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Thick turns to thin
Until now I have mainly been preoccupied with the design of sulphate-free shampoos, so have been using thickeners (in my case, Glucamate VLT). However now that I am experimenting with anionic surfactants I’m getting big trouble with thickening them.
Typically what happens is that I get a formulation to the desired thickness, but over the next day or two it becomes as thin as water.This happens even with really basic experiments using SLES, CAPB, glycerine and salt. -
4 Replies
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That sounds wierd, as if you overshot the salt curve in time delay fashion. There must be another element to this basic shampoo formula you are leaving out. Can you elaborate? Also, get rid of glycerine: sulfate-free systems are difficult enough to build viscosity without having that infamous viscosity (and foam) killer in the formula. Also, it lends zero re-fatting efficacy in virtually all formulas. Friends, don’t let friends use glycerine in their shampoos and body washes.
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Wow, that’s a pretty radical suggestion to stop using glycerine! I’ll try it - I had thought that glycerine increased viscosity and foam. The only other item in the test system was a little colour so I could see what was going on more easily.
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are you using deionised water?
(I ask as free metal ions can have a drastic effect on structured surfactants)
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Hi Bill. No, I use R-O water from Bonafont. I always add a small % of EDTA to tackle the possibility of metal ions. However in the test system I didn’t bother.
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