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Shave Cream Knock off: Guidance for starting point on a knock off cream
Hi All:
I am launching a website for shaving products. I have developed over the last 2 years a shave oil that I prefer over what I’ve found on the market now. Recently I tried a sample of some shaving cream from The Art of Shaving. I was surprised how much I liked the product! The ingredient list is published, so I have begun research on suppliers to get the ingredients to begin experimenting with blends. I have downloaded and devoured the eBook offered on How to Knock off a Cosmetic Formula.
My questions at this point:
- When analyzing the ingredient list, is there a rule of thumb that can tell you when the formulation begins to drop into the > 1% zone?
- How important is any kind of preservatives in a cream formulation? I know with oil I don’t think any preservatives are necessary, but I am uncertain with the ingredients in a cream.
The list below is the ingredients published by their website… Thanks for the guidance and help pointing in the right direction. I’m planning this website to be part of my retirement plan :o)
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16 Replies
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1. Honestly, finding the 1% line requires a familiarity of the raw materials and typical usage rates. Sometimes, it is just an educated guess but usually it is pretty close.
2. I honestly don’t believe they use a preservative but it has been a bit. This is essentially a saponified product.
The best guidance I have ever found in making one of these products came from Harry’s Cosmeticology, Chapter 12 in the older versions. As I understand they have not included a great deal of sample Formulas in the newest edition.
I have knocked off “The Art of the Shave” perfectly in the past. If I recall correctly, you need to remember that it is a case where we get closer to a soap product than a Cream/Lotion. It is an exothermic reaction so you need to watch the heat. Lastly, in my experience the batches are very fragile when it comes to water loss and the need to account for the water loss.
Being an older product which many Cosmetic Chemists have successfully knocked off. I am sure that others can weigh-in.
Remember, the struggle is not generally in obtaining the Formula. It is cynical, but in my experience your level of success will be more tied into your Marketing than the product itself.
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Many Thanks for the reply. I completely agree with your assessment that the success of this venture will largely be determined by the marketing efforts. The shave oil blend I have had done well in limited batches with word of mouth. I have some potential investors that can help with the marketing, as the material costs are manageable to start.
I can find much of this in small batches, but the Palmitic acid seems to be the hardest to find, but next to the water content, the largest ingredient on the list… I found Palm Kernal Flakes, and wondered if that was the same as Palmitic Acid.
One additional question I have is whether the list of ingredients on a bottle, per regulation, might list the individual components of the actual ingredient used (such as in coconut oil or Palm oil: the sub-fractions such as Palmitic acid, myristic acid, Lauric Acid, etc that are components of “palm oil”). Instead of just listing “Palm Oil”, they list the sub-fractions that compose the product they use to make the creme. Thus, if I am ordering materials to begin experimenting, I’d be better off ordering the “complete” ingredient instead of recreating “Palm Oil” (or other such ingredients) from the complete list of ingredients. The list I have is:
Water Palmitic Acid Myristic Acid Stearic Acid Potassium Hydroxide Coconut Acid Glycerin Triethanolamine Sodium Hydroxide Lauric Acid Propylene Glycol Tetrasodium Edta Disodium Edta Phenoxyethanol Methylisothiazolinone I advice on this formula y’all might have as I start my process I’d be very grateful for! Also, any “like kind” substitutions you may advise would be of help as well as I seek to create my own product.
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in a product like this there’s very little difference between palmitic and stearic acid, so the two are pretty much interchangeable
also if it contained palm oil, it would be listed as “Elaeis Guineensis/Elaeis Oleifera (Kernel) Oil” or something similar, rather than being broken down into its component parts
this is mainly to keep the ingedients list simple, and also because the exact composition of the oil can’t be guaranteed from batch to batch
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Thank you Bill. I appreciate the feedback.
Of the ingredients listed, is there a subset that any of you would recommend I start with that would simplify this list?
My initial thoughts was to start with the following, and see if that might get me close:
Water
Myristic
AcidStearic Acid Glycerin Propylene Glycol The whole list being: Water
Palmitic Acid
Myristic Acid
Stearic Acid
Potassium Hydroxide
Coconut AcidGlycerin
Triethanolamine
Sodium Hydroxide
Lauric Acid
Propylene Glycol
Tetrasodium Edta
Disodium Edta
Phenoxyethanol
MethylisothiazolinoneThank you all for the guidance! -
You are missing the point completely. The formula is a classic saponification system. It is a soap. Very very simple. The EDTA is there just for hard water and the glycerin as a humectant and process aid.
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Water
Stearic Acid
Glycerin
Sodium HydroxideThat’s all you need for a starting point.
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Bob, I am very grateful to you for the help.
I thought I had searched the patents correctly (based on the info I had) and didn’t think of Google patents. I have just proven I need to spend more time trying to figure our how to research better.
Thanks for helping me on this. I really appreciate you taking the time.
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Since no one addressed your preservative question…yes you need one in a cream.
Here are the ingredients they are using.
Phenoxyethanol
Methylisothiazolinone
The EDTA also helps with preservation. -
Hello
I am trying a shaving cream formula using water, Stearic Acid 12%, Glycerin 5%, Jojoba esters 4%, TEA, some botanical extracts and preservative. I noticed a poor lather in my product and I will like to know if it is normal in shaving creams, or if it is a problem in my formula and/or if I will need to use a foam booster.
Could anybody enlighten me please?
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Please start a new discussion to get an answer
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Thank you all for the advice and feedback. I am about to begin my experimenting this week, and have a few questions now related to process. I have researched the soap making process, and have some assumptions related to the cream soap I am wanting to produce. This will be a cream combination of stearic and palmetic acids, with water and glycerin in the final product.
Here are my assumptions based on a final formulation of 45% water, 45% palmetic and stearic acid soaps, and 10% glycerin. I am basing my starting point on the document bobzchemist posted near the front of this thread. It references 2 soaps made from different lye (palmetic saponified with Potassium and Stearic with Sodium made a more acceptable final product).
Assumptions:
1. Both the palmetic and stearic soaps will be made as a solid soap bar before being blended with each other and made into a cream. Is there a way to turn the soap into the cream product along the way? Or, when making this type of shaving cream, do you add glycerin to the trace portion of the batch and keep it in a cream state from the beginning? It seems the soap would need to fully convert to a solid before mixing other elements, but would require grating the soap to dissolve with the water.
2. Is there any ingredient in the list posted earlier that would interact with LDPE or PET plastic as a container to market this in? All of the similar products I have seen are packaged in a hard plastic jar and require unscrewing a large lid versus flipping a cap to dispense. I have transfered a similar brand of this formula to an empty Colgate toothpaste bottle and used it to shave in the shower, which has made it much simpler to use than the jar packaging. But, I don’t know if there is some formulation reason for doing this. (I.e.: some element etches/dissolves PET plastic…)
Thanks again for the guidance.
Mark
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A follow up report:
I’d like to thank the group for helping me through the process of starting my shave cream process, and especially Bobzchemist for posting the patent of the cream similar to what I wanted to create.
I spend the entire weekend with this project and learned a massive amount, and created some really nice soaps in the process. I educated myself on the processes and must have spend untold hours in research on the materials, processes and techniques, and the guidance of the group here was the starting point for me.
Many thanks to those that were patient with me and my questions. I am off to the races. I think groups like this, when comprised of others with great knowledge, can be harsh to the newbie looking to get started. Unfortunately, this can discourage someone that might actually find an interest in this area, and become a valuable resource for the community.
Because of this group, and Perry’s support, I have referred my adult daughter to his site and online classes because she has a strong interest in cosmetics and potentially creating her own brands. So, your work lives on in the minds of even folks that do not yet contribute here.
Thanks again. The cream soaps still need tweaking, but I had 4 very successful batches, with one of them turning out well, but so different from the rest that it might be the subject of another thread.
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Glad to hear everything is turning out OK. Regarding your newbie comment, I do tend to get pissed off when someone sends me a question as to what is a graduated cylinder instead of just Googling it themselves. That’s a very different attitude to what you did. I think everyone here respects the newbie experimenter, but I don’t think we enjoy spoon feeding.
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I know we come off as harsh, but it is unintentional. If someone demonstrates that they have a lack of the fundamentals, we will strongly urge them to learn the Fundamentals before proceeding. If you were instructing anyone in a new skill, say tennis, you would also make these demands. In today’s market where some of these processes are not appreciated for their difficulty or their need for the supporting basic skills, this concept is lost. Remember, there is inherent risk in all these products.
Also, many of the experts have worked in Commercial settings and have seen the benefits of proper record keeping (wt/wt) and procedures. This makes it apparent that rather relaxing the technical level of the board to be more inclusive, in the long run there is more to be gained by asking participants to rise to the higher, existing technical level.
We see so many want to proceed in dangerous areas without the proper background. As an analogy, if a Physician saw me attempting to pry my appendix out, I truly hope that they would not refuse to stop me out of deference to political correctness or the fear of offending me.
I educated myself on the processes and must have spend untold hours in
research on the materials, processes and techniques, and the guidance of
the group here was the starting point for me.That demonstrates the result that makes us comfortable and the real goal.
That said, I am glad you persevered and made some great products.
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Thank you both. I never personally affronted or harshly spoken to, but have read elsewhere others that did and I was actually trying to support your positions that no one is gonna hold your hand without you doing do diligence in the first place!
so, now I begin to research after shave creams to go along with my new re-creation!
Again, many thanks for the help!
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