Bobzchemist
Forum Replies Created
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A pigment muller and a thick ground-glass/frosted glass plate for a base is highly recommended, unless you can afford a 3-roll mill.
It’s best to buy the plate glass at a local shop. Online costs are very high. -
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your question. Please rephrase.
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You probably need to ask this question on the SCC and/or SCS groups on LinkedIn. Otherwise, I got nothing, sorry.
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There are two ways to color an oil-based serum.
Using oil-soluble dyes is one way. They should dissolve in silicone, but test to make sure. Be careful not to use so much that the serum dyes the skin. Because dyes dissolve, their initial particle size isn’t relevant.Using pigments is the other way. Pigments do not dissolve, so you need to suspend them, and the smaller you can grind the pigment particles, the easier they will suspend. Pigments, unlike dyes, will eventually settle out of your serum, but if you get the particles small enough, it could take years. The best way to grind pigments on a small scale is with a pigment muller.Using water-soluble dyes might be a bad idea, since they will dye skin, but if you just use a little bit, they will act like pigments in your serum. -
If you don’t have invoices and records of what supplier got paid how much, when, and for what, you have far bigger problems than just trying to source components.
You may need to hire a consultant for more help with finding tubes, etc. -
Are you using dyes or pigments? It sounds like you are expecting pigments to act like dyes, which won’t ever happen.
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Oh, no, Perry - wrong? Surely not you.
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I’ve got to add, though - having a lab automated enough to replace a lab technician or two would be truly awesome. The idea of being able to just load chemicals into a device that would weigh, heat, mix, cool, and then clean automatically gives me chills.
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We run into the same minimum order problem, and no packaging supplier wants to keep that much inventory, even with stock packaging - it costs too much money to just hope that someone will eventually buy them.
There is a significant cost savings per tube, though, if you can afford to invest 10K. One of the strategies we’ve used successfully is to sign a contract guaranteeing a 10K purchase, but getting delivery (and being billed) monthly. Of course, there’s an extra charge for this, but it’s usually less than the cost of carrying that much packaging inventory in our warehouse.I think your best bet will be making a deal with Qosmedix - http://www.qosmedix.com/ They already have all the lipgloss tubes you will need, and you can probably get them to source the lipstick tubes for you. -
I think you nailed it on everything. There are a couple of things I’d like to add:
1) Objective vs. subjective evaluation - “Cleaning” lends itself well to objective evaluation. Add a specified amount of a standard soil, clean for a fixed amount of time, determine how much soil and/or detergent residue is left. Easy to put numbers to this. “Elegant skin feel” - not so much. Who decides? How do you assign numerical values to this? Without values, computerization/automation is useless. For much the same reason, DOE/Six Sigma techniques don’t work well for cosmetics.2) Market size/type. I started off my formulation career working on fabric softeners for Unilever. Their pilot area alone was larger than any cosmetic companies main liquid manufacturing area I’ve ever seen, and their pilot tanks were 2 or 3 times larger. Cleaners, detergents, etc. are an enormous market. Cosmetics, in contrast, is a small-volume, high-profit industry. When I started, I was told that $0.10 cent savings per gallon in the cost of a fabric softener formula would save the company a million dollars/year - and the fabric softener volume was less than a quarter of the laundry soap volume. With those kind of savings possible, it makes sense to invest in an automated lab to engage in the formulating equivalent of “high-throughput chemistry” to sort through all possible formula variations in order to optimize their formulas. In contrast, the amount of money saved from optimizing, or making a small variation on a cosmetic formula, frequently pales before the amount of revenue you’d get from introducing a new/unique formula - which computers currently cannot make, or identify. -
You do know that all Bentones are made of clay particles, right? It may be that the Bentone 27 clay particles are simply too large, and will reduce the gloss of your nail polish no matter what you do.
Have you tried making as thick a dispersion as possible to get the maximum effect from your mixer, then diluting it, and then adding the polar activator? Also, I’m not sure that IPA is a good enough/polar enough activator. You might want to try methanol, or propylene carbonate.It may turn out to be that you need a 3-roll mill or a colloid mill. I’ve even heard of some companies using a micro-fluidizer for this. Elementis has dispersion instructions: http://www.elementis-specialties.com/esweb/webproducts.nsf/allbydocid/453D5010B4D81A4685257743004208E7/$FILE/ELEMENTIS-BENTONE%2027.pdf The best test for you might be to get some of the pre-made gels from Elementis or Altana, which are almost perfectly sheared, and see if they work in your nail polish. If they do, you need to step-up your processing. If they don’t, no amount of shear will help you. -
Even without the formula, I’d be leaning towards a yeast/mold contamination as the problem.
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Bill makes a very good point - there are a number of ingredients billed as “SPF enhancers” that work primarily by enhancing the film-forming properties, in one way or another, of your emulsion. Other than the HEC, I don’t see any of those ingredients in your formula.
Do some research, talk to suppliers - we’d be happy to give you suggestions - and I think that you’ll fix your problem without too much trouble. -
Every formula needs preservation - always, always, always.@AuroraBorealis is absolutely correct - oil floating on the surface of a lotion is a primary indication that your emulsion is not stable, which has nothing to do with solubilization. Your questions about this and about preservation are leading us to believe that you have very little experience with emulsions. That being the case, I would strongly urge that you have your formula safety tested before you distribute it to any other people.To answer your other questions anyway - There is no published phase diagram for essential oil blend solubility. (but if you determined one, I’d bet that you could get it published)Cosmetic Chemistry is an experimental science, so if a 3:1 solubilizer/oil ratio doesn’t work for you, try 4:1, 5:1, etc. The only correct ratio is the one that works for you in your own formulation. If 5:1 doesn’t work, however, you probably have the wrong solubilizer. Try a different one.
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Please also remember that you won’t be able to sell a sunscreen that is unstable - from a formula point of view, because it will not be able to pass the required drug stability testing that you need to establish an expiration date.
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The answer to your question is sort of yes and sort of no.
Formula instability will not affect in-vitro results. However, sunscreen photo-instability will, It’s likely that the UV from your solar simulator is breaking down your sunscreens.Do some research on sunscreen photo stabilizers. Hallstar makes some good ones, but so do a lot of other people. Then add enough to your formula that you get the right SPF results. -
2 in 1 shampoos are always a compromise. They can’t clean as well as a pure shampoo, and they can’t condition as well as a pure conditioner.
Look up “silicone deposition on hair” on google to find some hints. -
It sounds like you want to have very small packaged portions of single ingredients. Your best bet (if you don’t/can’t fill them yourself) will be to find a contract manufacturer who can fill chemicals into sample packets for you, and have them buy the chemical ingredients. They will likely have access to economies of scale that you will not be able to access.
As always, short runs will cost more money per packet. -
Mineral oil is just about the cheapest oil there is, if you’re not tied to a “natural” claim.
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What types and quantities of chemicals are you looking for?
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True. This is an international group, so the answer is different if you’re in the US, UK, Europe, or somewhere in Asia.
Also, most wholesalers have minimum purchase quantities, and want to sell to other businesses, not to individuals. (It’s a liability thing) Have you set up your own business yet? -
You might also want to reach out to Inolex and/or Dr Straetman’s to see if they’d be willing to run any of the micro testing for you.
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Honestly…I’d consult with a lawyer to be sure. But a lawyer’s job is to make sure that you’re completely safe, while you want to get much closer to the edge, so that might not be very helpful. The FDA has some good material to read about this.The big dividing line as far as I can tell is “appearance”. Anything that affects your appearance is ok, therefore “diminishes the appearance of wrinkles” is ok, but “tightens skin to remove wrinkles” is not, because it implies that you are changing the skin, which a cosmetic is not allowed to claim to do. Claiming “diminishes the appearance of blemishes/acne” might still be a problem, though, if you don’t have make-up type ingredients, since the FDA could decide that you are making a drug claim (changing the skin to reduce redness, for example)To be completely safe, the only thing I’d claim is “contains honey, tea tree oil, etc.”, and maybe say ‘for use on adolescent skin”. Or, I’d make a product with blurring microspheres, so that I could point to that ingredient and say that it’s the source of all of my “changing appearance” claims, while also adding “contains honey, tea tree oil, etc.”At one time, the industry was ok with: “Contains Honey. Honey has been used by Native Americans for centuries to combat Acne”, but I think most brands have abandoned that strategy as being too risky.
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Also in the text - “Cera Bellina is a crystallization inhibitor”. There are ways crystallization inhibitors work that don’t involve gelation, but in this case, I think that Bill has nailed it.
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I think that this is a bad idea, not to mention not able to be made or sold in the US. OTC drugs are best if they perform one function at a time.