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Emulsification
Hello,
I am not a chemist and have only been formulating my own skincare product for a year now. I learn something new everyday in the wonderful world of formulating and think I may have missed my calling in life. How exciting would that be to work in a cosmetic formulating lab all day!! Anyway, I still get a lot of pleasure formulating for myself. I need some help on a hand and body lotion that appears to emulsify nicely and have good viscosity for the first couple months and then turns to liquid. I’m using Lotionpro 165 at 5% as my emulsifier and also include cetyl alcohol at 3% to help with thickening as I find Lotionpro 165 makes a fairly light lotion. The oil phase of the recipe adds up to 26%. Does anyone have any suggestions as to why my lotion doesn’t remain stable based on this information? Maybe my oil phase is too high and I should adjust this? I do follow manufacturing best practices and heat and hold at 70 for 20 minutes etc. so I don’t think the issue lies with this part of the process. -
8 Replies
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Try adding some Pemulen to your water phase before emulsification, and then neutralizing it after emulsification. You may find you need to reduce your Cetyl Alcohol a bit to compensate for the increased viscosity you get from the pemulen.
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Thank you Bobzchemist. I’ll have to check if I can obtain this ingredient from a Canadian supplier as I don’t recognize based on the suppliers I currently use in Canada. Do you have another suggestion or equivalent ingredient that would be easily sourced?
Thank you again for responding, I appreciate your help.
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Pemulen TR-1 is only sold commercially by Lubrizol:
https://www.lubrizol.com/PersonalCare/Products/Pemulen/PemulenTR-1.html but you can get small amounts at The Personal Formulator http://www.personalformulator.com/wvss/product_info.php?products_id=1010 -
If you prefer you can use a pre-neutralized polymer like aristoflex AVC or Sepimax ZEN, etc if you want to avoid neutralization steps. Also you can avoid at all any polymer and try to increase your emulsifier as you have 26% oils or combine your emulsifier with another emulsifier for better results. Homogenization will help your emulsion a lot if you haven’t done it already.
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Hello dsanderson,,
http://www.soapandmore.com/cart/Emulsifying-Wax-Vegetable-BEST-DEAL.html#product-details-tab-descriptionLocated in Canada….very nice product.
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Your oil phase is way too big for that percentage of emulsifier, that’s why it separates. Try adding say 7% cetearyl alcohol.
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Does anyone have any suggestions as to why my lotion doesn’t remain stable based on this information?
Could be a problem of the preservative system.
Scents/ parfum or essential oilsWithout the HLB of your system it’s like shooting in the dark for a solution. You could very easily solve the problem with more Glycerol stearate, but you will need the HLB to do that.
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I always felt it is a bit of “cheating” to use a polymer to stabilize an otherwise unstable formula. On the other hand that is of course just nonsense - so go for it! There are many options . .(pemulen, aristoflex, carbopol etc) .
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