Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Pre mixed iron oxide blends for simplified stick concealer formulation? (E.g. Creasperse)

  • Pre mixed iron oxide blends for simplified stick concealer formulation? (E.g. Creasperse)

    Posted by Zink on December 23, 2014 at 3:06 am

    I’ve tested Creasperse (Hydrogenated Polydecene, CI77492, CI77891, Hydroxystearic Acid, CI77491, CI7749)  and it works well, making concealer formulation a LOT more straightforward, but their minimum order is 10 kg, enough for about 15000 7 ml concealer units @ 10% usage rate. 

    Are there any other options for the smaller scale formulator, or do I have to tumble my own blends? (I have the tools, but would prefer a simpler process).

    Edit: I see that makingcosmetics has liquid pigments, e.g; http://www.makingcosmetics.com/Iron-Oxide-Brown-Liquid_p_205.html - would love a sample recipe for a concealer using them.

    Bobzchemist replied 9 years, 1 month ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • MakingSkincare

    Member
    December 27, 2014 at 12:11 pm

    Zink I just replied to your question in this post: https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/613/foundation-color-formula-reference-/p1


    (Yes pre-dispersed iron oxides would make things a little easier rather than milling your own pigments).
  • Zink

    Member
    December 27, 2014 at 3:18 pm

    Thanks, just got four different pre mixed pigments from making cosmetics (black, yellow and red), plus their brown blend. Will see how they work out compared to Creasperse.

  • Zink

    Member
    December 27, 2014 at 3:29 pm

    Noticed that the cream to powder formula used 25% microspheres, is this at all common? What are they?

    Also 13% Dimethicone and 29% propylene Glycol Dicaprylate/Dicaprate - is this common practise? 

  • amanthani

    Member
    January 20, 2016 at 6:51 pm

    microspheres are a texture enhancer and are quite lovely, honestly.. very velvety and smooth with a natural hue.that lends a natural glow to the skin.. i have some from several places online and makingcosmetics.com’s are very nice.. tkb trading sells some, too.. http://howtomakecosmetics.com/ thats their new mobile-friendly site, supposedly.. 

    those measurements do not sound outlandish to my neophyte eyes.. this is a concealor formula you are working on, no? so one would assume it would be thick, water-resistant/long wearing and dense in texture.. i do not know.. but you should reference many formulations and then get a generalized view.. start with a simple formulation, or just one that strikes your fancy and make tiny batches.. I do 10 grams for tests.. which is a lot.. but the math is simple, so I am selective and try to keep waste at a bare minimum.. 
    but, i digress..
  • Bobzchemist

    Member
    January 20, 2016 at 9:17 pm
    Microspheres aren’t simply texture enhancers, specifically in the case of anhydrous non-volatile creme-to-powder foundations and concealers - they are critical to the success of the formulation.

    I’ll try to explain why. Feel free to ask questions if I’m not clear enough. (If you’re making a creme-to-powder that has volatile components, this doesn’t apply much)

    First, let’s look at what we want to achieve with an anhydrous non-volatile creme-to-powder. We want to take a relatively thick paste/creme, apply it to the skin, and have it finish up as a powdery-feeling film with good adherence. The film we want to leave on the skin will therefore consist of powders, and one or more ingredients that will help bind/stick the powders to the skin, preferably ones that don’t feel oily/greasy or enable the film to smudge, smear, or otherwise move. This usually is a wax type of material. 

    This is where we hit the first formulating challenge. Powders + waxes? Pretty much a solid mass that won’t spread on skin. So, we have to have a base oil to act as a lubricant and emollient to spread everything around, but…once it’s spread to where we want it, the lubricant needs to go away. If we could use volatile ingredients, this would be simple - but we can’t, so it’s not.

    Instead of having the extra oils we need to make a powder into a creme paste simply evaporate into the air, we have to get them to go somewhere else. The only other place for the oils to go is into the skin. The conclusion from this is that we need to use light, highly skin-absorbing esters as our base oil. Now we have our second formulating challenge - there’s only so much oil that can be absorbed into the skin fast enough for this product to work - even if it’s the lightest, best skin-absorbing oil we can find. (This, by the way, is why you can’t make this product “natural” - there simply aren’t any “natural” oils that absorb into the skin fast enough).

    Why is this a challenge? Because the amount of oil that will be absorbed into the skin fast enough for this product to work isn’t enough to make the powder/wax/oil mixture into a smooth creamy paste. At least not if you use conventional cosmetic materials. (The reasons why goes into powder absorption, wetting, and powder morphology - way too much for here) To make a very, very long story short, you absolutely need to use microspheres in order to make the creme-to-powder product apply smoothly with a minimum amount of oil. 20% - 40% is about right, depending on what the microsphere is made of.
      

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