Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Could I be adding too much citric acid to reduce PH

  • Emotelle

    Member
    September 10, 2021 at 2:02 pm

    I find old threads like this still extremely useful. Please don’t remove them, Perry. I also encounter similar problems with pH even before adding actives. In fact the actives were not the problem in making it difficult to reduce pH with citric acid. New Directions state that citric acid should not exceed 0.5% for leave on like face cream, 1% for soaps or wash off, 30% for bath bombs. My question is if you’re formulating a face cream, is 0.5% the max and why? For say cream masks, or products  that you apply for a while and wash off, is 2 or even 3% citric acid safe, if that’s the amount of citric acid needed to reduce to pH5.5? I used a pH meter and pH strip to compare to make sure pH meter wasn’t off measurement. Appreciate if you can reply.

  • Emotelle

    Member
    September 10, 2021 at 2:13 pm

    Here’s the link to the post on “All about citric acid in cosmetics and personal care”. https://www.newdirectionsaromatics.com/blog/products/all-about-citric-acid-in-cosmetics-personal-care.html

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