Bill_Toge
Forum Replies Created
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@Microformulation you think lotions with pH of 9.5 are bad, a big-name brander over here is selling an under-eye cream which was developed in China, is basically cement minus the sand, has an EU safety assessment that bears little or no relation to the actual product, has a pH spec over 11, and would automatically be classified as corrosive category 1 and eye damage category 1 (i.e. very serious) under CLP regulations due to the amount of strong base in it
worse still, they’ve taken out full-page adverts for this stuff in the national press, and in expanding their customer base, they’ve opened themselves up to prosecution by Trading Standards, huge compensation claims, and future bankruptcy, but as long as they’re making a tidy profit right now, the fact their product is an enormous liability is no bother to them at all!
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or better still, get an IFRA certificate from your supplier, which will state the exact safe limits for particular product types
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I’d suggest using Carbopol 940 or Synthalen K as a stabiliser rather than EMT10 or Sepigel; they both lose viscosity on skin contact, which makes them good for light creams
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another possibility is that they are in fact using ordinary emulsifiers, and the ingredients list is incomplete
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you need to increase your ceteareth-25; that’s the material that makes the product go solid
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@chickenskin sodium sulphite won’t dissolve in oil-based products
@ashish what kind of oil are you using, and which dyes?
in the past I’ve used D&C Violet 2, D&C Yellow 11, D&C Red 17, D&C Green 6 and D&C Red 30 in oil-based products, and never had any problem with fading
also, the only time I’ve ever seen dyes fade as rapidly as 7-10 days at room temperature was in formulas that had strong oxidising or reducing agents
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@David a number of our customers have in the past paid for consulting services and received products which didn’t conform to legal requirements, or couldn’t be filled, or couldn’t be manufactured consistently, or in extreme cases couldn’t be manufactured at all; and in all of those cases, the consultant took their money, denied all responsibility, and the customer ended up going to us to fix the problem
it’s not limited to this industry either, it just seems to be the way things often work in the UK - you pay someone to do a job, then they do it badly, wash their hands of it and you have to pay someone else to sort it out
as for point 3, what I mean is that some consultants routinely expect the contract manufacturer to do (for free) the stability and challenge tests that the customer has paid the consultant to do
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1. before you promise anything, make sure you can deliver it2. if something goes wrong, take responsibility for it, and don’t just dump it in the customer’s lap for them to sort out3. don’t expect manufacturers to subcontract your lab work for freemost of the consultants we’ve had to deal with have failed to carry out some or all of those steps
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preservative = prevents microbial growth
antioxidant = prevents chemical oxidationthey both increase the shelf life of a product, but they do so in very different ways and are not interchangeable
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increase your ceteareth-25; this will raise the set point and make the product harder
it may make it difficult to mix, in which case you’ll have to increase your PEG-7 glyceryl cocoate as well
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@mikethair GMP standards are GMP standards, regardless of what you make - where I work we make perms, peroxides and relaxers, which are inherently aggressive and microbicidal (hence, very low risk), but the same standards still apply
the CoA proves that your water is fit for use at the source, but as it stands you have no positive proof it’s still fit for use by the time it gets to you, which is particularly important with something as sensitive and perishable as unpreserved water - testing the conductivity is a quick and easy way to see whether it’s been contaminated
as an example, we once had to reject an IBC of propylene glycol because there was a dead bird in it
the CoA said it was fine, and I’m sure the liquid was fine when it was tested, but the product we received was definitely not fit for use!
admittedly this is quite an extreme example, but the same principle holds
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also, polysorbate 80 at that level will completely knacker your preservatives
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depends what the ingredient is - if it’s something chemically distinct and well-defined, like cocamide MEA or cetyl alcohol, it can be quantified by an analytical lab using HPLC or a similar method
if the ingredient is a fragrance, essential oil, vegetable oil, or unrefined organic material of some other kind (e.g. colloidal oatmeal), it is not chemically well-defined or distinct, because these ingredients generally comprise a non-unique mixture of substances, and so it’ll be much harder to identify and quantify
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as long as you measure the conductivity and microbial counts on each lot, and keep a record, I can’t see what else you could do to monitor the quality
for water testing, you’d need a conductivity meter with a resolution of 0.1 or 0.01 μS
however, I do agree about not using tap water to rinse your equipment; if your tap water is not subject to microbial control, it can potentially contaminate your equipment and make sterilisation pretty pointless
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you could try kaolin, bentonite or a similar clay, provided you can find one in a shade you like
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historically it was used in combination with beeswax; the borate salts that resulted from combining the two were the active emulsifier, as neither beeswax nor borax are effective emulsifiers on their own
it does occur in nature, but it’s also a category 1B reprotoxin, and a substance of very high concern - personally, I’d avoid it
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when you say demi-permanent, do you mean a direct dye (applied straight to the hair) or an oxidative dye (mixed with a developer prior to aplication)?
the former would be very messy in an aerosol can, and the latter would be extremely impractical to use in an aerosol format
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@sha you’ve contradicted yourself; in the original post you said “I realized that adding preservatives will inhibit the staining ability of the paste”, hence my question
also, are you working with pure genuine henna?
I ask as the orange dye in henna (lawsone) is stable to oxidation in the air, and many products that claim to be ‘natural henna’ are often adulterated with synthetic oxidative dyes, which are not
as for packaging, sachets and pouches are the simplest and easiest way to fill this kind of product and have it remain airtight
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for what it’s worth, I know Kirker (based in the far north of the UK) are one of the few nail polish manufacturers in Europe, they may be able to help
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@johnb plus, a product that highly pressurised will come out of the valve at about Mach II, with a real chance of injuring someone!
as I said, these are just a few of the reasons why nobody uses oxygen or nitrogen as propellants
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at room temperature, an enormous amount pressure is required to liquefy oxygen and nitrogen, which is why they are not used as aerosol propellants
dimethyl ether is the most widely used propellant for water-based products
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what led you to the conclusion that preservatives make it a less efficient dye?
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it looks like corrosion
the rubbing alcohol has most likely attacked the protective air-tight lacquer on the surface of the tin; try using a chemically different binder, e.g. isododecane
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also, if you do choose to hire a consultant, ask them for references, and check them
we’ve had numerous customers who have paid consultants to develop products, then when the consultant failed to deliver satisfactory results (in some cases the products were impossible to manufacture) the consultant shirked all responsibility and the customer had to pay someone else, i.e. us, to fix it, meaning they effectively paid twice for one service
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having reviewed the regulation in question, I must clarify that my statements above only apply to products for sale to the general public
as of July 2013, you can use higher levels (up to 6% as hydrogen peroxide), but the product must only be sold to dental practitioners, and the first use must be supervised by said practitioner