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How to thicken a lotion without it feeling waxy
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But why the Lemon slices? That is not great practice in Cosmetic Chemistry.
Also, there are many different emulsifiers any of which I would highly encourage you to try as your experience level increases. EWax, as I was saying, has many issues. It’s one advantage perhaps is that it is easy to use. As a Batchmaster, I dealt with when I started 30 years ago told me, “use 25% of the oils and that is your EWax percentage, If it isn’t Polawax, add another percentage point of Ewax.” Ewax, however, does soap. This soaping can be overcome to some extent with silicones and esters but it is limited when compared to some of the newer emulsification systems. Also, if you are trying to meet a credible “natural standard”, most Ewax’s would need to be avoided. Check the INCI names, but the majority are ” Cetearyl Alcohol, Polysorbate 60.” Polysorbate 60 as an ethoxylated compound is not allowed under most of the “natural standards.”
If you are looking to start with some newer emulsification systems which can be purchased in smaller retail quantities, check out some of the available products at the Formulator Sample Shop for instance.
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Thank you @Microformulation I will check that store out. Lush uses the method of boiling lemon slices with water and then using the infusion in their product, hence the lemon slices. They actually use a lot of fresh ingredients like avocado, honey etc in their products. Some of them are not even preserved with traditional systems, they use self preserving systems ? I am not going the 100% natural route, so Ewax is ok for my products. I use dimethicone and IPM to minimize some of the soaping effect, but as this is a cuticle creme it doesn’t really matter too much.
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@Melanie27 I think you will find that most trained Chemists will advise to avoid the lemon slices. It brings little to the table and it could stress your preservative system. The remainder of your products have good technical documentation and this does not. Keep in mind that LUSH has more assets available to limit the issues with the preservation which you do not.
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Lemon slices? Honey? Sounds like LUSH will never be a benchmark for my stuff. Awful! :joy:
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@Doreen - Indeed. The prospect of creating a consistent product with those raw materials would be daunting.
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I’m not a fan of lush but ultimately customers love them and they have store fronts and online retail that most would only dream of.
lemon slices? Would I do it? No but lemon slices will hopefully introduce less potential food then any other “natural lemon” I’d personally use essential oil. But not everyone wants that. No I don’t have a lab to do a clinical analysis to back up my claim but I’m not calling it a clinical claim merely suggesting a path to explore
at the end of the day most people formulating for themselves are probably going to try things most cosmetic chemists would frown upon, I certainly have and continue to do so.
As as to the ewax, well I’ve only used about a dozen on the market so can not comment on every single one of them. I suggest polawax, deviate to some other ewax and I would hope they are smart enough to find out what changes to make or come back and ask. I recommend polawax because it’s been the most straight forward and the most forgiving in my experience
if we are forcing learning how to create an emulsification system before making anything I think you’ll find many won’t bother learning with such a high barrier of entry and high failure rate but with interest and success people might be interested in learning the different ways of calculating emulsifiers over time as they become comfortable and want to find better ways to meet their new and growing demand.
i personally started with ewax as a curiosity, now I have multiple systems I love and have branched out to other polymer emulsifiers to create a multitude of things.
While I do understand why cosmetic chemists will push for education, for following simplicity, for following tried and true paths and want to guide them to the more complicated systems because yes the emulsifiers I have make some amazing luxurious and wonderful products they also aren’t all that easy to work with and have limitations on other ingredients, can spontaneously become unstable and are or cant be somewhat delicate especially when sitting at the maximum of what they can handle and a slight slip of the hand will mean the difference between stable and breakdown.
All I’d like to see is the barrier of entry set for everyone who comes to learn at a level they can learn from and at a pace and depth they want to learn because you can’t force a donkey to read but you can guide a curious person to more when they are ready
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Hey, I see LUSH uses parabens. Didn’t expect that, thumbs up! :+1:
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