Bobzchemist
Forum Replies Created
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Never going to happen. Too many vested interests, too much proprietary information, and the number of people worried about fragrance allergies is much too small. Something most people don’t know is that most consumer product companies do not make their own fragrances - and the fragrance companies themselves refuse to divulge the ingredients they use.
That said, I can definitely see this happen on a voluntary basis in the natural products segment of the personal care industry. -
There are three ways that denatured alcohol formulas are accepted by the US government. Only two of them make the formulations public, though.
The first way is the accepted formulas that have been published in the CFR. http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?rgn=div5&node=27:1.0.1.1.17 Using these formulas guarantees automatic acceptance. More info is here: http://www.pharmcoaaper.com/pages/Service/TTB_PDF/misc_info.pdfThe second way is through formulas issued by the TTB division of the ATF, through industry circulars and rulings: http://www.ttb.gov/industrial/sda.shtmlThe third way is for a company to petition the TTB directly. The formulas from these petitions are not made public, so they don’t really help you, but I included this category for completeness. -
Under most circumstances, the only legitimate reason a contract manufacturer should ask you for a “price target” is if they are doing some or all of the formulation for you. In that case, they will need to know what their raw material cost limit is, so asking you for a target is reasonable.
If you already have an established, stable formula, then (in my opinion) the only reason for them to ask you for a target is as a sleazy negotiating tactic. They want you to give them a price first, in the hopes that you will give them a price that is higher than the price that they’ve already calculated for you. If you do, they can say “Great News! We can match your target price.” and pocket the extra profit.Now, to be fair, because you haven’t given detailed information, it is also possible that they are legitimately discussing the cost of the entire package, and they are asking about a price target so that they can tell you whether or not you can afford premium components/packaging, or if you have to settle for cheap generic stuff to keep costs down.The rule of thumb, in my experience, is that raw material cost is 25% of the manufactured cost of the finished product, and component/packaging costs are 50%. The remaining 25% is labor. You usually have to add the contract manufacturers profit on top of that.I will give an example: Let’s assume that your rm costs are $1. That means that component/packaging costs will be $2, and labor an additional $1. The cost for the contract manufacturer to buy the raw materials, buy the components and packaging, make your product and then fill/assemble your product will be $4. For most contract manufacturers, their preferred profit margin will be 60%, their average margin will be 50%, and their minimum profit margin is 40%. So, they will try to sell you this product for $10/unit, but they probably won’t mind negotiating down to $8/unit. If you were buying large volumes, you might be able to negotiate lower.If they are being sleazy, as I mentioned, when they ask you for a price target, they are hoping that you will say “about $11 - $12/unit”. They will just pocket the extra money if you do.If you have a formula, the way to start negotiating with an advantage is to determine the volume of each ingredient you need, then call the manufacturers and/or distributors and get price quotes for that quantity, or for their minimum quantity. Do the calculations to get a raw material price per unit, so that you have an idea of what this product should cost. Don’t be afraid to push back against the quoted price, unless your volume is very small. -
@Ella, this is a modified alkyl poly glucoside that is a little milder than APG’s.
http://knowledge.ulprospector.com/198/alkyl-polyglucosides/ In the EU, I’d suggest BASF’s@Belassi is right, you need a neutral pH. -
I’ve gotten it on my own skin often enough to feel for you about the burning sensation, Mark, As near as I can tell, some of that sensation is from chemical irritation, and some comes from the solvent actually de-fatting the skin. Lanolin seems to work nicely as a treatment.
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I think that you will find that you can use a much lower level of oil and still achieve the same results if you use one of the deposition enhancers, like cationic guar: http://www.ashland.com/Ashland/Static/Documents/ASI/PC_10407_GuarBooklet.pdf
Personally, I still insist on being somewhat old-fashioned. Shampoo should clean hair. Period. Once the hair is clean, then conditioner is used to aid oils and other conditioning agents. Trying to do both at once in a single product is asking for trouble - you won’t clean or condition nearly as well as you can with two separate products. -
As I’ve looked into this more, I think the original co wash concept was to cleanse the hair the way that it was done in ancient Roman times - using the principle of “like dissolves like”, the idea was to flood the hair with enough sebum-like material that the sebum on the hair would dissolve in it.
I’m not sure that modern conditioning technology, with its emphasis on deposition and firmly attaching conditioning agents to the hair shaft, is the right way to go with this concept. In fact, I’m not sure that it was ever anything but a gimmick. -
@Irina, I agree completely with keeping D-limonene and citrus oils out of cosmetics, especially for the face. The only cosmetic use it might have would be in an anti-acne soap, or a mechanics soap, to boost the degreasing/cleansing action, but only at low levels.
We use it as a room air freshener fragrance ingredient, as a degreaser, and as a solvent - but it’s not in any of our personal care products.This is one of those all-natural ingredients that sound friendly and innocuous - who would worry about lemon peel oil or orange peel oil - but are in fact quite harmful to the skin, especially at high concentrations. -
Ella,
If you can access commercial products, get the SugaNate 160NC from Colonial Chemicals and use it alone at 20 - 30 % in distilled or deionized water. -
Maybe I should explain further - a Certificate of Analysis is not some mysterious document - it’s just a signed, written statement of test results measured against a set of specifications. And YOU set the specifications! (unless you are making an OTC drug - that’s different). I’ve seen CofA’s written on just appearance alone.
I think that this contract manufacturer is not being honest with you. If you have any choice at all, get rid of them. If you have to work with them, first find out what exactly they are going to do to earn that exorbitant amount for testing your product. Make them provide exact details, and then let us know what they say.On the slim chance that they are being honest, and there’s just some confusion with terms, you should also find out if they are actually asking for the specifications that they have to meet when they make a batch. In that case, you can send a sample of your product to any product testing lab and have them test the color, odor, viscosity, specific gravity, flash point, pH and any other property that is integral to the performance of your product for a few hundred dollars at most. Then you set your specifications at +/- 10% of the values that came back from the lab, and issue your own certificate.This is an example of a CofA generated automatically by a computer system. Notice that it’s nothing more than a list of test results and specifications: -
@prachi92, beneficial properties in cosmetics I could understand. But in shampoo? What possible benefit do you think you are getting in the 5 or so minutes this material stays in contact with the scalp?
Assuming you want to make some marketing claims with the clay, my best suggestion is to reduce the clay level down to 0,0001%, so that you don’t have to worry about stability. -
I need a better explanation - why can’t you issue your own Certificate of Analysis?
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Coconut Oil, because it is used so widely for food, is very cheap. Almost anything else will be more expensive and/or unsuitable in terms of aesthetics (palm kernel oil, for example) or naturalness (mineral oil).
I’m going to suggest that a hair product that does not cause the skin to break out on acne-prone skin is worth a premium price (shocking thought, I know) Try the Babassu, as @Bri suggests - you might even be able to use a small percentage of cheaper oil with it to reduce cost without hurting your consistency too much. -
Just out of curiosity, why would you want to put clay into a shampoo?
My best guess on the viscosity problem is that the clay is absorbing some of the surfactants and/or adding to the electrolyte content of the shampoo. -
Oh well. I just can’t help it sometimes…I’m too nice for my own good:
@Perry, can we make a references/resources post or section somewhere with links to all this stuff, or even host some of the PDFs here? -
“Oxidation products of limonene that form during handling and storage, rather than limonene itself, are the mediators of irritation and sensitization.”
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@Belassi, we use a nitrogen blanket over our d-limonene storage. It makes a big difference.
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Also, look at small to medium sized personal care/consumer product companies in your area. If you are not a direct competitor, many of them may sell small quantities to you. The company I work for, for example, will sell clear soap base and sometimes soap making chemicals to smaller companies and individuals.
Supplier and distributors may be able to help you contact companies who would be willing to do this. -
Let me explain further - this will be for FDA-regulated products only, i.e., anything used on humans or animals.Other types of cleaners - hard surface, dish, etc. are EPA-regulated (FIFRA) and considered pesticides if they claim anti-bacterial activity. Whole different set of regulations (just as much or more of a PITA, but in a different direction)
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Apparently in India and related areas, coconut oil is frequently used at or near 100% as a hair dressing. In this case, there would easily be enough oil to cause acne/comedones.
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Propylene Glycol, while cheap, usually feels horrible on skin. Why are you using it?
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Basically, the FDA has decreed that every single one of the monograph anti-bacterial ingredients is to be declared Category III (not proven safe OR effective) for consumer products when their new regulation takes effect.
In effect, that will make it illegal to sell (in the US) any product to the general public with the words “antibacterial” or “antiseptic” anywhere on the label. I think this starts sometime in 2015.Any alternative ingredients will have the same safety and efficacy challenges as the original monograph ingredients.To my knowledge, no active ingredient manufacturer has stepped up to announce that they will be conducting the FDA required tests, so all anti-bacterial skin cleaning products will be DOA fairly soon. -
A new, small-scale producer will always have these problems. Unfortunately, there are not good answers.
The hobbyist or scientific reagent distributors (Makingcosmetics, Lotioncrafters, etc.) charge huge mark-ups, but the MOQ from manufacturers and industrial distributors is usually too large.Unless you can partner with one or more other small manufacturers in a buying co-op, you can only choose the least expensive option from above for each ingredient. Sometimes, you can sell your excess material to a surplus chemical dealer. Frequently, though, purchasing raw materials like this will mean sacrificing some or all of your profit margin - one of the perils of running a start-up business, I’m afraid.