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Niacinamide in formula
I’ve made face serum here are ingredients I’ve used:
Aqua
Lavender Hydrosol
Glycerin
Cucumber extract
Aloe vera powder 200x
Panthenol
Allantoin
Sodium Hyaluronate
Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside
Xanthan gum
Geogard Ultra
Sweet orange EO
FRUIT ACID COMPLEX (INCI: Water & Vaccinium Myrtillus Fruit/Leaf Extract & Saccharum Officinarum (Sugar Cane) Extract & Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Fruit Extract & Citrus Limon (Lemon) Fruit Extract & Acer Saccharum (Sugar Maple) Extract)
Question is: can I add Niacinamide to this formula and what % will be ok?
Thank you
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7 Replies
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Sure, Niacinamide is soluble in water. As to the % to use, that depends on why you are using it. Why are you adding it to the formula?
What benefit is it going to bring to the formula that the formula lacks?
You’ve already got aloe, lavender, cucumber, panthenol, allantoin, hyaulronic acid, glycerin & a fruit acid complex with 5 more extracts as “active” ingredients. What extra benefit would you get by adding niacinamide? For that matter, what specific benefit are you getting from each of the things that you have already added?
Whenever you are formulating, each chemical you add to the formula should have some specific purpose. Your goal should be to minimize the number of chemicals you put in a formula, not maximize them.
If you were cooking, you wouldn’t add a little bit of every single spice in your spice cabinet. It’s the same with formulating. Add only things to your formula that will provide some specific benefit that you can’t get otherwise.
If you are just adding the Niacinamide for marketing purposes, put in 0.1%.
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Perry said:Sure, Niacinamide is soluble in water. As to the % to use, that depends on why you are using it. Why are you adding it to the formula?
What benefit is it going to bring to the formula that the formula lacks?
You’ve already got aloe, lavender, cucumber, panthenol, allantoin, hyaulronic acid, glycerin & a fruit acid complex with 5 more extracts as “active” ingredients. What extra benefit would you get by adding niacinamide? For that matter, what specific benefit are you getting from each of the things that you have already added?
Whenever you are formulating, each chemical you add to the formula should have some specific purpose. Your goal should be to minimize the number of chemicals you put in a formula, not maximize them.
If you were cooking, you wouldn’t add a little bit of every single spice in your spice cabinet. It’s the same with formulating. Add only things to your formula that will provide some specific benefit that you can’t get otherwise.
If you are just adding the Niacinamide for marketing purposes, put in 0.1%.
Thank you for answer. Serum is called Moisture Boost. It has to deeply moisturize dehydrated skin and have calming effect on it. So the the main purpose of so many extracts and moisturizing actives was to justify it.
Do you say that there is no need to add multiple extracts and actives and only one can do all job? But besides moisture properties, doesn’t these components have other benefit on skin?
What about Niacinamide, I want to add pore minimizing effect to the serum…
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In my opinion, I could create a formula using just Water, Glycerin, Xanthan gum, and Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside and get all the moisture boosting benefits you would get from making the formula you are attempting.
The reality is that most of the ingredients you are adding are “claims” ingredients that are put in formulas to tell stories to consumers to get them to buy otherwise uninteresting (but effective) products. These ingredients, especially the plant extracts, are having no effect in your formula at all.
I know the companies marketing these raw materials, the brands using them, and the unwitting bloggers who write about them will tell you different, but their opinions are biased. They are motivated to get you to buy something. They rely on you to buy into the story of ingredients.
Aloe is a humectant. Glycerin is a humectant. But glycerin is so much more efficient and effective at being a humectant that with it in your formula, you will see zero benefit from aloe. Therefore, the ONLY reason companies add aloe is so they can tell the story that the product has aloe. People are much more inclined to buy a product with aloe than one with glycerin.
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If you want a serum with niacinamide, just use 4-5% of niacinamide. I looked through several studies and haven’t noticed the use of more than 5%, although some brands use 10% it doesn’t seem to be justified. Water, niacinamide, glycerin, preservative and HMW hyaluronic acid as a gelling agent.
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Perry said:In my opinion, I could create a formula using just Water, Glycerin, Xanthan gum, and Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside and get all the moisture boosting benefits you would get from making the formula you are attempting.
The reality is that most of the ingredients you are adding are “claims” ingredients that are put in formulas to tell stories to consumers to get them to buy otherwise uninteresting (but effective) products. These ingredients, especially the plant extracts, are having no effect in your formula at all.
I know the companies marketing these raw materials, the brands using them, and the unwitting bloggers who write about them will tell you different, but their opinions are biased. They are motivated to get you to buy something. They rely on you to buy into the story of ingredients.
Aloe is a humectant. Glycerin is a humectant. But glycerin is so much more efficient and effective at being a humectant that with it in your formula, you will see zero benefit from aloe. Therefore, the ONLY reason companies add aloe is so they can tell the story that the product has aloe. People are much more inclined to buy a product with aloe than one with glycerin.
Everything sounds even worse than I expected ))) But as you said, if I won’t add such components to formula it won’t be interesting to consumers.
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ngarayeva001 said:If you want a serum with niacinamide, just use 4-5% of niacinamide. I looked through several studies and haven’t noticed the use of more than 5%, although some brands use 10% it doesn’t seem to be justified. Water, niacinamide, glycerin, preservative and HMW hyaluronic acid as a gelling agent.
Thank you for you advise! I think I will make other serum using Niacinamide. I use Ordinary serum(Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%) for myself and can see visible pore minimizing effect. May be it will be the same with 5%, don’t know.
Microformulation said:Thanks a lot! Didn’t know about this website, it helped a lot.
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