[belassi]

Perhaps you should take a look at how the Ghanaian co-ops produce organic shea butter.

[belassi]

What kind of licorice extract is that? And at 7%? 95% pure glychrrizic acid is only soluble to a maximum of 0.2% in a formula such as that. And 12% gl acid is a yellow-brown colour.

[belassi]

Your oil phase is way too big for that percentage of emulsifier, that’s why it separates. Try adding say 7% cetearyl alcohol.

[belassi]

To determine the %vwt of ethanol required to solubilise:
1. Place x% grams of fragrance in a beaker where x is your % of fragrance.
2. Add (100-x) grams of anhydrous ethanol so as to make it up to 100 gm.
Mix. Is the solution transparent? If not, solubiliser is required anyway.
If transparent, titrate with distilled water, stirring, until the solution just turns milky. Weigh the total. Do the math; calculate the minimum % ethanol required to solubilise.

[belassi]

at what concentration

[belassi]

I have been using soapcalc for years, never have any problem.

[belassi]

One day later it is clear and I expect it to remain that way since it can’t evaporate.
I suggest you obtain better fragrances. Using 6% is ridiculous! Be careful buying fragrances - only use OEM suppliers - in my market many people buy from OEMs and adulterate them with diluents. No more than 1% should be necessary. MANE have excellent fragrances do you have access to their products?
EDTA will not “protect” colour. Same comment here as your fragrances: you are using poor quality dyes. I had the same problem with sunlight (or even strong artificial light) fading colours and/or changing colour until I found a supplier of dyes of good quality. This problem simply doesn’t occur when you have a good quality dye.

[belassi]

Made it without the Tween. Worked perfectly. Man’s version using 1% Black Drak as fragrance.

[belassi]

Well FWIW I was out buying shampoo bottles today and noticed that my supplier has a large range of atomiser bottles. So I picked up a few 75 mL bottles and couldn’t resist knocking together a quick body spray. Nothing complicated:
70% ethyl alcohol: 70%
fragrance: 1%
Tween 20: 1%
water: q/s (28%)

works just great. I need to knock out the Tween to test if it’s needed. I’m just waiting for the trehalose to arrive from the UK then I will definitely adopt this as a new line.

Regarding fragrance, you really are using 6%? I used 1% of a fragrance from Mane, and it persists on the skin for several hours.

[belassi]

If the colour is fading then you need to change to a more stable dye.

[belassi]

I find it really difficult to deal with small sample sizes because then, some of the ingredients need to be weighed on a jeweller’s scale with an accuracy of 0.01g, and later, I expect production of a larger quantity to be inaccurate because of earlier measurement errors.

[belassi]

I pay for all my materials and making many tests is just part of the job as far as I am concerned. It doesn’t bother me except for samples; with them, I worry that I’m not going to achieve the result I want before I run out of material. For instance Showa Denko kindly sent me 20g of Apprecier. This might not seem a lot until you discover its price. When I’m dealing with such expensive substances I try to think everything through in great detail before beginning formulation.

[belassi]

Run the soapcalc calculator twice? First with half the oils + KOH then with half the oils + NaOH. Then simply mix the NaOH with KOH and proceed as normal.

[belassi]

inactivation rate for papain appears to be 10 minutes at 83C.

[belassi]

Right. I am surprised they use so little, I wouldn’t have thought it would have any effect at 1%

[belassi]

thanks Elise. Those comments are pretty much what we intend. We already use quite a lot of local florals (cactus, tepezcohuite, etc) 

[belassi]

Only 1%? Wow. With 16% it became thinner again on day two. I do have licorice extract in stock.

[belassi]

Seriously though, I think I will try hydrolysing the oat powder using papain and then heat treating it prior to incorporation into the shampoo. I have plenty of papain extract.

[belassi]

Packaging might be an option. I think there’s a cement mixer bottle listed in Ali Baba. Takes two AA batteries.

[belassi]

The worst moment is when you consider how to compete with your established, large, wealthy, rivals. For me this took the form of imagining myself opening a retail shop next door to Sally’s. I thought:

1. Sally’s has a massively bigger range.
2. Sally’s has a huge existing customer database.
3. Sally’s has a long history and is a well known brand.
 - how to compete? I think the keys are:
1. Offer things that customers want and Sally’s doesn’t have.
2. Offer a more personal customer experience.

In the case of (1) I can offer either lower prices - not a good idea in an upmarket location; or better value for money. I can also (better) offer more advanced products and/or more natural products
And for (2) that’s really about shop design and staff selection and training. I’ll need to research it.

[belassi]

I concur with Bob. We are only now looking for venture funding, after:
* Three years product development and test marketing
* Registering the brand and its dedicated domain
* Employing a graphic design team to create the corporate identity and product labels
* Calculating all material, labour, and packaging costs
* Researching retail startup costs
* Preparing a detailed business plan

Frankly there is one massive elephant in the room. WHAT IS YOUR USP?
There comes a moment when you step back and realise that you have a product line that, yes, is very profitable, but … what makes it different from others?

[belassi]

After 1 day I can see it separating. I can fix it though; obviously the oatmeal is heavier than the water, so I will have to get some heavy water. (joking)

[belassi]

Right, I made up 250mL. Basically it is Iselux + CAPB, and about 16% by weight of oat flour. Pretty thick. Poured it into a tottle and will test it just for fun. I bet it separates.

[belassi]

I do have 250mL tottles in stock. So if I have this correct, the concept is to make it so thick that it’s a paste, squeeze it out of a depressible tube or tottle? Filling is going to be a challenge! (Laughing)
I think I will do a bit of research into the LOIs of existing products.

[belassi]

Aha I see what you mean. That would imply a tube product. Unfortunately we are orders of magnitude away from being in the tube marketplace. No, I don’t have that kind of thing available.