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Lip balm - combination of polar and non-polar materials
Hello All,
I put this formula together a while ago when I didn’t have much understanding on polarity. I used a high polarity ester and non-polar petrolatum in one formula. The problem is, all my friends love it and ask to make more (sadly enough this formulation failure seems to be my superstar product). I tried to change it but they ask for the “the old one”.
May I ask you to review it and let me know what can I add to imrove stability without removing octyldodecanol and petrolatum? It doesn’t show any signs of sweating, separation etc, but I observed it for 4 months and I expect long term stability issues.INCI % Octyldodecanol 36% Euphorbia
Cerifera4% Cera Alba 20% Petrolatum 25% Stearic acid 10% Behenyl
Alcohol5% Thank you in advance.
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11 Replies
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@ngarayeva001 about such problem i think that the more we intrduce wax ( the more viscosity) then the more stable product we make .
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Hey Guys,
There is a little bit of blooming (as I predicted) after a couple of months. May I ask you to advise how to fix it? I would rather not make drastic changes, but maybe it’s a matter of knockin out one ingredient?
Thanks!
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So I know there are “anti-bloom” agents you can try to incorporate (sorbitan tristearate up to ~2% is supposed to help with this, but so is >5% octyldodecanol..). I’m not strong in anhydrous formulations but I took a course in May that compared balm formulating to chocolate tempering, and a lot of the resources for that industry had gone into great detail on how to achieve uniform/stable product.
Octyldodecanol and petrolatum definitely can work in one product, they are both in Chapstick (the actual brand). Can I ask why 20% beeswax? That seems exorbitant, I would sub half that with petrolatum and see how that does. This is likely just going to come down to playing with ratios
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Thank you @EVchem. I tried to change octyldodecanol to other oils and it became stiffer. The amount of beeswax is due to the fact it’s very soft. Even with that level of waxes and fatty alcohols. I guess I need to add some low polarity wax like they did in chapstick.
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@ngarayeva001 i suspect to stearic acid , for me it almost causes problem in my formulations.
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Thank you @Fekher. I will try to add myristyl myristate instead of stearic and up petrolatum. Stearic is there for extra creaminess but I don’t see it at high percentage in lipbalms and this is probably the reason.
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You are welcome @ngarayeva001 you did not see that shea butter or coconut oil can be better solution ? where you can preserve good hardness with more creamy texture.
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Well am having the same problem and it seems it’s the Beeswax. I read somewhere that reducing it to 75% and adding in microcrystalline wax 25% would solve the blooming problem. Haven’t tried it yet though.
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@bella82 reducing beewax to 75 % from total wax you means ?
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Yes.
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Thanks @bella82 it seems interesting information.
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