Concealer: How to give a liquid concealer more staying power?

Tagged: concealer, foundation, iron oxides, stay power

Formulating

Concealer: How to give a liquid concealer more staying power?

Posted by Zink on May 6, 2015 at 6:49 pm

I’ve gotten some feedback that my concealer formulation doesn’t have enough staying power, so wondering what my options are to improve upon that aspect.

My current formula is roughly:

40% Vegetable oils
20% Zinc + Titanium Dioxide

10% Butters
10% Creasperse (a thick castor seed oil, iron oxide pre blend)

6% Wax
6% Propylene glycol

Remaining % Misc

I’m thinking of increasing the amount of Creasperse, although that’s a costly route to take, other than that, perhaps adding more powders or even clays could help it stay?

Zink replied 7 years, 4 months ago 4 Members · 20 Replies
20 Replies

Iaskedbetter

Member
May 6, 2015 at 10:43 pm

I assume by “staying power” you mean “wear” or “long wear”?

There are a myriad of options to achieve this. Polyethylene, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, VP/Eicosene Copolymer, just to name a few.
Zink

Member
May 6, 2015 at 10:47 pm

long wear, conceals for a long time, ideally available off the shelf and compatible with an oil based formula. I’m sure some options are better than others for this kind of product?
belassi

Member
May 7, 2015 at 4:43 am

Microspheres?
Iaskedbetter

Member
May 7, 2015 at 1:25 pm

Not sure what you mean by “available off the shelf”. All of those options are oil soluble. Polyethylene has some extreme heat requirements.
Zink

Member
May 7, 2015 at 3:35 pm

Available in say less than 1 kg quantities.

Any of those options you think would work better or are you suggesting I try them all?
Bobzchemist

Member
May 7, 2015 at 3:40 pm

To increase coverage, increase your ZnO and TiO2.

To increase wear resistance and staying power, you have to improve the adhesion and strength of the film that you put on skin.

The easiest way to do this is to add some of the Ganex or other oil-based film formers on the market.

The second, harder way to do this is to use a volatile ingredient instead of some or all of your vegetable oils. By using a volatile, you get good initial spreadability and skin feel. After the volatile evaporates, it leaves behind a film that (if you’ve formulated right) has good adhesion to the skin and good wear resistance. (Most of the time, water evaporates too slowly to work well in this kind of product)

Some of the effect of using a volatile ingredient can be mimicked by using a non-volatile oil that is strongly absorbed into the skin. This produces the same results on the product film - it usually doesn’t matter to performance if a volatile evaporates outward or an oil is absorbed inwards.
Iaskedbetter

Member
May 7, 2015 at 4:21 pm

Basically what @Bobzchemist said. Ganex is the VP/Eicosene Copolymer I mentioned.

I have used all 3 of those with good results on getting long wear. If you want to take Bobs advice on the volatile point, I would go with D5 or Isododecane to replace a chunk of your oils. You can get trimethylsiloxysilicate in both of those diluents.

Not sure about minimum buys on these though.
Zink

Member
May 7, 2015 at 9:53 pm

Thanks to you both!

@Bobzchemist I’ve requested a sample and pricing info of Ganex, do you know any other popular alternatives? I’m using a high % of squalane which is strongly absorbed, yet that alone doesn’t seem adequate to provide long lasting coverage.

@laskedbetter I can try Isododecane and see if that improves things. Also could Cyclo-Dimethicone work as an alternative to D5 (as it’s available at makingcosmetics)?
BTW Shin-Etsu has a Trimethylsiloxysilicate (and) Isododecane blend for sale.
Iaskedbetter

Member
May 7, 2015 at 10:49 pm

That is not really a replacement but you could still certainly use it. I wouldn’t go crazy with it though because of the dimethicone.

Isododecane is “drier” so I would go that route.

If you can get your hands on the X-21-5595, I would give that a shot. Ganex is a good option too. Like I said before, there are lot’s of ways to skin this particular cat.
Zink

Member
May 10, 2015 at 5:59 pm

Thanks, I also asked makingcosmetics.com for tips, and they said:

“40% vegetable oils is a very large percentage for a concealer (also in terms of greasiness). I’d recommend to lower the amount and replace a large part of the vegetable oils with hydrocarbons such as isododecane, isoeicosane or, a natural variation, squalane or squlane light.

At the same time I would try to increase the percentage of waxes a bit as these help to increase coverage duration.”

Thoughts on combining squalane and isodedecane?
Iaskedbetter

Member
May 11, 2015 at 4:10 pm

At this point you’re talking more about sensory characteristics and less about formula performance attributes. Squalane won’t do anything to help your wear issue. Typically if a customer or marketing team tells me they like the formula, save for one performance characteristic, I only make adjustments to address that issue and try to leave the sensory attributes the same (why make improvements that they didn’t ask for?).
Zink

Member
May 11, 2015 at 9:43 pm

Maybe misinformation from makingcosmetics then, I’ve ordered a sample of Ganex and Isododecane to see where those will get me. How about a larger % wax?
Bobzchemist

Member
May 12, 2015 at 1:07 pm

Which Ganex?
Zink

Member
May 12, 2015 at 5:38 pm

Ganex V220, only one I could find on ulprospector
Iaskedbetter

Member
May 12, 2015 at 7:12 pm

Doesn’t sound like misinformation, just a suggestion. I agree that 40% vegetable oil is likely going to produce a rather greasy concealer…but maybe that’s what your customer/marketing team is looking for. Or maybe in your formula it isn’t that greasy. My point was that their squalane suggestion was to address a pecularity in your formula that suggested it might be greasy, not to address the wear issue you are having.

Also, that’s the right Ganex. Let us know how it works out for you.
Zink

Member
May 12, 2015 at 8:37 pm

Going to try to replace 10% of the oils with isododecane and see if that helps with staying power, the Ganex sample will arrive later (min order 40lb @ $25 - 37/lb).
Zink

Member
May 22, 2015 at 1:56 am

Tried a >10% isododecane version and also replaced propylene glycol with alcohol as a salicylic acid solubilizer. This lead to the formula being a lot drier on the skin, and it seems like staying power has improved - awaiting further testing of that.

Since this is a mostly “natural” product, not using a silicone or propylene glycol can pay for itself marketing wise.

Overall happy with the result, thanks!
Bobzchemist

Member
May 22, 2015 at 1:40 pm

@Zink,

If Ganex V-220 works, Ganex WP-660 will usually work better:

https://www.ulprospector.com/en/eu/PersonalCare/Detail/4989/8084/Ganex-WP-660

http://cosmetics.specialchem.com/product/i-ashland-specialty-chemical-ganex-wp-660

also, try looking at some of the fast-absorbing esters:

Diisopropyl adipate

PEG-4 Diheptanoate (Liponate 2-DH)

PPG-3 Benzyl Ether Ethylhexanoate (Crodamol SFX)

Isodecyl Neopentanoate (Ceraphyl SLK)

Isononyl Isononanoate (and) Isononyl 3,5,5-Trimethyl Ester (Wickenol 151)

Actually, Alzo has several other nice ones:

http://www.alzointernational.com/brochures/specialtyesterguide.pdf 
Zink

Member
May 22, 2015 at 5:59 pm

Thanks @Bobzchemist

Hopefully my current tweaked formula will suffice, but could look into the above if not
Zink

Member
December 13, 2016 at 6:09 pm

I talked to Ashland, looking at the formula they recommended V216F and Z220F over WP-660. Do you have experience with the latter?

What benefit do those esters have over plain oil isododecane?