[Bill_Toge]

K-90 is sticky and fibrous by nature; try using K-30, and adding PEG-40 or PEG-60 hydrogenated castor oil for a more subtle effect

[Bill_Toge]

what’s the K number of the PVP you’re using?

[Bill_Toge]

I use A5 notebooks to record formulas and methods, and maintain an index in Excel/Google Sheets

it’s old-fashioned, but it works

[Bill_Toge]

@MarkBroussard and legal issues aside, they’ll need a lot of information that’s only available to the manufacturer/brand owner

[Bill_Toge]

most of them, apart from PABA derivatives and possibly benzophenone-3

[Bill_Toge]

generally speaking, ‘clear’ means having a turbidity less than 10-15 NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Units), which is about the average limit of perception

[Bill_Toge]

I’d suggest adding sodium bisulphite as an anti-oxidant and benzophenone-4 as a radical trap

(disclaimer: I’ve not actually tried the latter in this context, but it’s very effective at preventing radical-induced dye degradation)

[Bill_Toge]

Aerosil 200 has a particle size a hell of a lot smaller than Greensil: it’s most useful for improving the flowability of powders, and gelling oil-based products, and a lot less useful for mattifying water-based products

[Bill_Toge]

try adding sodium metabisulphite (around 0.5%) as an anti-oxidant, and benzophenone-4 (0.2-1%) as a water-soluble radical trap (minimises the amount of oxygen available to degrade the ascorbic acid)

[Bill_Toge]

the most likely candidates are the silica (of which there are many different grades) and the aluminum starch octenylsuccinate, both of which give a relatively dry, powdery finish

[Bill_Toge]

how much product are you putting on the plate?

the standard amount required by COLIPA is 2 mg / cm²

[Bill_Toge]

at pHs above around 4, CAPB carries a negative charge as well as a positive one; it’s most likely your BTMS is forming a compound with the CAPB, causing separation

also, benzyl alcohol is poorly water-soluble, even in surfactant systems

[Bill_Toge]

it doesn’t make much difference either way - if anything, they’re more likely to reduce lubricity, as they’re both viscous, highly hygroscopic liquids

[Bill_Toge]

if you mean “acrylates copolymer”, it’s used for waterproofing / volumising / smudging reduction

the most widely available polymers of this kind are the Daitosol series from Daito Kasei, which are designed for use in colour cosmetics

[Bill_Toge]

no, pure essential oils are clear

that looks like an emulsion of some kind

[Bill_Toge]

in my experience, solvent degreaser (a mixture of petroleum spirit and oil-soluble poloxamer) followed by alcohol spray is an excellent way to shift water-resistant residues

[Bill_Toge]

the listing looks incomplete to me: I suspect the first ingredient is in reality PEG-12 carnauba wax (not just PEG-12) and the second is PEG-60 lanolin, as none of the other ingredients are hard enough to form a wax

[Bill_Toge]

try adding more cetyl alcohol to it; that’ll give it more viscosity at rest and make it feel ‘thicker’

[Bill_Toge]

although it’s relatively easy to formulate a biphasic product (less easy to fill), it takes more skill to have both phases revert back to their original forms, or something close to them once shaken; two products that do this are Dentyl pH mouthwash and a L’Oreal makeup remover

[Bill_Toge]

ascorbic acid will dissolve in alcohols and short-chain glycols, which makes it less susceptible to oxidation; it’s not as soluble in those solvents as it is in water

[Bill_Toge]

for shampoos you only need 0.1 - 0.2% for high molecular weight grades of PQ10

the order of addition is also a critical detail; you need to add cationics first, followed by amphoterics, followed by anionics

adding them out of order results in the formation of gummy insoluble ineffective salts

[Bill_Toge]

how big was the lab batch, and how big was the production batch?

what temperature were the waxes and water mixed together at in the lab batch and the production batch?

what’s the maximum weight and smallest interval on the scales you weighed the materials for the lab batch on?

in my experience, kaolin plays well with all of those materials

[Bill_Toge]

MarkBroussard said:

I’m not particularly fond of this type of “brute force” formula since I think not including an emuslifier is kind of an amateur approach to formulating.

that’s a very diplomatic way of putting it; when I worked for a contract manufacturer, if a customer had wanted us to make a formula like that, I’d have used much more colourful terms

[Bill_Toge]

for starters, they’ve missed “oxide” from the active ingredient; I very much doubt metallic zinc would have a beneficial effect on blocking UV light

also, there appears to be no solvent, water, or carrier oil(s) in it, so yes, I agree this list is most likely missing some crucial elements

[Bill_Toge]

@devo2 the abrasive silica we used in most toothpastes had a particle size of 10 - 30 µm; not sure how this compares with calcium carbonate, but generally speaking, the finer the better