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What is your favourite conventional emulsifier?
Hello there!
I guess we all have favourite materials that we rely on. I
realised that I rely on Arlacel 165 (Glyceryl Stearate/PEG-100 Stearate) a lot!
It’s in the most of my O/W emulsions. I tried blending my own emulsifier with a
certain level of success (polyglyceryl-4 oleate works pretty well with polysorbate
60, when the HLB is calculated properly), but I don’t really “trust”
non-commercial blends.I wonder if there are any other commercial blends with
similar properties. To be honest, it’s a real workhorse. Tolerates extreme pH,
doesn’t add viscosity, which allows freedom of formulation, can emulsify a lot
of oil (I tried up to 40% and it’s stable so far). I want to explore other
materials but the industry is too much focused on “natural” (even when you
search at suppliers’ websites). It’s impossible to find anything that doesn’t
have “organic/natural/COSMOS” tag attached to it. I am not interested in Olivem
1000 and whatever polawax used by the Etsy crowd.What is your favourite conventional (non-polymeric) “synthetic”
emulsifier?Thank you in advance!
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44 Replies
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For me, a blend of sorbitan monostearate with Tween 20 (HLB adjusted ratio) with a few % of anionic surfactant (sodium lauryl sulfate but SLES might likely perform even better) are the go-to but it’s not my favourite since I’m on that “all natural base hype” since it not even really started. Not saying that stuff from renewable resources is better or anything (I sill like silicones and in some cases vaseline is unbeatable) but I just love it (truth be told, my opportunistic skin flora also loves it and thrives when I’m using creams rich in biodegradable ingredients *urks*!). -
Interesting approach. I can’t put my head around SLES (Coco-glucoside, decyl glucoside, any other lathery surfactant) in leave in products. I know that all emulsifiers are surfactants, and I probably have no scientific point here.
I mixed tween 20 with sorbitan oleate. I looked like it performed in room temperature ok but I don’t have an incubator to run stability test. -
It’s not about surfactancy/emulsification but simply adding a negative charge to the oil droplets = strong negative zeta potential = way better emulsion stability. Though that doesn’t matter if it’s a w/o emulsion, lamellar phase or similar. Adding a few drops dishwash liquid whilst nobody’s watching is a very old trick to make emulsions work. You could take nearly any ionic emulsifier/surfactant for that job, like glyceryl stearate citrate but SDS, like Tweens and Spans, was and still is one of the things that was usually at hand during my professional life and hence my “preference” for these emulsifiers.
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Thank you @Pharma. It’s quite interesting. I noticed that polymeric emulsifiers, that I always add for the texture, improve stability. I thought it has to do with viscosity. Now I understand why. They all are anionic.
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@ngarayeva001 Thats nice - it doesnt add any viscosity. Im always interested in emsulfiers that are viscosity-neutral.
edit: AND its synthetic. Im with you, give me all the synthetics, the parabens and pour some mineral oil on top. -
@Sponge, yes, it’s very unpopular opinion nowadays:) if you haven’t tried Arlacel 165, I highly recommend it. It’s used in huge number of commercial products. It’s a great material.
I just would like to explore and not be one emulsifier formulator. -
I guess blend of ceteareth give nice emulsifier and we can add it low level of neutralized carbomer for better texture.
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@ngarayeva001 - I’m not sure how unpopular the opinion is. If you look at the best selling beauty products, they use synthetic ingredients. Certainly, the Internet makes it seem like there is this huge majority of people who want natural products but it still represents only about 15 - 20% of the market.
The fact that there is the “clean” beauty movement essentially demonstrates consumers are rejecting pure natural because they don’t get the same performance as standard products.
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@Perry, I can’t agree more on the point about the best selling products. It is especially relevant regarding luxury skincare such as La Mer or Guerlain. They just go for good old petrolatum+glycerin for a simple reason: it works. And they use parabens, yet people pay >$250 for a small jar and don’t question what is in it.
I have a friend who thinks that she loves natural products and follows the buzz words. Her favorite hair oil ended up being cyclopentasiloxane, dimethicone, amodimethicone, parfum, and some fancy veg oil for claims. After the parfum in LOI. I don’t want to generalise, but they like “natural” as long as it performs like silicone.
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Do you know the brand Weleda? 100% natural and 100% terrible rheology and 0% acceptable skin feeling. The renewable trend is just whitewashing so industry can sell better performing stuff (than 100% unadulterated nature) to all those who realised that pure natural doesn’t do the trick but still want something that they can call “natural”. Nonetheless, I support that trend (though for other reasons).
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i don’t think there are an emulsifier better than othe
each emulsion needs a precise emulsifier -
Silicones and silicone elastomers.
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@Microformulation, are you referring to silicone based emulsifiers? Something like thishttps://www.ulprospector.com/en/la/PersonalCare/Detail/2668/110940/ACULYN-2051-Agente-Espessante ?
Examples would be helpful. Thank you. -
An emulsifier combo which I like using is old-fashioned liquid lecithin with ceteayl alcohol and polysorbate 20. I like the feeling on skin but it’s mostly for dry skin types. The good about lecithin is that it also acts as an emollient, I can reduce or even omit glycerin and also reduce the amount of oils in the formula.
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I also have a favour for ‘ye good olde’ reliable combo of GMS + PEG-100 stearate.
Recently I found the combination of the w/o methyl glucose sesquistearate with o/w PEG-20 methyl glucose sesquistearate to be very nice. Only disadvantage is the aeration after high shear which is nearly impossible to get out with slow stirring.ngarayeva001 said:Interesting approach. I can’t put my head around SLES (Coco-glucoside, decyl glucoside, any other lathery surfactant) in leave in products. I know that all emulsifiers are surfactants, and I probably have no scientific point here. (…)It’s very common in pharmaceutical creams, e.g. SLS, tweens, spans.
Probably because these have been thoroughly tested for interactions with pharmaceutical actives, plus they’re cheap and stable.
Usually the creams are named after their emulsifier (brand) name.
This is the standardized formula for ‘Lanette I cream’ for example (here in NL):15% Cetearyl Alcohol + SLS (Lanette W)20% Decyl Oleate (Cetiol V)4% Sorbitol 70% non cryst.0,15% sorbic acidaqua purificata ad 100It’s thick, ‘soaps’ and doesn’t spread easily. I hate (indifferent) pharm creams. They’re easy to make, but don’t give a pleasant skinfeel to say the least.
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Re Dowsil ES-5227, I recently got Dowsil Formulation Aid 5225. It’s the same compound but in cyclopentasiloxane. I am still exploring it, but already like it. Dow papers say it creates medium viscosity, but my observation is it all depends what else is in the formula. I made a very thick but easily spreadable foundation with it. Stable so far (fingers crossed). The feel is absolutely amazing when it’s mixed with phenyl trimethicone.
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@Doreen “ methyl glucose sesquistearate with o/w PEG-20 methyl glucose sesquistearate” is this combination ok for HIPEs?
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Silicone-based emulsions have great skin feel and are generally well-received by clients looking for performance. One could almost state that we are “chasing” this effect with our “natural” emulsifiers with emollients.
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Agree, w/si are the best. I am quite obsessed with this type of emulsions now but it is quite difficult to find information, so it’s pure trial and error for me.
I am not sure if I saw a w/si that is marketed as moisturiser (unless it’s a sunscreen). I get very surprised when I find W/O commercial products in general. The only one that comes to my mind is Kiehl’s avocado cream.
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@ngarayeva001
No idea. Just made a simple O/W with it. -
p.s. The skinfeel was absolutely lovely. An oily phase of about 10-12% (don’t have the formula here so don’t remember precisely) with I believe Miglyol 829 and Miglyol Coco 810 and a bit of MM, Aristoflex Silk.It had a matte (despite the MM) fluffy, mousse-like to whipped cream appearance.
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There are numerous moisturizers out there that are W/SI based as well as numerous starting Formulas. If you look at the “natural” markets you will see much less of these products. Silicones are practically idiot proof and have outstanding qualities.
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https://www.ulprospector.com/en/na/PersonalCare/Detail/33214/708848/Kolliphor-Cs-A great product if you are in pharmaceutical development
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@em88 That’s about the same than Lanette SX, a standard pharmaceutical emulsifier (BTW they perform better when combined with a Span or Tween depending on HLB). Lanettes generally perform well for their intended purposes but, I’m all with @Doreen, these and other pharmaceutical semisolid preparations are anything but pleasant to apply. They’re 100% function oriented = do the trick (occlusion, cooling, anti-itching, dissolving actives and so on), are stable, versatile, low in drug incompatibilities, easy to preserve, often do fine with very low shear force (mortar & pestle) etc. etc. All in all, they’re “drugs” rather than beauty products. Certainly a plus is that such pharmaceutical preparations often follow the rules (or rather, the rules have been created based on them -> HLB, phase inversion temperature emulsification, zeta potential, just to name a few) and hence, they’re a good starting point to learn the scientific/theoretical basis of emulsions and formulations. Alas, they don’t make you a cosmetic chemist, let alone a good one, they just make you sound smart :blush: .
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