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Simple Liquid Hand Soap. Cost efficient formulation! Discussion.
Simple
Liquid Hand Soap. Cost efficient formulation! Discussion.Dear Colleagues,
I am
trying to make a cost efficient Liquid Soap formulation.Introduction: Our company
is producing hand soap for institution clients; the product is packed in 5L
jerry cans. The competition in this market segment is very high, hence the
price of this kind of product is very low.Question: What is THE Formulation
of Liquid Hand Soap? The formulation has to have the best possible balance
between quality and cost.What is considered to be
the cost of formulation? My thinking flow:
1) Number of operations. The fewer components are
in the formula the easier and cheaper its production process.
2) Amount of ingredients. The smaller is the
amount of ingredients in the formula – the cheaper it is.
3) Cost of ingredients. Ingredients have to be
widely available on the market, the higher the competition the cheaper it is.
4) Production process. Preferably cold mixing.My starting formulation:
SLES (2 moles of EO) 70%
- 8%Cocamidopropyl betaine 40% - 10%
Cocamide DEA – 2%
Glycerin – 1%
preservative - 0.1%
Fragrance – 0.2%
Buffer [NaOH 1% + Citric Acid 2%]
Deionized water to 100%
Encountered problems:
The product is very viscose, yet it streaks when flows (the flow doesn’t break
it stretches like a chewing gum –sorry don’t know the correct terminology for
that)So how would you, dear Colleagues, approach this problem?
How and why would you change the formulation?
How would you solve the “streaking” problem?
The discussion would be
very interesting and helpful to all beginners in the field of formulations.Thank you and have a
great day! -
5 Replies
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Drop the CAPB and the CDEA. Substitute Oleic Acid or Tall Oil (whichever is cheaper) and saponify with KOH. Change buffer to NaCitrate. Self-preserve by keeping pH over 11.
Consider using other surfactants, SLES is expensive.
This should help:
http://www.happi.com/issues/2011-03/view_features/formulating-manual-dishwash-detergents -
Bob, thank
you for your comment.Saponification
with KOH is an interesting idea, however I can see following cons:1)
saponification takes long time2)
process is difficult as pH needs to be checked regularly during saponification.3) what
will the final product be like? How would it feel on hands?NaCitrate
- point taken, agreed!Self-preserving
pH 11 - this is Hand Soap, not an engine cleaner - It will be marked as Irritant
on the packaging straight away. -
Assuming you want to keep a rough base formula the same:
Drop the DEA/Betaine, and try to thicken with NaCl should help a bit with your streaking problem. My thought is by thickening with so much betaine, you are pushing the salt curve to its limit. Creating what you described as “streaking.” So add much less betaine (Stick to around 2%-ish) then slowly back add NaCl to get the initial thickness you are seeking.
You can lower glycerin down (Not a ton of cost savings, but it will do that a little bit).
In order to achieve viscosity/foam profile you want, you may need to add back in some more SLES (or per Bob’s recommendation go with something cheaper).
Let me know if you need any more help. My company is in the “cheap” formulation business so cost is always on my mind much more than it should be.
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Read the article - but saponifying Oleic Acid at room temperature takes 10 minutes, 20 tops.
Also, for future reference - if you want us to give you advice on making a formula, and not having an “irritant” warning on the package is important, please tell us beforehand. The vast majority of institutional companies don’t care, and you would have saved me some time if I’d known.
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Bob thank
you for your input.I am much
more interested in the ways colleagues around the world would tackle similar
problem to mine rather than in actual solution.So still
waiting for suggestions from other members.
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