[belassi]

Those Korean masks were a complete bomb in my market. We ended up giving them away.

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There was another thread relating to this in 2014.

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You are more likely to harm yourself when using some of the raw materials rather than putting them on your hair. Carbomer for example; you do not want to inhale any of it. Bob’s suggestion is excellent.

[belassi]

For dry hair consider adding 1.5% of Lamesoft PO-65. It is a refattening agent.

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PVA is poly vinyl acetate?

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I believe it comes from a deposit in S. Kansas. I have about 100Kg of it and about 40Kg of Nepheline Syenate. I don’t know the name of the company but I can find out it you like.

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Working with the white kaolin. This is nice. With water added it mixes into a cream that looks and feels just like clotted cream.

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Answer for the red kaolin: No.

Apparently red kaolin is simply white kaolin but has iron oxides in it. No therapeutic difference to speak of.

I have about 100 kg of the white kaolin at the moment. It is exceptionally fine, an American clay with very low silicate content.

[belassi]

I’ve got 40Kg of that Minex material. The thing I don’t like is the respiratory risk, it is so fine. Completely inert filler, might be useful in soap or as Bob suggests, a scrub.

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Sounds like isinglass used to preserve eggs.

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Great suggestions, thank you very much. We don’t have a scrub product yet, so that’s an interesting thought. These are UMC mineral products I think. 

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Maybe I can find some customers in the Heavy Metal music biz! Just joking. I have a large amount of white kaolin coming with it. I had better make sure to store it in a separate area from the stucco. “Dahling, the clay mask seems to have set very hard this time. I can’t get it off.”

[belassi]

Lots of surfactants contain salt, in fact. Betaines in particular. However, in sulphate-free formulations, the salt generally has no effect on viscosity.

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It works ok, I’ve tried it.

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Really? I must have some mislabelled. Unless glycol = glyceryl. When I tried it, it just thickened to the point of eventually becoming a lumpy clear gel. I can pearl with glyceryl monostearate just fine but not with this other stuff that looks very like it.

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Seems like new items popping up on a weekly basis! Thanks for that piece of info. We make CP soap with 30% of high oleic safflower, results are excellent, better than olive oil.

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Maybe a surfactant would be of help? By definition you need some kind of solubiliser. 

For starters, make a test batch in which you have 10% (benchmark), 8%, 6%, 4%, 2% of your carrier oil blend. Aim of this test: to first of all, determine if your blend of these oils is viable, and if so at what % maximum.

[belassi]

You have discovered that silicones and organic oils are not necessarily miscible. I had better add, that the term “essential oil” is reserved for distillations or extractions of the “essential” components of herbs, flowers, etc. eg peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil. The three you mentioned are carrier oils. In addition, I know that there is a high percentage of unsaponifiables in argan, and that’s not going to play well.

It seems to me that you might be designing one of these ‘silk drops’ products. Unfortunately I don’t have any hands-on in that area, so I’m unable to help further - maybe take a look on Prospector? Swift’s Blog?

[belassi]

You can pearlise with glycol distearate, not monostearate. I suggest using 1% CMEA, absolutely not more than 1.5% if you must, which will improve foaming and thickening. Note that since your shampoo is an anionic formula you will need to be careful of salt thickening because CMEA moves the salt curve to the left. Begin with 1.5% glycol distearate and go to 2% if necessary. You will need to melt the distearate and CMEA together, and dissolve in the surfactant, heated to at least 70 and preferably 75C. In other words this will be a hot process shampoo; do ALL the mixing at 75C and then leave to cool with slow stirring until it reaches say 35C at which point, bottle.

Glycol monostearate? I think that is a thickener… think I have some I bought in error once and it didn’t pearlise. Careful! 

[belassi]

The only way to tell is to try it, but in general, well made CP soap is far superior in foaming and nicer to use than syndet bars, but doesn’t last as long of course, and has a limited shelf life. One problem is sweating which can occur if the ambient humidity is a bit high. You would need to know the shelf life of that oil, I have never heard of it before. Many oils - eg soya oil - have short shelf-life and CP soap made with them goes rancid.

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I use VLT and usually buy it 10Kg at a time. My local Kao chemicals stockist has it.

By comparison, I have tried LT compared with VLT. Foaming is not as good and more of it is required. As a shampoo thickener VLT is superb. Great sensorials and enhanced preservative effect.

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I sent you a personal message about this, OK?

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If this is in the USA then I don’t believe there is a requirement to list INCI ingredients in soap.

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Your results are similar to mine albeit I used sulphate-free surfactants. It will stay in solution at 1% but 2% is iffy and over 2% will precipitate out. The effect is temperature dependent.

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Change the colours. I had a similar issue with shampoo colours. My beautiful purple (blue + pink) turned to turquoise on exposure to light. Another combination just slowly faded.