[belassi]

Euromonitor International has an excellent series of market reports. For instance the Global report has:

Introduction

Global Snapshot

Regional Overview

Category Analysis

Channel Analysis

Future Outlook

world sales in 2010 were over $350,000,000,000. I warn you only of this: before launching a new style of product, test market it. I and another company tried the Far East disposable face masks here in Mexico. Our market showed no interest.

[belassi]

How do you get the pH to a reasonable level? Borax?

[belassi]

I have our first products made 5 years ago with parabens still preserved after sitting around all this time in all sorts of temperatures. Kind of like a McDonalds burger. Very useful list, I will save it.

[belassi]

What are the essential oils and in what concentration? You can check the MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) figure for essential oils and if you include enough of the right type, taking the MIC well above the averages for bacteria and fungi, you should have a safe product.

[belassi]

I believe I already posted such a link a few weeks back.

[belassi]

Thanks. I have better alternatives, I believe.

[belassi]

What is the B3 for? Perhaps I should try it in my new C cream (sodium ascorbyl phosphate palmitate).

[belassi]

Totally what Bob said. Plus, this: You shouldn’t be using a mixer to put the components together. What you need for a fast reaction is to ensure that the polar and nonpolar components are in as small a particle size and most intimate contact possible. You can do this by adding 1-2% surfactant, and most important of all, use a high speed blender - something with lots of shear. Thousands of RPMs not hundreds.

[belassi]

If you use fatty acids (e.g. oleic acid) it takes seconds rather than minutes. Three hours is ridiculous.

[belassi]

@David: great explanation.

[belassi]

Further to my last, please note that it is NOT used as a leave-on product but only for a short time period, so be careful.

[belassi]

Actives listed with comments:

Lactic Acid, below the decyl oleate in the LOI. Now, the upper limit for the decyl oleate is around 7% and more typically 5% so I don’t think the lactic acid will be more than 5%.

Salicylic Acid, presumably 2% so everything below, should be <2%

Kojic Acid, should be 2% or less.

Arbutin, should be 2% or less. 

Retinol, this is an active, used between 0.1% and 1% max. (limit in Canada for example) just use 0.1%

Phytic Acid, see this article. This is OBVIOUSLY the principle causative agent. You don’t have any at all in your proposed knock-off.

BHT, that’s 0.5% max, probably a lot less.

Phyllantus Emblica Fruit Extract is a supposed melanin inhibitor, I suggest all the way down here it’s nothing more than a magic name.

I suggest the LOI does not contain ingedients listed in correct order of preference and I would not use it as a basis for copying this product but would rather create a phytic peel using a few base ingredients to determine the appropriate percentage, then proceed from there. This would be something like a three month program for me, and would require recruitment (and possibly payment) of human test subjects. You might like to think it over, because what you have done so far is unfortunately wasted. It took me around fifteen minutes work with Google to realise the basis of that formula; you could have done the same.

Regarding comments on surfactants, I don’t think it matters a bit, the surfactant is merely being used as a wetting agent or solvency improver, probably around 2%; use any suitable non-irritating surfactant.

[belassi]

The only way to be sure of that is to test it.

[belassi]

You’ve got 30% oil phase in there, nothing like the original product. My starting point would be 2% salicylic acid + whatever % PG to dissolve it. Then take a serious look at the likely % of the rest.

[belassi]

pH does not affect this kind of solubility issue.

Ask yourself what you want the oil for. If you want it for refattening, then use a water soluble oil instead, or a product designed for the purpose such as glyceryl oleate (0.5%) or Silsense water-dispersible silicone (0.1%)

0.01% of 100 grams is 0.01 grams.

[belassi]

Other methods:

Purchase potassium cocoate 50% and potassium oleate, blend 25/75, dilute to required concentration, add any active ingredients e.g. glycerin, thicken with salt.

[belassi]

papain is used for this purpose. Be careful.

[belassi]

For good reason. Mineral oil, for instance, cannot be saponified. The isopropyl myristate should not be saponified but added after saponification is complete. I am beginning to think that you don’t have the knowledge at this moment, to go ahead with this project. I recommend bringing someone into your plans who understands these things. 

[belassi]

There are good reasons that synthetic liquid soap dominates the market. Are you sure that your product would be able to compete in the wider world? I already made that decision, and it was to go synthetic.

[belassi]

If you bother to actually check the calculator I gave you, you will find stearic acid listed there.

[belassi]

Doesn’t sound like anything I would want to put on myself, but if you really want to do that calculation, simply use http://soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

[belassi]

Thanks for your help. Gattefosse make a big thing of how it makes liquid crystal emulsions. Is there any benefit to that, I wonder? So many things I don’t know yet.

[belassi]

Well, I might comment on this because I have used combinations of ammonium and sodium surfactants before now. 

I can’t see what your problem is, frankly. There is nothing in there that would cause the issues you mention. So going through the Sherlock Holmes principle, I suggest it may be your preservative. You didn’t tell us what that is.

Gyceryl oleate is one of the two components of Lamesoft PO-65 and when I was using that, I had no problems at all with foam or thickening, quite the contrary, in fact. I would reduce it to 0.5%

After formulating for some time with a sodium/ammonium mix I decided to use a commercial blend, Plantaren APB, and we get great results with that at just 25% total surfactant mix. It is ALS/ALES based. BASF have an equivalent.

[belassi]

What you say is correct but CDEA is rather more expensive than SLES and you can simply add a little more SLES instead if foam is not as much as is required.

However.

I note that you have a high % of SLES in there, your total surfactant mix is 52% !! I make a body wash here, and we are at 30% total surfactant, and it produces loads of foam. I would suggest making some tests to vary the proportions of SLES versus the CAPB. Try to get to say, 35% surfactant to begin. EG

30/5

27/8

25/10

23/12

21/14

Adjust each one using NaCl to the same thickness and do a foam test. You should be able to fairly quickly establish what works best. This is a fairly simple test to do and it’s something I tend to do whenever I am testing a possible new surfactant.

[belassi]

I’ll tell you, they were pretty stupid. Having got the brand they failed to buy the domains. It was not long before I discovered that belessi.com, belessi.mx, belessi.mx.com, etc were available from $10 upwards. I was VERY tempted to buy up all the domain names which would cause them a lot of difficulty. However this being Mexico I decided not to risk it.

Of course I already own the domains for my new brand.