[belassi]

My lab is freezing cold so a positive disincentive to do experiments, but I have got to this point:

tea tree oil, 1g

polysorbate 20, 3.5g

peg-7 glyceryl cocoate, 2g.

At which point I have a clear solution in water. Tiny batch though. More work needed.

[belassi]

Try the same recipe with Ultrez-20 and see if it happens again. My bet is not.

[belassi]

Not likely to be the aloe. I have gels with up to 40% aloe vera content with no problem like that. More likely to be carbomer that failed to disperse/neutralise, eg “fish eyes”.

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Absolutely. It is just a tank of bilge. Perhaps we (here) should get together and start a new site to compete with it, one that gives proper information.

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Hopefully I’ll have a sample of the SHS soon. I want to try it with Silsense DW-18 to see if I can get that enhanced emulsion performance the brochure bangs on about.

[belassi]

You should find that carbomer-based one perfectly stable. It is very similar to a simple cream I developed early on when I knew even less than I do now about emulsions. Test it with the freeze-thaw cycle, it should pass.

Regarding the preservative, you should find that 0.2% methyl and 0.1% propyl parabens powder by weight, dissolved in the propylene glycol, perfectly adequate in that recipe I offered.

[belassi]

The label is a marketing item but must also comply with the relevant standards for ingredients, method of use, etc. Unless you are an experienced designer, you should outsource the label graphics to a brand creator. (A graphic designer with branding experience). The label will markedly influence your sales.

[belassi]

OK. I will try with various concentrations in plain water at first, no sense in wasting lots of gel.

[belassi]

Thinking further about your sourcing problem, I imagine that you will have trouble sourcing ‘actives’ - e.g. botanicals like aloe vera and centella asiatica which can really make a difference to the effect of a skin cream - at least in my humble opinion.

I suggest that, if you haven’t already, you investigate your country’s range of flora. I’m lucky in that I have a Bioextracto plant in Mexico that produces a huge range of extracts, so it’s easy for me to source standardised, purified hydrosols of (eg) aloe vera x10 concentrate, tepezcohuite, calendula, centella asiatica, and so on. 

If I were in a situation like yourself and had no in-country source such as that, I would go to the yerbolarias and buy dried herbs, and extract the hydrosols myself. Of course it would be a problem to estimate the concentration, but still … 

Don’t underestimate the benefits of the hydrosol phase. It’s not just about oil in water. You can do a lot provided you’re prepared to do the research. Talk to your local colleges; here, my wife, who teaches biology, won a national competition with her student research team, on the basis of evaluating the microbicidal action of a range of native herbs.

Since you are not in the USA you do not have to comply with the FDA, so you will be able to experiment with things such as essential oils, for instance, against acne. In this PDF formulation from Lubrizol for an anti-acne gel, you have everything except the tea tree oil and I should think you have available in-country alternatives for that.

[belassi]

You have the following: TEA, glycerin, cetyl alcohol, stearic acic, propylenegycol, tween80, carbopol. I have removed the other items that aren’t for skin creams such as the surfactants. You can make an emulsion using the carbopol; even though it won’t be a ‘proper’ emulsion it won’t separate because the gel will hold everything in suspension.

Try this:

stearic acid 3%

cetyl alcohol 4%

“emollient” 5%

glycerine 3%

propylene glycol 3%

carbopol 940 0.4%

preservative q/s

TEA - q/s to neutralise carbopol to pH=6, I use NaOH so you’ll have to look that up. I’m sure you should be able to find NaOH, that would be 0.2% (solid NaOH)

water (the rest)

 - You will need an emollient at about 5%. This, you will need to source locally. Olive oil should work OK, or could you find a more exotic oil with better properties such as mamey?

 - You could make green tea and use that instead of just water to get the antioxidant benefits.

[belassi]

Borax is not an emulsifier. And mineral oils are horrible. The minimum cost item you could create would be a formula of water, vegetable oil (eg olive oil or sunflower), an emulsifier such as glyceryl stearate, and a preservative.

[belassi]

what is ethoxydiglycol and why is it so ubiquitous in the formulae mentioned above?

[belassi]

Vitamin E is not thick… at least, not in comparison to items such as D-Panthenol. Now that’s so thick that I usually use a knife to get it out of the jar. Simply warm up vitamin E in a water bath and it’s quite liquid. I find it pours straight out of the fridge (albeit slowly). Oils are a nuisance - coconut and palm and mamey all solid at this time of year.

[belassi]

Paraben DU is a very effective preservative.

[belassi]

also of interest to me

[belassi]

Buy a more accurate scale - they don’t cost much - or make larger batches.

[belassi]

I believe that might work about as much as I believe in Santa Claus.

[belassi]

@TeniBeauty, it was a long time ago. I was putting radio stations into Owerri, Akure, Lagos State, a few other places that I can’t even find on the map, like Ashileke!

I had good times and bad times, the malaria for instance, but to be able to see Fela at the shrine and then to go back to his house - ah, that was unforgettable! I get eye for back bout dat! I have written a memoir about it all, on my web site.

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The forum provides a LOT of useful information. Thanks everyone.

[belassi]

You can certainly use shea butter, which amounts to the same thing.

[belassi]

Won’t it colour the skin? 

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Welcome to the forum, Jane. I used to teach physics and chemistry, too, and began making skin creams.

[belassi]

Now working on the body wash which is basically the same as the shampoo only more concentrated. The idea is to be able to produce a similar amount and quality of foam as you can get with cold process soap.

First test: 25% APB (this has got to mean “all purpose blend” I guess) and 5% CAPB gave me an incredibly thick mix with terrific foam. In fact it is thicker and foamier than my own blend efforts, in which I used 40% total surfactants and didn’t get a result as good as this.

[belassi]

Yes. That’s right. Are there any synthetic surfactants that are able to claim the name “natural”? Constantly we hear all sorts of nonsense, such as “it’s made from coconut so it must be natural”. I have the feeling that there are “natural synthetic” surfactants by some of the more interesting (and harder to source) companies. (Went into the lab to see if I could find some data. Nope.) However there are some interesting things out there, eg:

Description: Natural surfactant blend made of four different surfactants with different ionicity: Sodium cocoamphoacetate (amphoteric), lauryl glucoside (non-ionic), sodium cocoyl glutamate (anionic), and sodium lauryl glucose carboxylate (anionic). But how “natural” is that? 

[belassi]

Liquid castile doesn’t foam well, this was why I turned to coco-betaine.

A glance at the oil properties at soapcalc.net would have told you that. To get real foam you need coconut and castor oils. Olive oil provides conditioning benefits.