Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating opacity in emulsion

  • opacity in emulsion

    Posted by natchemist on July 4, 2014 at 1:18 pm
    I’ve been trying to knock off this very simple existing formula that contains water, cetyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, isopropyl myristate, an anionic emulsifier, ceteareth-30 and preservative.
    My issue is that my emulsion comes out very translucent, while the existing product is very opaque. I’ve tried increasing the waxes but no success. Could the reason for this be that I’m using Ceteareth-20 instead of 30? I’m having a difficult time finding this raw material here in the US, otherwise I would have tried making a batch with it already. 
    Bill_Toge replied 10 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • vitalys

    Member
    July 4, 2014 at 2:31 pm

    @joseg - what kind of anionic emulsifier do you use? it would be also important if you could tell the approx.% of the ingredients, purpose of this emultion and why it’s interesting for you?

  • Bill_Toge

    Member
    July 7, 2014 at 5:21 am

    sounds like a processing issue to me - if you’re not shearing the batch enough after mixing the water and waxes together, you’ll end up with a coarse translucent emulsion rather than a smooth opaque one

    also, I very much doubt you’d see any difference between ceteareth-20  and ceteareth-30 in this field of application

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