Bobzchemist
Forum Replies Created
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Be aware that the economies of scale for the cosmetic pencil business are huge, and the market is cut-throat level competitive in a crowded market. You’ll be competing with the Chinese on costs, US manufacturers on quick turnaround, and the Germans+Italians on quality - and all three are no-win contests. Just the environmental regulations for manufacturing pencils in the US are a nightmare.
You would quite honestly be much, much better off financially if you took the money you were planning on investing in pencil making and instead invested it in pencil hot-stamping machines, while you bought your pencils unstamped from China.
I worked for a pencil company, Cosmetic Pencil Manufacturing, that had spent huge amounts of time, energy, and money trying to make pencil manufacturing a profitable business, but they were driven out of business by foreign competition.
Go to a trade show, like HBA in New York, to see what your competition will look like if you don’t believe me, but I’m very serious when I say that it’s impossible to make money manufacturing pencils unless you’re selling $1 million a month or more.
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Any kind of advice I give will be dependent on what scale you want to operate at: Hobbyist, garage-level manufacturer/seller, or small/medium scale business.
The first thing to consider is that there’s a huge difference between using “completely resistant” powders to make up a product, and having your finished product be waterproof/sweatproof.
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You won’t get “complete repellency” unless you essentially treat the powders yourself. What is the purpose of having completely repellent powder? The majority of formulations work just fine with the commercially available treated pigments and excipients.
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It’s helpful to realize that the cheapest possible ingredient in cream/lotion formulas is water. Most of the time, as commercial cosmetic chemists, we are striving to use the very lowest amount of ingredients (other than water) needed to achieve our objectives.
The difference in performance between no glycerin and 1% glycerin is noticeable, but the difference between 1% and 5% glycerin is fairly small. The cost difference, however, between 1% and 5% can be significant.
Using more than you need is frequently not better.
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Wow - how many ex-leverites do we have on this forum, anyway? I got my start in the industry working on bringing the Snuggle fabric softener formula to the US.
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Making larger batches than 100g is equally simple - for 200 grams multiply quantities by 2, for 400 multiply by 4, etc.
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One of these scales should work well for what you need to do:
http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-triton-t2-xl-1000.html -
Given that you’ve already told us that you’re a beginner, the only correct answer is none. This is not the sort of product that should ever be made by a beginner.
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Stearic should be about 20%, drop myristic and TEA out.
Also try ethanol at varying percentages.
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Since 99.9 percent of all “active” ingredients do absolutely nothing, no, chelators are not needed in those terms.
But, as @Belassi says, chelators do help boost your preservation system, so it’s usually wise to include them unless there’s a compelling reason not to.
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Changing your ratios around will do little or nothing to fix the texture problems coming from the beeswax.
I think you’d have good results by replacing some/all of the beeswax with Cera Bellina, from Koster Keunen. Also, try looking into modified carnauba wax.
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You could, but then you wouldn’t be organic anymore.
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Emily,
I think that your post crosses the line into spam. If you had stopped with the first paragraph, it would have been fine, but the whole advertisement was way too much. -
Mixing at higher than recommended temps causes all sorts of texture problems. Follow the recommended procedure, unless you don’t have access to high shear mixers.
It is possible to activate thixcin in a 3-roll mill, but it’s a tedious job.
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As I’ve always understood it,the concept is to replace the oil in the hair (sebum) with a mixture of sebum and the “cleansing” oil. (This is not a new idea, by the way. It dates back to Roman times)
What you’re doing is using the principle of “like dissolves like”. The only criteria you need for your oil is that it is reasonably soluble in sebum. You put the oil on your hair, rub it in, the oil and sebum mix together, you remove excess oil and sebum with a towel, and you’re done. If you use a lighter, thinner oil than sebum, your hair should feel less “greasy”. No horrible, nasty, evil, soul-destroying surfactants needed.
This Shehvoo stuff seems to be quite different, and I suspect there’s a fair chunk of surfactants in the product, and not much, if any, oil.
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One more point - I’ve gotten a couple of clients whose brilliant idea turned out to be illegal/against FDA regulations. It wasn’t easy to convince them of this.
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Check with the Australian Society of Cosmetic Chemists https://ascc.com.au/
Also remember that even a brilliant, genius-level idea is relatively worthless without the hard work and marketing investments behind it that are required for a successful product.
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I used something like these for a while, until I pestered my boss enough to get a pH meter that was just for me. The plastic body and flat tip makes it fairly rugged:
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I’m guessing that you were sent the dark, bottom “niger” layer that occurs in the kettle soap-making process step known as “pitching”. This happens after the salting-out step that removes the glycerin, so I don’t think you’ll find much glycerin, but I think it’s about 20% soap.
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You could try a small amount of IPM or Finsolv TN (C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate) and/or look at this thread:
https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/1770/hair-styling-gel
If you’re going to market more than this one product, you really should look into how to do your own research - not being able to use Google puts you at a severe handicap these days.
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Adding something volatile won’t help at all - it might even make the problem worse.
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Buy coconut oil, react it with Potassium Hydroxide yourself. Not that hard to do.
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Wow. Extreme markups on Amazon.
I’m a big fan of this meter:
http://www.hannainstruments.co.uk/ph/meters/hi-2002-02-edge-reg-ph-hybrid-meter.htmlIt’s more than your budget, but I think it’s worth a look.
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You might look into something that will plasticize the PVP a bit.
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Use a bird applicator to put down a film on glass and/or vinyl?
But… I’m not really sure what you mean by “film-forming properties” - all emollients form films, pretty much by definition.