[belassi]

Perfume has a mixture of about 10–20% perfume oils mixed with alcohol (acting as a diffusing agent delivering the fragrant odor) and a trace of water. Colognes have about 3–5% perfume oil mixed with 80–90% alcohol with about 5 to 15 percent water in the mix.
Highly inflammable.

[belassi]

Actually, I am partly being serious. Test the test kits with a swab, see what happens.

[belassi]

I think I will abandon this experiment. Sometimes you learn as much from negative results.

[belassi]

Sure! Try scraping around the toilet lid and adding it after cool-down, that should work. Soil is another good source of bacteria.

[belassi]

Oh. I see. 
There was another issue. My wife said it made her hair too dry.

[belassi]

I tried this and don’t understand. I prepared a 5% henna shampoo, using boiling water to activate the henna. The green powder became a dark green liquid.
I gave it to my wife to try and her hair took on a pale green tint.
So much for the expected red/brown colour.

[belassi]

It would be appropriate if people would state … oh I give up.

[belassi]

Best of luck with that.

[belassi]

I should think the most likely culprit is the niacinamide. Make a 2% solution of niacinamide and do a patch test for 24 hours and record the results.

[belassi]

Frankly, I would not be wanting to use such a product. On the skin, it’s going to evaporate the alcohol forming a cloud of vapour and I bet the gel itself is inflammable. Of course it may be that:
“When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.”

[belassi]

It would result in a foam-free shampoo. Is that what you’re aiming for?

[belassi]

Ah it’s an Australian product. Hmmm.
My first observation is to question why did they choose an opaque package?
15% glycerin is very high. I imagine the product would be quite sticky.

[belassi]

I am trying to  dupe a product 
The first thing to do is tell us what that product is that you want to copy.
Second: I doubt those surfactants are individuals in that formulation. It sounds like a proprietary blend plus extras. Possibly from Inolex. Or GAL.
Third: Do you have an under-vacuum mixing system?

[belassi]

Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), is an aminopolycarboxylic acid and a colorless, water-soluble solid. (Wikipedia)

BUT:

This product is slowly soluble in water at room temperature up to 0.26 M, which is approximately 96 mg in a final volume of 1 ml. The pH of this solution will be in the range of 4 to 6.

[belassi]

I don’t know what you have but it is not EDTA.
EDTA is a soluble liquid.

[belassi]

How do you propose I make it natural? Should I just use Sodium lauroyl sarcosinate?
The purpose of a dishwashing liquid is to wash dishes. Such products are part of the biggest mass market imaginable and as such, subject to economies of scale that result in incredibly low-cost production. Before you get any further with this idea I suggest:

1. Go into the supermarket and find the lowest priced and the highest priced product. Adjust price for 1Kg of each. Calculate the average.
2. Calculate your own sale price for your proposed ‘natural’ version, including labour, packaging, and marketing, plus a 50% retail margin.
3. Compare YOUR retail price per kg with the one you calculated for the retail products earlier.
4. Do you still think you have a chance of selling in competition with them? Even when your ‘natural’ product does not work as well?

Just trying to save you possible disappointment. Unless of course this idea is only for YOU in which case, fine.

[belassi]

If I were going to construct my own, I would for sure use a brushless DC motor because they can be accurately controlled from 1 RPM to the maximum. So, shortly, I envisage a horde of cosmetic chemists raiding electric car scrapyards for wheel motors and DC control blocks. 

[belassi]

If I wanted to answer this question, I would bring my pH meter from the lab and measure the one I buy at the supermarket.

[belassi]

Likely, the reason is the excessively high pH. Potassium cocoate must be about pH 10? You can’t lower it either. This kind of thing is why the world moved to synthetics. Further, potassium cocoate is terrible to the skin, much worse than even SLS.

[belassi]

Well then see if you can find Texapon KD SO3. It is a blended surfactant. Very easy to use.

[belassi]

OK. It will typically take you about 7 months from now before you get the brand registered. In the meantime you can design the logo and develop the products. Here is a hint: Do NOT try to compete with brand leaders in low-priced products. They have economies of scale that make your source costs look crazy.

[belassi]

OK. Baby steps first. What’s your brand name? That’s step no. 1.

[belassi]

There are people here from all over the world. You will get much more relevant help if you tell us:
1. Where you are.
2. What kind of sales volume you’re talking about. The kind of advice the hobbyist/small brand/big brand need, are very different.
3. What access to raw materials do you have - EG do you have access to BASF? CRODA? LUBRIZOL? STEPAN? etc.
I must say I do not envy the task you gave yourself. I gave up on designing a conditioning shampoo, because I could get optimum performance from neither shampoo nor conditioner.

[belassi]

I would suspect that’s a fungal growth.

[belassi]

First: Does the water contain chlorine or chloramine. 
Test kits are available and can be found here. 
I don’t think you are taking a good approach to dealing with your problem. The very first thing to do is have a water analysis and discover what exactly is in the water; it could be chlorine, chloramine, or a mixture of both.