Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Something in the formula stops carbomer from forming a gel

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 28, 2018 at 10:49 pm

    @Dirtnap1, I don’t have it unfortunately. Both sodium carbomer and ultrez 20 worked when I excluded butters and left only jojoba oil. But surprisingly enough a moisturizer with 10% of jojoba oil only feels greasier than a mixture with shea butter and even petrolatum totalling 12%. I will try to add carbomer/ultrez20 to the waterphase to see if there’s any difference.

  • em88

    Member
    November 29, 2018 at 8:19 am

    @Gunther, the point is actually to figure out this combination.  HLB is balanced, product emulsified well. There are sorbitan oleate, 4% of glyceryl oleate and polysorbate 20 (to balance HLB). The reason for such a combination is that I don’t need fatty alcohols and silicones for it, and (if exclude butters and petrolatum) it can be made using cold process.

    You can use PEG-50 shea butter instead of shea butter, which is water soluble and mineral oil instead of petrolatum. This way you can turn your formulation process to cold process. 
    Regarding your issue with gelling, have you tried to increase the sodoim carbomer percentage? I’d suggest to try 0.5%, 0.7% and 1% and see if the problem persists. 

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    November 29, 2018 at 9:59 am

    Thank you @em88. I will try PEG-50 shea butter. It actually tends to “soap” in serums but let’s see how it’s going to work in this system. 

  • Sibech

    Member
    November 29, 2018 at 11:18 pm
    @ngarayeva001 I hope you get it to stabilize.
    If it works but soaps a bit, you could add a dash of dimethicone to reduce the soaping effect.
    If you’re going for a silicone-free version you could add Plantasens® Olive LD / Softolive / Fision® EcoSil

    For a hobby-crafter, I only know of one retail-supplier of this; http://www.farmaciavernile.it/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=9&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=3291&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=65&vmcchk=1&Itemid=65

    Edit: (I don’t know which of them it actually is… My guess is Plantasens, but I am not certain).

  • Gunther

    Member
    December 1, 2018 at 3:39 am

    @ngarayeva001
    I don’t think 1.5% Polysorbate 20 will be enough to emulsify 12% oils, 4% glyceryl oleate and 1% sorbitan oleate.

    BTW is that sorbitan oleate actually Polysorbate 80?

    IMO you’d be better off with a ready-made, commercial emulsifier that both emulsifies and thickens.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 1, 2018 at 9:44 am

    Thank you @Sibech

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 1, 2018 at 9:57 am

    @Gunther, maybe I am missing something, but I have 3 emulsifiers (6.5%) in this formula. The only purpose of polysorbate 20 is to bring down HLB of the emulsification system (to make it the same as the total hlb of the oil phase). Sobritan oleate is a liquid low hlb emulsifier. Same as glyceryl oleate. There’s no polysorbate 80 at all. I have commercial emulsifiers, both conventional and polymeric but I am trying to get a particular sensorial that I will not get with waxy commercial blends. The reason why I am avoiding polymers is that I am going to use this formula as a base to add tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate. Sodium carbomer tolerates it, but Sepinov, Aristoflex, Sepiplus 400, Emulthix and couple others stubbornly lose viscosity. And I am trying to avoid using fatty acids in this formula.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 2, 2018 at 1:22 pm

    Hello All! An update:

    I changed shea butter to PEG-50 Shea butter and Squalane (6% of shea butter replaced by 4% of squalane and 2% of PEG-50 Shea butter). I also used a mixture of Ultrez 20 and Sodium Carbomer (0.3%+0.2%). Ultrez was added to the water phase and Sodium Carbomer after emulsification and neutralization of Ultrez. I suspect I can just up Ultrez to 0.5-0.6% and will get the same result. The great thing about sodium carbomer is that it can be used to “fix mistakes”.

    So, I got a base with a very nice light texture (cold process and no tackiness that is so typical for polymers) and no silicones. I added retinol liposomes and tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate in it (no loss of viscosity). I usually use silicones, but I didn’t want anything in the formula that can potentially interact with the actives (liposomes are slow release already, so I didn’t want to add silicones that in theory might slow down the absorption of retinol).

    Thank you all very much for your help. The formula if you want to use it:


    Phase INCI %
    A Aqua 70.75%
    A Tetrasodium EDTA 0.20%
    A Glycerine 1.00%
    A PEG-50 Shea butter 2.00%
    A Butylene Glycol 2.00%
    A Ultrez 20 0.30%
    A Propanediol 1.00% HLB Weighted av HLB calc
    B Jojoba oil 4.00% 6 45% 2.68
    B Squalane 4.00% 12 45% 5.36
    B Tocopherol 0.10% 6 1% 0.07 Oil phase HLB
    B Tocopheryl Acetate 0.75% 6 8% 0.50 8.61
    B Sorbitan Oleate 1.00% 4.3 14.3% 0.61
    B Glyceryl Oleate 4.00% 3.5 57.1% 2.00
    B Polysorbate 20 2.50% 16.7 35.7% 5.96
    C Sodium carbomer 0.20% 8.58 Emulsifier HLB
    C Retinol liposomes 2.00%
    C Tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate 3.00%
    C Bisabolol 0.20%
    C Paraben DU 1.00%
    C TEA  
  • em88

    Member
    December 3, 2018 at 7:32 am

    Congratulations! 🙂

  • Doreen

    Member
    December 3, 2018 at 9:51 am

    @ngarayeva001
    So you left out the petrolatum, I see. Did it still give problems?
    Congratulations by finding a way around it! :+1: 

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 3, 2018 at 12:26 pm

    @Doreen, petrolatum did give problems. I could overcome it by increasing level of rheology modifiers, but it lead to the peeling of the ready product. So I decided to skip it. It actually makes sense as it’s a very lightweight base. Great news is that rheology modifiers I used abobe can tolerate tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate, which broke viscosity of both Sepinov EMT10 and Aristoflex AVC.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 3, 2018 at 12:28 pm

    @em88, thank you for the idea with PEG-50 Shea butter. Btw is doesn’t cause soaping.

  • em88

    Member
    December 4, 2018 at 6:42 am

    @ngarayeva001, glad it helped. 
    I was wondering why did you chose squalene. Why not mineral oil?
    Have you tried using only sodium carbomer at 0.5%?  I’m asking because you have 20 ingredients in you formulation which will slow down the production of this product. 

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 4, 2018 at 7:05 am

    @em88 I am a hobbyist, and I learn by analyzing benchmark products and experimenting. The reason why I used squalane is pretty much because Chanel uses is in two moisturizers that I like. I did my research about it and it sounds like a good emollient. Please let me know if you think it doesn’t add anything because I am running out and it’s expensive in the UK where I live. 0.5% of sodium carboner in this particular formula causes peeling of the final product. I might try .5-.6% of ultrez when experiment next time. As I said sodium carbomer is great to fix mistakes. Ultrez 20 is better on its own (silkier feel). Btw sodium carbomer is very often used with aristoflex AVC but I have never seen it as the only rheology modifier.

  • Doreen

    Member
    December 4, 2018 at 10:03 am

    @ngarayeva001
    I can tell you right away that squalane doesn’t add anything. It’s a claims ingredient mostly.
    Carbomers (pre-neutralized or not) can be used as only gelforming polymer, I’ve seen it before. It depends on other excipients and what you want qua sensorials.

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 4, 2018 at 12:42 pm

    Thank you @Doreen. Crossing it out of my “to buy” list. It is outrageously expensive, and substance over form, it’s just an emollient. I liked it, because it’s rather light, but there are light oils at a greater availability.

  • em88

    Member
    December 5, 2018 at 8:27 am

    @ngarayeva001, I don’t know why when I was reading sodium carbomer, I was always thinking that you were using sodium polyacrylate. My bad. You should try sodium polyacrylate as well. 
    I’d still go for mineral oil, it is cheaper, it has a nice skin feel and it is as well an emollient.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22994201

  • ngarayeva001

    Member
    December 5, 2018 at 10:18 am

    @em88 I have an emulsifier based on sodium polyacrylate (ViscOptima). I absolutely like it, and it can thicken pretty much anything (except for Sodium PCA). However, I prefer carbomers for this product because it provides much lighter feel. Thank you for the info about squalane. I bought it long ago, and that was not something I was questioning. I will just replace it to mineral oil.

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