Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating General I’m from the government and am here to help you!!

  • I’m from the government and am here to help you!!

    Posted by PhilGeis on May 7, 2024 at 8:31 am

    Good news! Our preservatives issues are solved! https://pubs.acs.org/doi/epdf/10.1021/acsomega.3c08672

    6 researchers from USDA took on the task of helping the cosmetic and household product industries find replacements for the “relatively hazardous” isothiazolinone and formaldehyde releaser preservatives.

    After extensive review, in context of human and environmental safety/hazard analysis and efficacy testing, of 130 materials in 8 chemical classifications, they identified two novel chemicals, either of which they recommend as stand alone effective and hazard-free replacements!!!!.

    They are: (scroll down):

    cap glycol and cap hydroxamic acid

    PhilGeis replied 6 months, 1 week ago 5 Members · 10 Replies
  • 10 Replies
  • Perry44

    Administrator
    May 7, 2024 at 10:14 am

    I’m confused.

    Do they not think the cosmetic industry has already tried those compounds?

    What do you see as the major problems with their study?

    Also, to be fair, there are plenty of non-government, academic types who have published equally bad “research”

    • PhilGeis

      Member
      May 7, 2024 at 10:38 am

      They clearly have no knowledge of the cosmetic industry - not ingredients, microbiology, preservatives, testing CIR, etc. They worked off MIC’s and hung efficacy confirmation on single applications in USP 51, but cut it back to only two of the bugs. No consideration of in-use or even understanding of the purpose of preservation.

      They published a similar article in 2017 in the same journal claiming octyl gallate was the panacea.

      Mentioned the 3G comedy as ongoing - when it closed out with failure years ago.

      This kind of garbage adds fuel to the even more ignorant regulators and profoundly ignorant (esp. state) legislators giving us bans ala Wash state.

      • Graillotion

        Member
        May 7, 2024 at 4:06 pm

        Is my brilliant Swiss mentor… the only one out there…. not hanging ‘love’ on the hydroximates? I once made the mistake of asking him about it. ???? Let me share his view of that class:

        I don’t trust hydroxamates for several reasons:

        - Hydroxamates (natural ones and pharmaceutical candidates) are often either toxic or highly biologically active (inhibit a broad set of enzymes). No possible pharmaceutical targets (e.g. enzyme inhibition) for caprylhydroxamic acid have been investigated.
        - IMHO caprylhydroxamic acid lacks proper safety testing especially regarding prolonged/repeated dermal exposure
        - I worked with different hydroxamates, they’re unpredictable
        - Stability can be an issue, some are too stable, others not enough, and the wrong conditions (pH <5 or >8) result in a toxic degradation product hydroxylamine, a highly active mutagenic and possibly carcinogenic substance. The CIR safety report proposes that ‘formulators should consider monitoring products for formation of hydroxylamine…’, something most formulators certainly don’t do.
        - Caprylhydroxamic acid can form carcinogenic nitrosamides (mostly as reaction product with amino acids, peptides, and proteins) under physiological conditions. Alas, nobody ever evaluated cosmetic products.
        - Caprylhydroxamic acid is a known irritant (especially to the eye) and likely to penetrate skin with unknown outcome. Increasingly more frequent use as preservative in cosmetics will likely result in an increase in sensitization throughout population (well, that’s also true for benzoate and sorbate as two of many examples).
        - If there is to be a new fall guy (after parabens, formaldehyde, isothiazolinones etc.) in the near future, my bet is on caprylhydroxamic acid
        - It’s only used in cosmetics and as procession aid. Has me wonder why nobody else uses it… And most data come from Inolex who holds the patent and, obviously, has a strong interest in selling it ‘as a safe and green broad-spectrum alternative preservative’.
        = I don’t use and won’t touch anything containing that thing

        On the bright side:
        - It serves as a preservative as much as a chelate
        - People think it’s natural ROFLMAO (the caprylic acid part is derived from coconut oil, the rest or what makes it so powerful is hardcore synthetics)
        - Allegedly, it’s biodegradable. I haven’t found anything useful online though it’s likely degraded fairly easily… hopefully fast enough because it’s highly toxic for aquatic organisms. As it seems, it’s metabolized quickly though nobody cared monitoring hydroxylamine formation. The rats they’ve killed during the safety trials were labelled as outliers = nothing to be concerned about… it’s probably the vehicle though that one didn’t show in the other samples… we don’t know why or how but those few results are completely arbitrary, and you can really trust us, it’s just a coincidence, the product is, against all pharmacological reasoning, safe.

        Your thoughts on his comment, @PhilGeis . I am sure you know who wrote this.

        • PhilGeis

          Member
          May 8, 2024 at 4:16 am

          Spot on. Many fungal treatments are based on siderophore - hydroxamate (ZPT) or hydroxamate like (Piroctone) structure. ZPT safety in use is partially due to its poor solubility - the highly soluble NaPT is fairly toxic. Mechanism is divalent cation binding that screws up functins like DNA synthesis and repair. Pharma mentions many other points.

  • ozgirl

    Member
    May 7, 2024 at 8:08 pm

    Wow ????. They only tested two microorganisms at pH 7. They didn’t even test what would be considered broad spectrum activity.

    I have had products become contaminated with microorganisms using caprylhydroxamic acid based preservatives even after they passed stability and PET tests. We quickly moved away from these preservatives.

  • Abdullah

    Member
    May 7, 2024 at 9:15 pm

    @ozgirl can you tell us what was the product, pH, packaging, packaging size and and preservatives on those products that got contaminated?

    I use CHA with piroctone olamine, phenoxyethanol and EDTA as preservative.

    • ozgirl

      Member
      May 7, 2024 at 9:45 pm

      It was a number of years ago but I think the pH was between 6.5 and 7.0. It was the Phenostat preservative in a surfactant blend (possibly a body wash) in PET bottle with a pump.

      Hopefully the Piroctone Olamine in your system will eliminate whatever the shortfall was in the CHA system when we tried it.

      • PhilGeis

        Member
        May 8, 2024 at 5:29 am

        Piroctone is waste as a preservative.

      • Abdullah

        Member
        May 8, 2024 at 9:18 pm

        My pH is <5 and i use 100ppm piroctone olamine, 500ppm CHA, 2000ppm EDTA and 9400ppm phenoxyethanol. How preservative were you using?

        @PhilGeis can i ask why 100ppm piroctone olamine would be a waste as preservative?

        • PhilGeis

          Member
          May 9, 2024 at 5:23 am

          You’ve CHA and piroctone is insoluble.

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