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“Employed largely for its antimicrobial properties, TTO is incorporated as the active ingredient in many topical formulations used to treat cutaneous infections. It is widely available over the counter in Australia, Europe, and North America and is marketed as a remedy for various ailments.” But presumably not in the USA?

and: “Penfold published the first reports of its antimicrobial activity in a series of papers in the 1920s and 1930s. In evaluating the antimicrobial activity of M. alternifolia oil and other oils, he made comparisons with the disinfectant carbolic acid or phenol, the gold standard of the day, in a test known as the Rideal-Walker (RW) coefficient. The activity of TTO was compared directly with that of phenol and rated as 11 times more active.“

How extraordinary that after all this time, USA authorities still haven’t accepted that it is a bactericide. ref: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1360273/

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What amuses me about all this is that there are factors in my city who provide fakes of pretty much any perfume you might have heard of! Fake Ed Hardy costs around $200/kilo, for instance.

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I should think that there are much better alternatives such as tea tree oil, neem oil, and extract of thyme.

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Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Began about three years ago. We’re currently waiting for brand registration (the local government has been very helpful) and developing the range, which now comprises some 17 products. Skin care, hair care, cold process soap. I tend towards therapeutic products - we have an anti-acne gel, for instance, and a burns/bruises/stings cream.

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Check out the literature for Lamesoft and you’ll see how it works. Regarding putting oil in shampoo, I tend to agree, the only one I would consider would be jojoba oil and even then in very small %. 

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If you want refatting capability from shampoo, Lamesoft PO-65 is the way to go. Adds foam, adds viscosity, not expensive.

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As I understand it, ingredients <1% do not even have to be listed in %order.

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One of the difficulties is the INCI nomenclature. For instance, we see things like linalool at the end of the list, but that doesn’t mean the formulator put linalool into it. No, the formulator added an essential oil and that oil contains linalool. So we see perhaps three different INCI names and then have to think, “is this a commercial product”? And different but similar items can have the same INCI name (eg, Comperlan C-850 and Comperlan D-618 both DEA according to my supplier Conjunto Lar.)

Swift’s blog has interesting information about duplicating a product. I have tried myself a few times but usually end up finding a more attractive way of achieving the same result.

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Located in north Mexico. I’m in contact with Siltech but they have no distribution here, so I suspect that carriage costs from Canada might rule out supply from them. Their Web site has a lot of interesting products.

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Sent them an email. Let’s see!

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Hey thanks for that! Yeah, Lubrizol is quite big over here, I must find who represents Siltech.

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What’s wrong with just using clay? We source a clay mix of bentonite, kaolin, and calcium minerals, ground to a high degree of fineness. It is absolutely lovely. Some ‘heating’ often occurs with clay masks and the reason is usually the bentonite (green) clay but it causes no harm, actually improves circulation.

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Conjunto Lar is an important supplier for us. I source bio-extracts from them, also certain surfactants, and things like Silsense and Polyquart. We have dozens of local factors, for most things, which is good. Thanks for your note!

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Swiftcraftymonkey is indeed a good source for trial formulae. Recommend!

@Nasrins, I’d begin by buying Swift’s EBook for whichever product you’re formulating - she has one for hair care and one for creams and gels. 

I know it is a nuisance when one lacks ingredients for a formula. That’s why, I suppose, I now have over 200 ingredients in the lab. Some become mainstays; others are rejected. It is part of the development cost.

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Running a beauty company in Mexico? Well, the upside is that we don’t have the FDA nightmare! So, it is much easier for me to develop a product; I just need to be aware of the health regulations.

However, the flip side of that, is that I have to compete with people who make stuff in their kitchen sink, and sell it with a label that has no ingredients listed. This is technically illegal but I am actually surprised when I come across properly labelled products in a market.

As you’d expect, it is very difficult to get noticed against the flood of marketing from the big companies.

Another little problem is that I find it difficult to obtain some ingredients I’d like because they either aren’t available here or only in sizes such as 200Kg tanks! I’d say the worst company to do business with is Croda. In general I avoid their products due to supply problems. They appear to be only interested in the giant sized businesses.

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Yes, I just found a replacement through UL Prospector last week, wax efoliant beads that could be useful to revive a product I had to take off the market due to environmental concerns (it used those plastic micro-beads).

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Link seems broken already.

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I can’t advise, but tea tree oil is a very light (like water) oil, with a very strong ‘medicinal’ smell, similar I suppose to pine terpenes. It is not miscible with water but can be used in shampoo provided the surfactants chosen will emulsify it. Generally it makes a milky shampoo at 0.2% and even at 0.1% it will not be completely clear, so it might work best in a pearlised shampoo. I’ve only been experimenting with it for about 4 weeks so please excuse my ignorance.

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5% tea tree oil would be incredibly strong, that kind of concentration is used to kill lice etc.

It’s a very potent and expensive oil - 5% at $180 / kg would be a pricey component too!

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I’m trying Tea Tree Oil as an anti-dandruff agent because of its excellent anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. Early days yet but it seems that 0.1% might be effective. The down side is that it has quite a strong aroma and only works with some scents.

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I don’t get this idea about glycerin suppressing foam or viscosity. I have just made two versions of my sulphate-free shampoo. One with 3% glycerin and one without. The one with glycerin has higher foam and viscosity than the one without. Also, natural (cold process) soap is full of glycerin and produces more foam than I can get with synthetic surfactants, generally.

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In shampoo? I haven’t tried it, but I wouldn’t think so. It will probably depress the foam and possibly cause separation. It is mainly used for creams that require a ‘powdery’ finish.

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5% ? 

One of my products is a face cream that has the following lipid profile:

stearic acid 2%

cetyl alc 1%

shea butter 3%

Myritol 318 4%  (caprylic/capric triglyceride)

At this percentage, the cream is great for oily skin, it absorbs fast and leaves a powdery feel. However those with normal and, especially, dry skin, disliked the cream as they felt it “too dry” and wanted to use more of it. For normal/dry skin I replaced 2% of the Myritol 318 with almond oil and that worked fine for those skin types.

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It appears to me that you are creating a natural potassium soap (KOH + myristic and stearic fatty acids) which will in itself have a glycerin content, so first, I’d remove the additional glycerine.

But then, you’re combining this with two synthetic surfactants, one of which is anionic and the other, amphoteric.

I don’t see any immediate reason why CAPB can’t be added, but the SLES isn’t going to work with an alkaline soap having a pH of around 10, I would guess.

I think you need first to decide if you want to base your facial wash on “natural” soap or on synthetic surfactants. For a “natural” soap you should follow the guidance that you can find in many soap forums; for a synthetic wash, check out Swift’s blog (swiftcraftymonkey) - SLES and CAPB make a starting point, to make it creamy you’ll need a pearlising agent.

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Hi Bill. No, I use R-O water from Bonafont. I always add a small % of EDTA to tackle the possibility of metal ions. However in the test system I didn’t bother.