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Designing a lightener
It seems that I am going to be quite busy over Xmas with first the peelable face mask design, and now, the Apprecier sample has arrived from Showa Denko. This is a type of Vitamin C: Trisodium ascorbyl palmitate phosphate. The main problem will be degradation of course, so I intend to work with small batch size and refrigerate the samples.
My question: I’m not quite sure where to start with this design. I’m looking to develop a product which is good for lightening dark patches, eg, Melasma, without getting into aggressive chemicals. (Hydroquinone for instance is a definite no-no for me.)So I am thinking of including some licorice extract too.But what to use as a carrier? Any advice from those of you who have experimented with vitamin C compounds will be much appreciated. This is a new zone for me.Web site: -
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Nobody commented …
First experiment: unsatisfactory. Tried using a carbomer gel. No way … could see browning taking place = oxidation of the active. Then tried using Glucamate VLT as a thickener but it seems to have synergy with another component, possibly the 0.2% gl acid, and formed a dense mass instead of dissolving! -
If I was doing this, I’d try to make an anhydrous product, using one or more quick-absorbing esters, along with a small amount of long lasting emollient. Possibly an elastomer gel with added cyclomethicone would also work as a base. Not using water is the easiest way of avoiding degradation.
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Thanks. Now I need to find an ester. I do have a local rep for Schercemol but unfortunately they only stock the heavy end of the line, like SHS, which isn’t fast absorbing. Will investigate further, thanks!
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Looks like the DIS ester is the one I should be trying for. That Noveon ester sample kit looks way cool. I want one of those! I just requested a DIS sample through ULP so we’ll see.
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Here is an interesting article on using an anhydrous formulation (silicone base with the L-ascorbic acid in an internal phase) I have not used it with L-Ascorbic acid but I have used this concept with Hydroquinone and DHA with good results.
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@Microformulation, thanks for that! UL was amazingly fast as was Lubrizol, I had a response from them within the hour. I’m looking forward to continuing. I only have 20g of Apprecier so I can’t afford too many mistakes.
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Update: this C compound is described as “lipophilic” (supposedly the only version of vitamin C that is) and so I tested it this morning to see if it would dissolve in squalene.
It didn’t, so now I suppose I can assume that “lipophilic” is not the same as “soluble in lipids”. -
warm up the squalene and see. some vitamin c is warm oil soluble
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Thanks for that comment. I’ve no idea why some idiot down-voted it. I will try that.
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Update.
The three month results are in from the testers. It’s a small test group because we didn’t have a lot of raw material.
Photo age spots: faded by 70%
Melasma (face): faded by at least 50%.
I am particularly delighted by the melasma response because we have had a fair number of requests for a product that can help, and this is the first system that we tried that has been effective. I am now going to add some more actives (eg licorice extract) we should have the product ready in about 4 weeks.
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