[Bobzchemist]

Do you need to be “natural”?

[Bobzchemist]

Read the patents. Best source of information possible. Pay particular attention to the example formulations, don’t spend too much time on the claims.

[Bobzchemist]

It may be a shock to learn this, but department stores, especially the big ones, do not buy much, if any, cosmetics/skin care. All those counters you see? Rented from the store by the cosmetic companies,  and the people staffing them are employees of those companies, not of the department stores. 

The same is true of the big box stores, like Target. The shelf space that your products take up has to be paid for.

[Bobzchemist]

Sadly, most treated pigments aren’t treated thoroughly. At best, they form a mesh-like structure around each of the the pigment particles.

So, since chelants are used to remove metals, they will complex with any of the iron oxides in the liquid foundation, treated or not.

[Bobzchemist]

@Perry - the answer I was trying to guide @beautysci towards is that some of the colorants that would typically be used in a liquid foundation will complex with any/every chelating agent and render it ineffective. Also, the chelant/colorant combination may increase the instability of the product.

[Bobzchemist]

Yes. Most fragrance suppliers are eager to educate their customers. Ask them to show you the difference between cheap and expensive, and between low and high quality.

[Bobzchemist]

@Audren, ask your fragrance supplier to show you the difference. 

Most of the time, when we say “cheap”, we are not just talking about money. A “cheap” fragrance will be less time/temperature stable, will usually degrade in the presence of water and/or electrolytes, may smell harsh or artificial, and will usually not have a smooth transition between top, middle, and bottom notes.

[Bobzchemist]

I’d like to hear more

[Bobzchemist]

Not really a cosmetics question, but I happen to know that there are quite a few toothpaste patents that will teach you a lot about how to formulate them.

[Bobzchemist]

Precipitated silica is a scrub/abrasive ingredient. Fumed silica is a suspending/thickening ingredients, that is useless as a scrub, due to it’s ultra-small particle size. By trying the formula with precipitated silica, it should be possible to determine if there’s a problem with silica generally, or just with the fumed version.

Precipitated and fumed, by the way, are referring to how the silica is manufactured.

[Bobzchemist]

Does it yellow without the fumed silica? What about using precipitated silica?

[Bobzchemist]

None of them will actually do anything - specifically, why is this important to you?

[Bobzchemist]

Continued again…

OK, so what does this have to do with Honest Co. and their reformulated sunscreen?

Honest Co. was able to get a SPF 30 with their reformulated 9.3% zinc oxide anhydrous sunscreen solely due to the FDA-prescribed heavy application method. Without that method, there would be no easy way to compare one sunscreen to another, but in this case it backfired badly. Why?

Well, let’s look back to the reformulation constraints, and the choices this forced on the formulators. The first huge error came about when “natural” ingredients were insisted upon. Without this constraint, there were many synthetic ingredients that could have insured a smooth, relatively thick,but non-greasy feeling film on the skin, even with an anhydrous formula. Requiring a “natural” ingredient wherever possible ruled out using any of these.

Without using synthetic ingredients, the best Honest Co’s formulators could come up with for a base was a mixture of Beeswax, Shea Butter, and a bunch of natural oils. I’m sure that this felt great, but this was their biggest mistake yet. Why? because this reformulated formula spreads and spreads and spreads, without ever getting sticky/tacky until there’s an incredibly thin film on skin - much, much thinner than the FDA-mandated sunscreen test tested.

This ties in to two more related mistakes:

1) Saying, on the package, “does not whiten”. A consumer, seeing this, would be naturally inclined to rub in the ointment and spread it out until the film actually did not whiten. But this wouldn’t happen until the film on skin was much thinner than it should have been. Why links to - 

2) Using non-nano zinc oxide. Nano-sized zinc oxide is translucent, sometimes even clear, on skin, even when it’s applied thickly enough to get a SPF 30. Without that version of Zinc Oxide, enough non-nano Zinc Oxide on skin to get a SPF 30 is fairly white and unattractive.

So, this all boils down to the consumer complaints coming from the people who used this and believed the non-whitening claim - who then used so little of the ointment, and rubbed it so thinly that it was effectively worthless. Not everyone rubbed it in so thinly, so not everybody lost as much protection, but I’d bet serious amounts of money that this is what happened.

(Interesting note - If they’d been savvy enough, the formulators could have effectively cheated - non-nano zinc oxide could have been listed on the label, since that was what went into the formula, but they could have specified enough milling/grinding that they would have wound up with translucent nano-sized zinc oxide in their formula - without ever having to say so)

[Bobzchemist]

Continued…

Now, the next thing to talk about is how the FDA requires sunscreens to be tested. It’s very important that all sunscreens are subjected to exactly the same conditions, so the FDA is very precise about how the sunscreens are applied. 

If I recall correctly, a 1″ square piece of hairless skin is marked off, and then the lab tech carefully uses a micro-dispenser to deposit 100 tiny droplets, spaced evenly across the square inch. Then, a trained technician carefully spreads those micro-drops into an even layer on the skin. No “rubbing-in” is permitted. This permits an even film on the skin, and is as close to a consistent procedure that works for every sunscreen as you can get. But…the film created is much thicker than any consumer would ever apply.

When actual consumers apply sunscreen, there’s a strong, nearly universal tendency to spread the sunscreen around until it starts to feel sticky/grabby/hard to spread. This is actually one of the advantages of making an emulsion sunscreen - we can formulate the oil phase, which will remain on skin, to be a tough, difficult to remove/smear, initially tacky film. Then, we can let the water phase provide the initial smooth emolliency, spreadability, and good skin feel - but those are self-limiting - they only last until the water evaporates. So, at some point in the skin application process, enough water evaporates that the consumer starts to feel more of the oil phase, and knows it’s time to stop spreading.

[Bobzchemist]

You might look at a local place, like a fedex office/Kinkos, to print your inserts.

[Bobzchemist]

This is a real cautionary tale for formulators and marketers alike. In their desire to make a really safe, “natural” sunscreen, they shot themselves in the foot.

There’s another Forbes article here: Here’s how ineffective sunscreens get by the FDA

Unlike the Forbes articles, I know exactly what went wrong, and why.

Initially, the Forbes article tells me that they had made an anhydrous ointment that had 20% non-nano sized zinc oxide, beeswax, and maybe petrolatum. There were many complaints about the heavy, greasy character, and the whiteness on skin. So, they decided to reformulate.

First, from what I can tell, there were four marketing restrictions placed on the reformulation of this product: 

1) Use natural ingredients where possible, organic is better than not.

2) Use non-nano sized zinc oxide as the only sunscreen ingredient.

3) Do not use any emulsifiers.

4) Make it feel nice/non-greasy on skin

Due to these restrictions, the formulators chose to continue make an anhydrous ointment, which was their first mistake. I’ll explain why in a later post.

[Bobzchemist]

There are better ways to create a “whipped” texture. Silicone elastomers, for example.

[Bobzchemist]

Have you read the Forbes article?

[Bobzchemist]

Maybe a better question might be - Why do some formulators feel that they do not need a chelating agent in their formula?

One answer, two question:

1) Answer - If your water supply is very good and free from minerals, you might not think you need a chelating agent

2) Questions - What do chelating agents do? What ingredients are in a liquid foundation (that are not in most other products) that might make a formulator not want to use a chelating agent? 

[Bobzchemist]

Mascara is one of those areas where I feel uncomfortable giving detailed advice - partly because unqualified people or even small businesses will not have the resources to adequately test for safety, and partly because I am one of the handful of people who have formulated mascara professionally.

However, I will give a hint - How do you want your fiber distributed throughout your batch? Also, at what point in the procedure will you best insure that the fibers are distributed the way you want them distributed?  

[Bobzchemist]

Guys, I am rarely in favor of deception, but in this case I think an exception is warranted. Prospector wants to restrict access to legitimate businesses - but I think that so much of the information there is very valuable to beginning formulators - so, you should make yourself into a consulting business. Make a cheap website, get an email address that sounds professional, and re-apply for access.

[Bobzchemist]

Also try Qosmedix:

http://www.qosmedix.com/ 

[Bobzchemist]

In what country would you manufacture? Where would you want to sell it?

[Bobzchemist]

http://www.quicklabel.com/products/kiaro-50.html

other options:

http://vipcolor.com/products/printer-vp485/ 

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/LabelPrinters/Home.do

https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/printers.html

http://www2.graphicproducts.com/c-2119-duralabel-catalyst.aspx

Custom printer:

http://vipcolor.com/products/printer-vp485/

[Bobzchemist]

McKernan, with a caveat - they’re a wholesale/clearance place, so they don’t always have the same things for sale month to month.

http://mckernan.com/store/home.php