Bobzchemist
Forum Replies Created
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Are you saponifying the milk fat, or using it to superfat the soap? Or both?
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Ummm…the TEA is a neutralizer, not an emulsifier. TEA-neutralized beeswax, however, is an emulsifier, but unreacted beeswax is not. See Beeswax/Borax.
If you approach them with the right attitude, your mistakes can teach you as much or more than your successes can.
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Direct experience and experimentation are the best teachers. Why can’t you try it different ways and see for yourself which is better?
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If you look it up, you’ll find that Alumina is frequently used as a filler in paints to be able to reduce the titanium dioxide level. I’m guessing someone found a way to keep it translucent. It’s not an approved sunscreen, so it’s on the inactive list, but I can’t think of any reason other than SPF boosting for it to be in a formula.
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Other than using phenoxyethanol, the risk to adding a preservative to lipstick is below miniscule, while the risk of NOT adding a preservative is potentially catastrophic.
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Is the INCI name for this “Disodium Cocoamphodiacetate”? I can’t find any manufacturers or other info (aside from a few patents) for “disodium cocodiamphoacetate”.
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Substituting one ingredient for another in a formula without a good understanding of what each of them does is a recipe for failure, and sure enough, your formula failed.
Your original formula had 2 emulsifying systems: Glyceryl Stearate & PEG-100 Stearate and Beeswax/Triethanolamine. You took one out completely, and reduced the amount of the second one without reducing the oil being emulsified.
Why would you expect the end result to be the same?
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The SCS LinkedIn group is a good way to get in touch with SCS members generally.
You might want to look into the SCS Diploma as well. http://www.cosmeticlearning.com/
But honestly? The internship for Jane is an amazing opportunity for someone with only one year of University. You will learn more with her than you can almost anywhere else outside of a Masters program in Cosmetic Chemistry. Do whatever it takes to get that - you won’t regret it. And keep us posted.
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I totally missed that - I think of petrolatum and “petroleum jelly” as two different names for the same product.
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It depends on what you’re expecting the clay to do.
If you are expecting the clay to just absorb skin oil and leave behind less oily skin, then you’re correct, there is zero benefit to mixing oil with clay, unless you use a volatile and/or skin-absorbing oil.
On the other hand, if you expect the oil in your oil/clay mixture to dissolve skin oil, leave behind a mixture of your carrier oil and sebum, and the clay is there only for mild abrasion and viscosity, then you could have a viable product.
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Tom,
More information would be helpful, thanks. I will pass it on to our Purchasing department. The capability to digitally print tubes may be very useful soon.
Bob
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PVP won’t react. All teflon coatings are not the same. Cheaply-made teflon coated cookware can easily flake off the teflon.
Glass 3 kilo/3,000ml beakers are cheaper than stainless steel ones…but then they break, so…you choose when to spend the money.
You can use the stainless steel stockpots that are usually used for cooking, instead of beakers, especially if you passivate them when new before you use them (and anytime after you clean them with something abrasive).
Clean/degrease the pot. Use a 10% Aq. Citric Acid solution at 150 - 200F to soak the pot in, or fill the pot with the solution and heat it. Let the reaction run for at least 30 minutes. Rinse very well.
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I wouldn’t trust the MSDS very much. Did you get a Certificate of Analysis?
Perry’s right, as usual - you need to test the melting point range yourself.
Also, “petroleum jelly” is almost always a homogeneous material, especially at room temperature - there should be no liquid present. So, it does sound like you may have been the target of deceitful practices. True petroleum jelly can be mimicked by a gelled mixture of mineral oil and waxes. This is much, much cheaper (for the supplier) than the real material is. Unfortunately, the gel can break down and release the mineral oil, and this is made much more apparent by shear, which is what you’re seeing when you roller mill.
I would recommend finding a different supplier.
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Foam?
You need to post your formula for more advice.
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“total newbie in cosmetic products” and “working on a natural organic shampoo” do not go together at all well.
Belassi is right - you really need to understand and define your terms first.
“Natural” means different things to different people and organizations. “Organic”, on the other hand, has a very specific legal meaning. To my knowledge, there are no thickeners that can be added to a shampoo and have it still be “organic”.
Carbopol, by the way, is completely synthetic. Using it in any product means that you shouldn’t call that product “natural”
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Boiling chips are a quick and dirty alternative to putting your beakers on a rack to keep them off the bottom of your improvised water bath. Restaurant places won’t have them, and probably will never have heard of them - they’re an old lab trick. Since they are microporous, they break up the bubbles of steam coming up from the boiling water, which can otherwise disturb the water enough to splash dangerously, especially when there are two flat surfaces close together and the system is being heated from the bottom.
If the water temperature can be controlled enough that it’s not boiling, they’re not needed. For example, if you’re using a lab water bath, they’re not needed, or if you use a double boiler, or a pressure cooker that has a bottle support, or also if you use beaker clamps and stands to hold your beakers. But…all of that stuff is expensive or bulky, so if you have limited space, or limited funds, you learn to improvise.
Leather welding gloves work about as well as beaker tongs to get a beaker out of boiling water, but they’re more of a pain in the butt to take on and off.
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Keeping in mind, of course, that you need to be really, really careful about what you say that your product does in order to avoid the FDA designating your product as an unapproved new drug.
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The US has no regulatory usage limits at all for Arbutin, Glycolic Acid or D&C Blue #4 in cosmetics. It is solely up to the manufacturer to prove that the products sold are safe.
http://www.fda.gov/ForIndustry/ColorAdditives/ColorAdditiveInventories/ucm106626.htm
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You can make a pretty decent detangler quickly and simply from only three ingredients:
Water………………….97%
Croda Rejuvasoft……3%
Preservative…………..1%I’m actually really surprised that the DIY websites haven’t picked up on Rejuvasoft yet. It’s essentially a pre-mixed, solid conditioner at 6% and a detangler at 2%.
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These are complicated, commercial, and specific enough questions that you will need to hire a consultant to get answers.
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My setup here, crude though it may be, works well for when I have to melt fatty acids.
Smaller amounts are melted by using the largest stockpot filled with a small amount of water plus boiling chips, and melting the fatty acid in one of the beakers. Larger amounts can be melted by using 2 of the stockpots, putting some water in the larger one, and the fatty acid in the smaller one. Seal the gap between the pots with plastic wrap. (Be careful venting!)
The water acts as a built-in temperature limit, so it’s safe to leave the setup alone for a while. Only use a stockpot directly on the hotplate if you can be there to constantly monitor and stir the fatty acids while they’re melting, or they WILL burn/turn brown while you’re not looking.
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They are both correct - at the time you took your measurements. pH is NOT a constant.
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Leave-on could be a problem. Saponins are surfactants. Surfactants and skin don’t always play nicely together.
Desert King is the supplier we used when we tested Quillaja http://desertking.com/
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Wow, that’s really interesting, and different from what I’d heard, but coming from the FDA, it’s definitive.
This letter has a number of startling implications. For one thing, anyone selling a repacked colorant without a repack certificate, and still calling it a D&C or FD&C colorant is violating FDA regulations. For another, anyone using those repacked colorants and then offering their products for sale in the US is violating FDA regulations big-time, as in “selling an adulterated product” and “using unapproved colorants”.
Coming on top of the FDA’s impending stricter regulation/monitoring of small cosmetic manufacturers, this is going to make a lot of people very worried (or at least, it should).