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Creating a creamy texture without oil
What thickeners or water-soluble emulsifiers can I use to create a creamy texture in an oil-free “cream” formula? I have done tons of research and tried several different methods and have been unsuccessful thus far so I’m reaching out to see if anyone can offer recommendations on what I should try next.
Thank you.
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9 Replies
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Unless you tell us what you did so far, it is hard to make any suggestions.
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I have an oil-free serum that I make that I want to turn into a cream. I have tried jojoba esters but they are oil-soluble just like every other wax it seems. Nothing that you could use in an oil/water emulsion seems to work because they are oil soluble and since I’m not using oil they just clump up in the water-based solution. Any sort of vegetable thickener (gums and starches) is just going to make it more gel-like instead of a cream texture. I didn’t know if anyone knew of a water-soluble emulsifier or thickener you can use in an oil-free formula to create a cream texture.
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Well, a lot depends on what you consider an “oil” to be.
The easiest way to make an oil-free serum into something that has a cream texture is to use silicone elastomer gels and/or emulsions.
Second easiest would be to use something like Jeen’s ICE-T products.
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It is unclear to me what your basic product is like. Still, have you tried, for instance, PEG-7 glyceryl cocoate, Silsense DW-18?
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They are quite straightforward, esters, silicones and polymers to stabilize the emulsion.
This one combines 4 stabilizing polymers, maybe balancing the vegetable gums and synthetic polymers.Ultra Facial Oil-Free Gel-Cream
AQUA / WATER
GLYCERIN
ALCOHOL DENAT.
DIMETHICONE
ISONONYL ISONONANOATE
CARBOMER
IMPERATA CYLINDRICA ROOT EXTRACT
DIMETHICONOL
CAPRYLYL GLYCOL
CHLORPHENESIN
SODIUM HYDROXIDE
XANTHAN GUM
PSEUDOALTEROMONAS FERMENT EXTRACT
TETRASODIUM EDTA
TOCOPHERYL ACETATE
MENTHOXYPROPANEDIOL
PHENOXYETHANOL
BIOSACCHARIDE GUM-1
ACRYLATES/C10-30 ALKYL ACRYLATE CROSSPOLYMER -
I just tried an experiment with one of my existing carbomer gel products, to see. I added 1% PEG-7 glyceryl cocoate. The (pre neutralised) gel did become slightly cloudy; on the limit of acceptability. I was able to make it transparent again by adding a small amount of propanediol.
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This wouldn’t be an emulsion as there is no oil. This would be basically a thickened serum to give it a milky, thick, cream-like texture.
I’m looking into those ICE-T products from JEEN that Bobzchemist recommended. Those look like they would be what I would need to research in order to achieve what I’m trying to achieve. Where might I purchase those because I’m finding little information on their website in that regard.
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They can be purchased directly from Jeen.
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I sent them an email and am waiting to hear back.
I definitely think that’s what I need. I need some sort of mix of fatty alcohols I believe. But having never worked with those before I’m unsure about which ones and in what mix so thank you so much for your suggestion.
My products are all eco-friendly and botanical-based. I even use Leucidal Liquid instead of other antimicrobials to keep everything as natural as possible so a lot of the other suggestions just wouldn’t work in my formulations.
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