Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Sodium PCA makes my lotion less thicker/watery

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  • Sodium PCA makes my lotion less thicker/watery

    Posted by rikandry on September 1, 2020 at 8:02 am

    Dear all,

    please help me i have this formulation:

    PEG-100 Stearate
    cera alba
    water
    Palmitic Acid 
    Polysorbate 80 
    C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate
    Polyacrylamide
    C13-14 Isoparaffin
    Laureth-7
    Glycerin
    Paraffinum Liquidum
    Sodium PCA

    when i mix all ingredient except PCA, the viscous is very Thick, but when i add the PCA the viscous become less thick/watery.

    i already search the reference but i dont get it.

    Can anyone here help with this issue?

    thanks for the help

    ngarayeva001 replied 4 years, 1 month ago 5 Members · 7 Replies
  • 7 Replies
  • rikandry

    Member
    September 1, 2020 at 8:46 am

    and one more question..the lotion gives sticky feeling.

    can someone tell me what ingredient above gives sticky/tacky feeling to my lotion.

    Thankyou

  • ggpetrov

    Member
    September 1, 2020 at 10:32 am

    I am not familiar with this emulsifier, but the Sodium PCA is know as viscosity reductor in some systems. It is in general salt, so it could mess some of the ingredients - emulsifiers, polymeric thickeners etc. It is heat resistant, but me personally prefer to add it to the cool down phase, where it rare brokes the emulsions.

  • chemicalmatt

    Member
    September 2, 2020 at 3:49 pm

    From your listing it appears you are using Seppigel 305 as thickener. This rheological does not hold up well with electrolytes. SODIUM PCA is an electrolyte. Reduce or remove and its all good. Also: cera alba (beeswax) is your sticky thingy. C12-15 alkyl benzoate usually mitigates this, so perhaps less beeswax, and more ester will reduce the tack.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    September 2, 2020 at 9:57 pm

    Sepimax Zen can deal with 2% of sodium PCA. But I prefer not to add electrolytes when use polymeric emulsifiers/stabilisers at all.

  • kot

    Member
    September 3, 2020 at 8:54 pm

    Electrolyte- is there any list of them at all? How to find out that ingredient or groups of them are/is electrolytes?

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    September 3, 2020 at 10:28 pm

    Sodium is a key word here. Sodium is a metal. If there’s a metal in the beginning it’s a salt. Salts are electrolytes (but not all electrolytes are salts). Electrolytes break gel network of most polymeric emulsifiers derived from acrylic acid. Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate, Sodium Lactate, Zinc PCA, Magnesium Sulfate, Sodium Chloride.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    September 3, 2020 at 10:30 pm

    Apparently acids are electrolytes too, but those are weak electrolytes. Every time you see a supplier saying that this ‘incredible new polymer’ is electrolytes resistant they don’t mean salts, they mean acids. 

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