Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Gelling agent will low water content

  • Gelling agent will low water content

    Posted by em88 on April 11, 2018 at 8:19 am

    Hello,

    I am trying to make a gel (hopefully clear) with salicylic acid 10%.
    Made a few trials and I almost got a clear solution at the first try.
    Anyway, the LOI is: water (30-35%), propylene glycol, ethanol, glycerine, (PEG 400, still not sure if I’m going to add it) and SA 10%.
    Haven’t check the pH, but it must be very low, maybe 1,5-2.
    I have tried xanthan gum, HEC, and some premixes which have polyacrilates in their composition (SEPINEO P600, Cosmedia ACE), but not that good results. SEPINEO P600 was the best, I was able to get a gel at the end, while with the others I couldn’t get a gel at all. Unfortunately, I’m not going to use SEPINEO due to its high price. 
    Any other suggestion for gelling agents that work in low water content and low pH? 

    Thank you in advance

    em88 replied 6 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • DRBOB@VERDIENT.BIZ

    Member
    April 11, 2018 at 1:42 pm

    @em 88  Use 3-4% wt/wt FLEXTHIX.Takes about 2 hours to dissolve but nice gel and stable at low Ph. Used to be ISP but now Ashland.

  • em88

    Member
    April 12, 2018 at 9:48 am

    Thank you for the reply. That is a PVP unspecified type (based on ulprospector). I can get some PVP for high viscosity solutions, but the problem with this is its property of being sticky. 
    I have observed that, first I have to make the gel in water and than add in the gel the SA solution in small proportion so it gets incorporated. Will try the same thing with HEC again and see if it will work. :)

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