Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Natural antioxidants

  • MichelleReece

    Member
    April 16, 2015 at 2:41 am

    “…just adding a drop or two of Vitamin E (natural) or Rosemary doesn’t cut
    it in a high risk formula, especially these days when everyone wants
    formulations containing a thousand different herbs, speciality vegetable
    and essential oils and also because many brand owners frown on  BHA/
    BHT antioxidants (not natural).  Chelating agents do help but again many
    brands want to avoid EDTA – the cheapest and most effective of this
    class – which means we have to push more natural options to their limits.”

    This is also exactly why I don’t mess around with extracts very often and go straight for the active ingredient(s) whenever possible. If I want my product to have allantoin, for example, a go for the ingredient itself, and not comfrey root. Way too many potential impurities and skin sensitizers to deal with. I’d prefer to not mess around with vegetable or fruit butters either, but right now I can’t get my hands on specific crosspolymers when I’m just starting out.

    Excellent article nonetheless. More people should bookmark it or better yet, link it on their desktops for reference.

  • belassi

    Member
    April 16, 2015 at 4:08 am

    I use a lot of extracts and oils/butters and have never really had any problems. Generally I use 0.5% vitamin E.

  • MichelleReece

    Member
    April 17, 2015 at 12:25 am

    @Belassi  I prefer to have standardized products, and some of the butters and blends I’ve used had inconsistent emolliency. Could’ve been the suppliers or their storage issues. :/

  • belassi

    Member
    April 17, 2015 at 6:48 pm

    True. Organic shea for instance can vary a lot.

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