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Thought I finally nailed a shampoo formula, and then…
Separation!
So after a few weeks of my shampoo samples looking amazing and feeling great about my formula I discovered today some separation. There’s a small, clear layer on the bottom of the bottle, and some of them have a small amount of some mysterious whitish cloud like substance within that separated layer. There also appear to be some very small droplets of something forming throughout the shampoo.
Here are the ingredients (sorry, can’t list percentages). If you see anything that might be causing this please let me know. My two main suspects right now are either the polyquat 7 or perhaps not a high enough ratio of polysorbate 20 to oils (right now I’m at about 4.5-1).
Phase A
Water
Aloe Juice
Iselux Ultra Mild (Sodium Lauroyl Methyl Isethionate (and) Cocamidopropyl Betaine (and) Sodium Methyl Oleoyl Taurate (and) Lauryl Glucoside (and) Coco Glucoside)
Sodium PhytatePhase B
Polysorbate 20
Fragrance Oil
Vitamin EPhase C
Polyquaternium-7
Sodium PCAPhase D
Sorbithix (Sorbeth-230 Tetraoleate (and) Decyl Glucoside (and) Sorbitan Laurate)Phase E
Euxyl 9010I heat everything up to 40 when adding the sorbithix but other than that it’s all cold-processed.
Thank you!
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4 Replies
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That subnatant (bottom layer) is likely Polyquaternium-7 as you suspected. The whitish stuff may be the sodium PCA complexing with PQ-7 and salting out somehow. Rid yourself of the PCA or reduce it to a negligible level. Then again that cloud may just be fragrance or vitamin E unsolvated. If you are using more than 5.0% PQ-7 (standard 10% active) and do not have a decent level of hydrotrope - and CAPB is the only one I see here - the PQ-7 will salt out, actually “gel out” as you’ve observed, to bottom, as you reduce pH. Those “droplets” are likely from the Sorbithix. Without numbers though consider this only a guess.
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Thank you so much for the reply. I am only using 1.5% PQ-7 (10% active), not sure why it is settling but it definitely does seem to be a gel-like layer on the bottom as you described. I will try taking it out entirely to see if that fixes this, as well as the sodium PCA. Maybe I will increase the polysorbate level as well.
In your opinion, how important are PQ-7 and sodium PCA to the overall feel of this formula? If I take one or both out, are there other things I can replace them with that are maybe more easily incorporated into a formula such as this?
Thanks again, you always provide very informative comments.
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@GeorgeBenson if the layer at the bottom gets thicker over time, that might be the lamellar gel (top) separating from your water (bottom). As @chemicalmatt mentioned, electrolytes (eg. Sodium PCA) could be destabilizing the system.
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@ketchito interesting, if that’s the case about the PCA, are there electrolytes in aloe juice that could also be destabilizing the system? I made a new batch yesterday without the PCA so we’ll see how that goes, maybe I should also make one without aloe juice.
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