SpecialChem, Lubrizol and ULProspector. They start questioning about the company I am working for/work email etc. (ULProspector is the worse). Thank you for additional resources.
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ULProspector has become much stricter in qualifying people. I spoke with them regarding a separate issue (I am trying out a new version as a beta tester) and they said that a few years ago they were lax and many companies complained that they were getting sample requests but zero follow-up commercial material purchases. Remember, companies sample so that they can sell.The other resources (HAPPI, C&T, Personal Care Magazine) you can request access with a Gmail or yahoo account. However, it takes just a few minutes and less than 10 USD to park a website and set-up a mail server, thus giving you a company email.
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@Microformulation,
I even registered an LTD in the UK to provide a
legal company name to Ulprospector, but they asked for: “a copy of
a business card, a brochure showing the
products and/or services your company
provides, and a copy of an invoice generated by your company confirming company name
and address”.I understand that they don’t want to send free samples and I am not looking for
free stuff. I would be more than happy to pay a monthly subscription fee to get access to the materials (tech details,
formulas) and be charged for the samples the same prices as retailers like lotioncrafter charge. I am sure I am not the
only person who is ready to pay for it (for example I have been looking for Easinov for months, but no retailer sells it), so that might be another small revenue
stream for them. You might argue that these companies are interested in bulk
sales, but they send free samples anyway and I am sure there are still a lot of
free samples sent that do not lead to a sale, even after introducing stricter set
of rules. -
Will you be buying wholesale quantities of materials? Kilograms at a time? To be honest. That is the audience for UL Prospector. Companies participate as a sales tool with the intent of selling amounts larger than many small lines or crafters can afford. So, that is the background behind it all.
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I totally understand it. The samples are sales materials. My point is this, they spend time/money/efforts for packaging and shipping these sales materials anyway. Would it hurt much to sell “sales materials” (to those who can’t provide company information but are willing to pay extra) with significantly higher price margin? Additional and effortless revenue stream.
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Even worse when your rep/distributor doesn’t have distribution rights for a certain ingredient. So even distributors deal with this sort of thing, unfortunately.
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I found a website in the UK that sells a weird combination of ingredients. They have rare materials but don’t have some basic things. They also sell packaging, but the variety is also very limited. For example they have decent quality pump jars (which are not easy to find) but only 50ml. After some research I realised that they sell both skincare and cosmetic ingredients. So they only have ingredients in their stock that they also also use in their products. They probably buy in bulk at a low price, make their products and also package the materials that they have in stock anyway, and sell it with a good margin. They package ingredients in ziplock bags with a handwritten sticker with INCI and quantity. Extra source of revenue.
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Hello @ngarayeva001 @Microformulation
I have the same problem of oil droplet trapped in the water phase, I tried to increase the salt but problem has not resolved, do you have any suggestions can help me out in this point, i used some of non polar oils to enhance the separation between two phases, by the way i have colored the oil phase not the water phase.Any help will be very appreciated
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@AndrewSeel, in my case it was a problem with the plastic (the bottle) not the product itself. Try to transfer it to a glass bottle and see if the problem persists. If yes, it’s your formula, if no, it’s the packaging. Do you have any surfactants in your formula at all?
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ngarayeva001 said:@AndrewSeel, in my case it was a problem with the plastic (the bottle) not the product itself. Try to transfer it to a glass bottle and see if the problem persists. If yes, it’s your formula, if no, it’s the packaging. Do you have any surfactants in your formula at all?
no I do not use surfactants here, I tried to add polysorbate 20 but has not worked well
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@ngarayeva001 Hi! Regarding your questions:
1) I believe it’s there to increase the ionic strenght of the water phase, precisely so that oil droplets (like those from cyclomethicone) don’t get trapped in the water phase…you could actually either increase the sodium chloride or add/replace it by magnesium chloride
2) all of those preservatives are actually fairly soluble in water…the parabens you see at the end are all part of a blend (phenoxyethanol, methyparaben,…), although even water phase is what you aim to preserve, being a biphasic product, it would be advisable to ad some oil soluble preservative to the oil phase as well
3) you could actually reduce your Butylene glycol from your starting formula, since being a solubilizer, it’s the only thing there that makes the two phases combine brifely when shaking them…don’t ad a surfactant, since you’ll create an emulsion instead
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ketchito said:@ngarayeva001 Hi! Regarding your questions:
1) I believe it’s there to increase the ionic strenght of the water phase, precisely so that oil droplets (like those from cyclomethicone) don’t get trapped in the water phase…you could actually either increase the sodium chloride or add/replace it by magnesium chloride
2) all of those preservatives are actually fairly soluble in water…the parabens you see at the end are all part of a blend (phenoxyethanol, methyparaben,…), although even water phase is what you aim to preserve, being a biphasic product, it would be advisable to ad some oil soluble preservative to the oil phase as well
3) you could actually reduce your Butylene glycol from your starting formula, since being a solubilizer, it’s the only thing there that makes the two phases combine brifely when shaking them…don’t ad a surfactant, since you’ll create an emulsion instead
I have tried increasing salt but it make the water phase turbid!
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@AndrewSeel, what preservative are you using? Some preservatives plus salt cause cloudiness.
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ngarayeva001 said:Thank you @Microformulation and @Christopher. I am reading content on Personal Care Magazine. My main problem with most of these resources is that they do not allow registering with personal emails. I tried SpecialChem, Lubrizol and ULProspector. They start questioning about the company I am working for/work email etc. (ULProspector is the worse). Thank you for additional resources.For asia pacific region I registered without company mail on ULprospector. Try now.
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Maybe I’m oversimplifying… could the salt just be to reduce eye irritation?
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ngarayeva001 said:@AndrewSeel, what preservative are you using? Some preservatives plus salt cause cloudiness.
i am using phenoxyethanol plus ethylhexylglycerin,
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If you are serious about selling in any real Market, it is crucial that you get a company email. They are easy to set-up and not terribly expensive.
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AndrewSeel said:ketchito said:@ngarayeva001 Hi! Regarding your questions:
1) I believe it’s there to increase the ionic strenght of the water phase, precisely so that oil droplets (like those from cyclomethicone) don’t get trapped in the water phase…you could actually either increase the sodium chloride or add/replace it by magnesium chloride
2) all of those preservatives are actually fairly soluble in water…the parabens you see at the end are all part of a blend (phenoxyethanol, methyparaben,…), although even water phase is what you aim to preserve, being a biphasic product, it would be advisable to ad some oil soluble preservative to the oil phase as well
3) you could actually reduce your Butylene glycol from your starting formula, since being a solubilizer, it’s the only thing there that makes the two phases combine brifely when shaking them…don’t ad a surfactant, since you’ll create an emulsion instead
I have tried increasing salt but it make the water phase turbid!
Then, you can try reducing the Butylene glycol a little.
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ketchito said:AndrewSeel said:ketchito said:@ngarayeva001 Hi! Regarding your questions:
1) I believe it’s there to increase the ionic strenght of the water phase, precisely so that oil droplets (like those from cyclomethicone) don’t get trapped in the water phase…you could actually either increase the sodium chloride or add/replace it by magnesium chloride
2) all of those preservatives are actually fairly soluble in water…the parabens you see at the end are all part of a blend (phenoxyethanol, methyparaben,…), although even water phase is what you aim to preserve, being a biphasic product, it would be advisable to ad some oil soluble preservative to the oil phase as well
3) you could actually reduce your Butylene glycol from your starting formula, since being a solubilizer, it’s the only thing there that makes the two phases combine brifely when shaking them…don’t ad a surfactant, since you’ll create an emulsion instead
I have tried increasing salt but it make the water phase turbid!
Then, you can try reducing the Butylene glycol a little.
I tried many percentages of magnesium sulfate from 1 to 3 % and butylene glycol from 0 to 4% but no positive results; really confused about that
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