[belassi]

You don’t need to go as low as pH 3. 5 will be fine.

[belassi]

 It’s also supposed to be miscible with glycerin, propylene glycol, or dmi.
Laughing, here… best of luck with it. (How many weeks did I waste on this topic?)

[belassi]

Please understand I do not make cosmetics at that kind of scale, so take my words with a large amount of “maybe”, please.  My first approach would be to look at the economic factors of replacing the whey by increasing the surfactant level. 
In terms of processing I think the whey should be added at the end of the process, in the middle of the tank, with slow paddle stirring.

[belassi]

How on earth are you going to dissolve the Resveratrol? Have you actually experimented with any of these materials?

[belassi]

Absolutely. Dettol! 

[belassi]

You appear to be using whey filtrate as a substitute for surfactants, to achieve foaming. (Your active surfactant % appears to be far too low to make an effective shampoo, otherwise.)
I suggest the foaming problem is a direct result of this design approach.

[belassi]

No emulsifier

[belassi]

In my case I had no production of gas at all. It would have been very obvious in an airless pump. I was using this:
Apprecier is a stabilized provitamin C formed from L-ascorbyl 2-phosphate (aqueous Vitamin C) and L-ascorbyl 6-palmitate (oil soluble Vitamin C), an amphipathic compound.
It’s terrifically expensive. Early results really impressed me. At 2% I was getting visible wrinkle reduction and skin tone lightening, after about 3 weeks use as a night cream. My first problem was selling price. The formulation was very expensive and the fancy airless pump, too. Then there was the box, the instruction pamphlet… 
Then came the stability problem. At around 7-8 weeks, it began to turn brown. It ended up a latte sort of colour after about 10 weeks.
Given the production and packaging cost, high selling price, and poor shelf life, I decided to cut my losses.

[belassi]

I seriously doubt their formula lasts for three weeks, let alone three months. I was unable to get a vitamin C formula to exceed a genuine shelf life of three weeks, even though I was using a super-expensive Japanese derivative, adopted their recommendations, and packaged in an airless pump. In the end I gave up.

[belassi]

It is hardly surprising that a hydrocarbon will not mix with a fatty acid.

[belassi]

9xx: NOT equivalent. 940 can gel 63% using TEA but it will not be completely clear.

[belassi]

^^^ THAT TOO! ^^^

[belassi]

There is so much wrong with your request that it’s hard to know where to start. So I will just comment on a couple of things:
1. You have obviously posted the LOI from commercial products. It would have been a good idea to identify them.
2. You have not even said what these products are supposed to do.
Let me give you an analogy. I am a retired broadcast engineer. Suppose you presented me with a huge box of components and said:
“I have a 4CX5000A, a 200 microhenry inductor with a current rating of 50 amps, 3 capacitors of 10nF and working voltage 2KV, (follows, a list of 100 components.) … Please draw the diagram of how to build an AM radio transmitter.”

[belassi]

1. Invent brand name and design logo.
2. Register brand name and logo.
3. Wait 6 months or so: <success?>
Yes: Go to step 4.
No:  Go to step 1.
4. Begin market research.
5. Register Web site URL and build site, also Facebook, Instagram, etc etc pages or apps.
6. When sufficient market info is confirmed, begin sourcing or product design.
7. Finish product design.
8. Begin ‘tease’ campaign.
9. Launch.

[belassi]

Methyl paraben is water soluble. The amount would depend on other factors such as how long you want to preserve it for, the status of the water used, etc., but usually, 0.3% is around the norm.

[belassi]

Methyl parabens. Effective at a low %
The two you mention are useless at neutral pH.

[belassi]

You’re welcome. It is COSMOS approved.

[belassi]

I just noticed your comment on bentonite, why is it harsh?
It must be too alkaline. I tried it on myself and I was lucky I only left it on for a short time to test, my face became bright red and very sore. And this was a very pure grade from someone I know who owns a mine. 

[belassi]

I have serious doubts the illite would be suitable. The kaolin, yes. No bentonite, it’s terribly harsh.
I take it the CBD is a claims item.
Retinol??? Doesn’t that put it into the category of OTC drug?

The main thing though, is marketing. Have you evaluated this project properly? We have past history with masks. We assumed they would sell. We made mask kits (just add water and mix); ready made in a jar; plastic style ones that set and peel off; and we imported ones in lovely packaging from Korea and Taiwan.
… We no longer (try to) sell masks.
I saw Walmart try to sell packaged masks (like the Korean ones but boring looking). I observed for a while. No sales.
You never know, YMMV. But I do advise market research and pilot production.
I still have around 80Kg of kaolin and 10Kg of bentonite in my lab… I used to have some stuff very like illite, I can’t recall the name. Like illite it was also used in pottery glaze. It was pretty useless in a mask. I ended up using it to make some kind of building material…

[belassi]

The main fail as far as I am concerned is marketing. Do not design products simply because you can. First find out if there will be a market for them.
Case study:
I decided to design a liquid soap in a 250mL pump bottle. There was no problem in designing the soap, it came out fine, and no problem in sourcing the bottle and pump. HOWEVER:
My product smelled better and had nicer sensorials than those I found in the stores. Unfortunately, their product sold for $2 in the store. . . and it was costing me $2 just to buy the bottle, pump, and label. Without the contents or labour cost or profit margin or … 
I had neglected to note that (1) Big manufacturers can source and make products MUCH more cheaply than I can. (2) Consumers don’t really care if their hand soap has great sensorials. They do care very much about price.
- - In other words - -
However good you are at other things doesn’t matter a damn, compared with MARKETING.

[belassi]

I use GMS in pretty much all my creams and have never had the slightest problem. I use high shear. I normally set the pH to 6.0

[belassi]

‘gormless‘? 

[belassi]

940 is better in creams. Ultrez is better in gels.

[belassi]

There’s also peppermint oil, that’s pretty effective and smells nice.

[belassi]

To begin with, the GSC % is too high. Typical usage is 1.5-2.5%. I also think the glycerin content is too high, I would reduce it to 3%. 
Cetearyl isn’t a primary emulsifier, it is a co-emulsifier and its efficiency at that job varies depending on the proportion of stearyl alcohol in your particular batch. Glyceryl monostearate is an effective emulsifier with an HLB of 5.8 and your GSC has an HLB of 12 which is radically different.
Consider the result if you mixed an equal amount. You’d get an HLB of 9. Shea has an HLB of 8. By implication, you’d want to use a little more than half of the monostearate, I am not doing the Math for you but it might be around 60/40.
The sunflower oil has an HLB of 7, so you will have to calc the average of the lipids and then use an appropriate ratio of emulsifiers.
Get rid of the cetearyl to begin with (it has a very high HLB) and work with the other two.
You have 14.5% lipids so begin with say 5% of the combined emulsifier and test without the gum. If it is not stable increase the % of the combo emulsifier. When it is stable, add the gum which will provide a safety margin. But 0.4% seems high. Try 0.2%. And it must NOT be the cationic version.
Also consider the possibility of a process fail. Are you using enough shear?