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Non Powdery Emulsifiers
Hello Forum 🤓,
Can anyone explain to me - What is the fine powdery substance that is used in most emulsifiers – Steric Acid, cetyl alcohol, BTMS etc?
Is the powdery substance a salt? As I find it to be drying especially when used on my porous hair and I am looking to make hair creams, shampoo and hair conditioners.
When I use shop bought rinse off hair conditioners, hair creams, hand lotions etc I don’t get the same powdery drying coating on my hair, what are these manufacturers doing that I am not?
Can anyone recommend an emulsifier that doesn’t have the fine powdery dry after feel?
I was thinking that Sunflower Lecithin wouldn’t leave the powdery substance that BTMS leaves behind but I am not sure of the science behind it and whether or not liquid emulsifiers are what I should be experimenting with instead of the solid variety.
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9 Replies
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Can you share a sample formula that’s giving you the powdery feel? Maybe I can ID the culprit better looking at the whole picture.
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Hello there,
This is the Hair balm Anhydrous formulation that after a few weeks developed what I would call; powder like “mould” clusters throughout the formula.
Petrolatum 50%
Shea butter 20%
Lanolin 10 %
Coco Butter 4%
Beeswax 4%
BTMS 25 4%
Cetyl Alcohol 1%
Steric Acid 1%
Pumpkin Seed Oil 0.1%
Avocado Oil 0.05%
Argan Oil 0.05%
Coconut Oil (Fractionated) 0.05%
Squalene Oil 0.05%
Vitamin E oil 2%
Ginger Essential Oil 0.01%
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Certain emulsifiers have a “powdery feel.” I assure you they are not adding an additional product like salt to give it the property. You can mitigate this effect with other raw materials as well.
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Hello @Microformulation,
Can you please share what raw materials mitigate that powdery feeling?
Many thanks x-
I could easily give an answer, but I believe personally that it would be a barrier to your growth as a Formulator. Looking at the above Formulation, I think you may want to begin a course of study.
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@PattyP You don’t really need an emulsifier for that system (anhydrous). If you suspect about BTMS, you could do a knock-out test to see if the feeling is gone.
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I understand that, I used BTMS 25 for the conditioning effect and I thought Cetyl Alcohol and Steric Acid added slip and glide.
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@PattyP Not Cetyl alcohol nor Stearic acid would deliver glide, on the contrary. It’s you liquid emollients the ones responsible for that (like your natural oils or some esters or silicones). For the BTMS, you really don’t need a cationic in skin creams, since all of your conditioning agents will remain there (unlike hair conditioners, in which you need something to anchor to your hair and not be rinsed away).
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