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Shaving Cream improvements - I’m all ears!
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Well actually, Belassi I can! LOL! I actually figured it out with the numbers plugged into Excel but Excel and I aren’t exactly best friends! I think I need counseling to learn to get along with Excel! I set up a ratio with the total of the numbers without the water which worked out to 53.8 with the full water amount and 63.8 with the 10% reduction!
Here are the numbers anyway!
INGREDIENT % Amt. In Batch Stearic Acid 20.400 24.19 Myristic Acid 10.200 12.09 Coconut Fatty
Acids5.800 6.87 NaOH 0.350 0.42 KOH 6.800 8.06 Triethanolamine 0.950 1.13 H2O 46.200 36.20 PEG-400 5.400 6.40 SLS 2.700 3.20 Menthol 0.200 0.24 fragrance 1.000 1.19 It does help to have another formula to compare to as this is similar to a couple that I already have! I’m just concerned about dropping the oil phase this much but all I have to do it write another formula and try another batch to find out! Thanks!
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This formula above has brought me to thinking about the percentage of water I am using in my formula. Up until now I have never seen a formula for this kind of product that “figures in” a percentage of water loss!
After analyzing 5 batches I have made, taking notes and writing down observations, I have seen that these batches have had an average water loss of about 3.5%-4%. So that raised the question about actually adding that 3.5%-4% to the calculated amount. So 36% actually becomes 40% H2O in the formula and if I follow the same production procedures in every batch, I should have a more liquid product and will be easier to homogenize without having to add more water when adding fragrance etc. in the final production stage!
These old shaving cream formulas exhibit a certain amount of “instability” adn can vary from batch to batch anyway and the most minor adjustments can make a difference in how a formula comes out. Finding a balance is the key!
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I made up a batch today and added 4 ounces of water to the percentage that I had listed in the formula. I poured the lye/water/glycerin etc. into the heated oil phase in five separate increments and continually stirred until it all smoothly came together. I weighed the batch and was about 3.75 ounces less than what I put in so I covered it and left it the bath for a couple of extra minutes then pulled it out and set it aside to cool down! Tomorrow should be interesting!
So far, so good!
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Today’s results weren’t bad! It was stiff when I began to homogenize the batch today but within a short time it became more and more liquid! This was much easier with the added H2O to the formula but I think 3 ounces might be as high as I need to go! The results seemed a bit more liquid than I desire which I attribute to the glycerin. I worked out another version of the same formula and am following what Bobzchemist suggested in another post:
“I also have to point out that it’s frequently a bad idea to give too
much credence to published theories of how much of an ingredient to use.
(Unless it’s safety levels - pay close attention to those)
One
source says 5% and the other says 15%? That shouldn’t be confusing, it
should be a good excuse for experimenting! Try your formula at 5, 10,
15, even 20% and see what happens.
Way too many chemists and
formulators recently seem to be hung-up by “the expert says x” or “the
literature says y”, so this is what I must slavishly adhere to. I call
Bogus. Try it yourself at a range of values and see what happens! This
is the ONLY way you move from being a recipe-follower to being an actual
chemist
(Please insert the appropriate safety precautions
here. Know your materials, actually read the MSDS, kids don’t try this
at home, keep away from open flame, etc.)”I went from 10% glycerin down to 8% in this formula today and will try 6% and see how that goes! (I can always homogenize the 6% with the 10% if the 8% works out better!) Since the consistency of the product is important, I want to get that looking good then I can make tests with the cream to see how it shaves! One of the 10% creams I lathered with last week seems thicker and more luxurious but the lather didn’t seem as light as is should be! Again, having to achieve a balance!
So far, the ratio of oils and fatty acids and the original amount actually seem fine and I will keep them the same! The figures for the lye were not correct and now they are now the correct numbers! The TEA was too high and there needed to be a 3/1 ratio in the Tea Stearate even though their “stoichiometric relationship for making
TEA-Stearate is 2:1 stearic acid to 99% TEA.” as told to me by Kevin Young who also stated “You should always use slightly more stearic acid
than the alkali to prevent having any free alkali in the product.” so I made that adjustment in the formula. Now it is time to play with the glycerin to see where that should go! Hopefully, this will all work out with these tests and corrections! -
I’m just about there! I think I did about 14 different formulas and found the balance I was trying to achieve! I am surprised how small some of the adjustments were but once I got the oil phase in the right percentages then everything else seemed to fall into place! I am going to up the glycerin just a little to see what effect that might have. So many formulas have a higher percentage of glycerin in them but I have found that it effects the lathering ability of the product as well as consistency and liquidity! I have achieved a smooth, moist paste which will work well for packaging and it is pretty much equal in that respect to similar products out there, which is great! The oddest part of this is that I wrote this final formula several weeks ago but hadn’t tried it yet and the lowering of the oil phase was small but apparently enough to make just the right amount of difference! I was amazed to find how small the changes needed to be yet how big a learning curve there was! It was a good experience! Thanks for your help and support!
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Great!
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“What a difference a day makes! 24 little hours!” The shaving cream is actually a bit more soft than yesterday so I’ll leave it as it is for the moment! I do need to shave with it next just to make sure it behaves appropriately!
I went back and looked at the original formula I had and had made some changes which made the 100% formula go up to about 111.14%! I put it through an amount to Percentage Calculator to get it back to 100% and found it was extremely close to Formula #35 which I have chosen to use! I see now what choices I had made over time that weren’t the right ones but now also see which were the right ones and why! A small change may impact in a way you are hoping it will but there are other ingredients in the formula with which it may create results you weren’t expecting! Yesterday I mentioned adding more glycerin. Today in doing the analysis I realized that the using the same amount (rather than increasing the amount) will react to certain aspects of the formula that you may not have taken into consideration! My oil phase is now lower as is the base (KOH, NaOH, TEA) so using the same percentage in the glycerin is going to make some changes to the relationship between the three of them! In a way it seems as if you had added more glycerin but you haven’t but because the other phases are lower it behaves in a different way and as a result I found I really didn’t need to add more! I know this really isn’t rocket science but for me it was an important lesson as it would be for those here who are newer to the cosmetic chemistry world. This is one of the reasons I decided to share all of this on Perry’s board. I knew that I needed to make a change in the size of the “soap” portion of this formula but didn’t see that besides helping the pasty aspect of the product, it would also enable the glycerin to provide the characteristics I was seeking from it because it was no longer “overwhelmed” by the “pasty base”! I now will try to look at things a little differently when I formulate new products! Thanks to Perry, and Clive for his assistance and thank you for coming along for the ride!
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OMG! I came back two days later because I have problem with my car and went in the back to check #35 and found that container of fluffy, moist paste had turned to SOUP! It had changed from day 2 to day 3 but I wasn’t expecting this! Granted, I had some warnings from the old books about changes over time but considering what I started with, I didn’t think it would turn out like this! I quickly went through the containers of the batches I made so far and found the batch #26, 2nd revision with the same amount of glycerin as this formula seems to be the right consistency now and the batch #26 1st revision with a larger amount of glycerin also isn’t bad either. Of course that means I will be going back to the larger (not largest) oil phase and appropriate changes in the NaOH, KOH and TEA and the water will be reduced by about 2% but after 10 days I would think it has settled for the most part. I’m still taken back by this but I’ll jump right back in and see how I can fix this! I’d welcome any suggestions!
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What’s in this batch?
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Ingredients:
Water, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin,
Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, fragrance, Sodium
Hydroxide, Triethanolamine, Caprylyl Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Hexylene Glycol, Tetrasodium EDTAI lowered the soap phase, left the glycerin the same and raised the water phase.
Obviously, it is a balancing act and I’m finding out what the limits are!
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Back again from Stupidland! In my “brilliant” attempt at formula comparison between the original and #35 I didn’t take into account the changes I made to make those numbers work! I added 6% to the water phase of the original 111.14% formula (making it 116.94 with corrections to the glycerin percentage and preservative as well) to make the numbers match with the 100% formula #35 and then wondered why I ended up with SOUP not SOAP!
When I recalculated the formula late last evening, I actually ended up with the same numbers as #26 which were the numbers I’ve been working with in many of the formula attempts. It may be that I have to go back to #26 and use the 42% oil phase rather than the 39.75% oil phase of #35 or I may have to find a number somewhere between the two!
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Three days ago, I posted this:
“OMG! I came back two days later because I have problem with my car and
went in the back to check #35 and found that container of fluffy, moist
paste had turned to SOUP!”Today, I went into my workroom, took the cover off of #35 and it appeared to be still “soupy” until I stuck a small metal spatula into it and found it to be moist, pearlescent, smooth paste! I stirred the top around and about and found it that way all over! It’s actually just the consistency I wanted!
I’m at a loss thinking about this and wondering what I should do and where I should go from here! I’ll check out the other batches and see what I find! 😮
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I thought yesterday finding was odd but today’s is even more odd! I came back in and lifted the cover of #35 expecting to see the batch I had fluffed up all over the container to be as it was but is is now back to being SOUP! The temperature in my building is maintained a 75 degrees F so that hasn’t changed!
Am I at the peculiar point right on the edge between liquidity and solidity with this formulation?
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This is very strange. I hope someone with more experience than I can add something.
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Thinking about this, it reminds me of cold process soap. When it’s made the reaction might be “complete” but as it cures, the soft soap becomes hard. At the same time it becomes soapier. I have looked in vain for an explanation but I believe that what might be happening is a partial breakdown and recombination into more complex forms of stearates. cocoates, etc possibly including reactions with the fragrance. Possibly airborne CO2 is being absorbed and modifying the soap compounds.
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Thanks for your reply, Belassi. It seems that this type of shaving cream has the reputation of changing over a period of time which I was aware of and read up on back in 2004 in Thomssen’s book, Modern Soap Making from 1937. He mentioned changes over a period of about a month after the soap is made, referred to this period as “rotting” during which the soap takes on it’s final appearance. What I am describing it that my batch has gone back and forth between liquid and solid stage several times which I have never experienced before. The fragrance and preservative are not added until the next day or so after the batch is made and it is homogenized at this time. The batch is stored in a sealed plastic bucket during this time and I’ve never had a batch go from paste to liquid, back to paste and then back to liquid in the first few days like this. I wondered if because I lowered the oil phase in this formula if I am right on the line where the product goes to either solid or liquid because of the closeness or ratios of the ingredient/water/bases percentages!
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I came back in today and found… that batch #35… drum roll… is now
firm again! The top appeared moist and glistening but upon placing the
metal spatula in it I found it to be much more firm and pasty… It
just keeps changing between the two!
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Six days later it’s now SOUP again!
A couple of days ago I tried a formula that was posted here by someone named “pepe”. It turned out to be a wet, heavy paste - nothing like I expected but with a 48.1% Water phase, I should have known better! I’ve spent the last few weeks collecting more online formulas and have a found a few with TEA in them so the picture is beginning to become more clear! Careful review of all formulas and lye, water and oil phase sizes should help me to hone in on just the right formula!
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Obviously this is not a product yet.
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Belassi, Sorry I edited and added a bit more… anyway, Formula #35 is not nor is it ever going to be a formula but I did learn from it. Formula #26 is still a contender (please no Brando jokes) but I have a couple of things I need to figure out.
I want to try a higher percentage of TEA and I am wondering whether I should sub it for one of the other two bases and keep the same size oil phase or whether I should continue to add what would be basically TEA STEARATE to the oil/lye phases with the additional Stearic Acid which is what I have done before. I haven’t tried subbing out some of the KOH or NaOH….
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my best guess regarding batch #35 is that its drop point is close to the ambient temperature of your work space, and it’s transitioning between solid and liquid as the temperature varies through the day
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Thanks Bill! That is what I was thinking although I didn’t have the proper terminology to express it.
I put together a sheet of all the formulas I am considering and went through each one analyzing the content and the finished product. I then changed the font to a pale gray for those I’m not using so it almost disappears on the Word document. Three remained: #26, #32 and #34.
#34 will probably be eliminated because it has a different ratio of the 3 main oils influenced by Flick which I haven’t used in my current product.
#32 used a slightly higher oil phase and glycerin at 10%. Many authors have suggested that anything above 5% glycerin is unnecessary and I think it is used at higher levels to get away with a higher oil phase so it doesn’t become too firm but it can take on characteristics you don’t want! This also has double the TEA and the finished product isn’t too bad…but with one incorrect SAP number and the rest I think this is on it’s way out!This leaves #26! The interesting thing about the 3rd version of #26 is that the water content and the oil content are almost identical!
So, these are things I have learned from this so far:
1. Adding extra water in the beginning of the process helps so that the evaporated water does not need to be incorporated later!
2. Adding the lye/water in several increments and homogenizing as you go gives better results!
3. Glycerin in large percentages may help for shaving cream in tubes but is not really necessary for lather shave cream tubs. 5%-10% may be fine but anything higher is a waste.
4. There is a high and a low in oil phases that you must be careful not to go over! #35 was too low and several of my earlier formulas were too high!
5. As with any formula there is a balance between all of your phases and finding the correct numbers for all your phases is crucial.
6. Organizing your information and collecting as much information as possible whether it is articles, formulations, information on all of your ingredients etc.
7. Learn that although sometimes no. 7 is important, there are times to throw away all of what you’ve seen or read and try things yourself to learn from your mistakes as well as your triumphs! Time to work on #26 to see what a higher amount of TEA does - then I should be finished! -
8. Waiting a month to see the finished results of the formula.
So many of the older books suggested that the consistency and appearance would vary over a period of time were right! Although the initial results appeared to be promising, the slight adjustments in the “final” formulation proved too be too loose and wet in consistency! So this means I have to go back and make more adjustments in the opposite direction and see how well they work over time! I will be trying the Octyldodecanol that I received this week in the formula to see if that will provide some improvement in “slip and glide” although I’m not sure if it will assist in the “cushion”! Just when you think you’re there…
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I was able to duplicate this effect in the lab. I made a batch of shaving soap (KOH only) but used too little water so it became a solid block, pretty much like bar soap made with NaOH. After slow mixing with water and foam removal I had a liquid soap. The following day it had solidified. The day after that it became liquid again. It is a structural change, the crystalline solid is becoming an amorphous liquid. I have not managed to work out why this is happening, yet.
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from my experience the variation in creams with mixed bases is most likely due to incomplete soap formation, and/or formation of metastable phases that eventually transition into the most thermodynamically stable phase over time
if you add the bases one by one rather than simultaneously, and adjust your process accordingly, the soaps can be formed in a more controlled fashion, and you’ll get much more consistent results
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