[chemicalmatt]

Not knowing your application or nation of origin I can only recommend Rheosol CTH(E) from Rheolabs in UK or USA. That is a cationic acrylic-based associative polymer, but it would not be effective in high surfactant systems. If you were using Rheovis in a fabric softener (cationic) I’d recommend an Opulyn (or Acusol?) acrylate/styrene copolymer from DOW as a thickener.  

[chemicalmatt]

Thanks, Belassi. I’ll look into this for an anti-aging facial project I’m working on. ALA is not very expensive either. I couldn’t help reading the paper adjacent using chitosan-methylcellulose as a sustained release medium. Alpha lipoic acid would go well into that vehicle.

[chemicalmatt]

Sounds like this one went off the rails into a stability testing narrative. Answering the original question: CBD isolate is lipid soluble and you don’t have enough lipids to dissolve it. Try adding MCT or just a lot more of the DAP ester already in there. It dissolves in mineral oil too.

[chemicalmatt]

Anionics are more ubiquitous, easier to incorporate co-emulsifiers and other ingredients, better to stabilize colloidal dispersions, and are more practical for most HBA applications. The good ‘ol TEA/Stearic acid system served us so well for so long until….California.

[chemicalmatt]

I doubt that system would hold up with even 1.0% MgSO4.  Divalent electrolytes are particularly adept at destabilizing.

[chemicalmatt]

jessah: STOP there at 30% salicylic aid. That’s my advice. You have wart remover there, not a skin-care product.

[chemicalmatt]

Adding butylene glycol 1:4 with glycerin t any level of use will mitigate the tackiness you are reporting - if glycerin is the culprit. Without knowing the other ingredients, cannot say for sure. Got honey in there too?

[chemicalmatt]

Agree with ngaryeva001. All polyacrylates will eventually crash especially with divalent ions like Mg. How about the xanthan/magnesium aluminum silicate (Veegum) combo? May not look nice but will do the job.

[chemicalmatt]

The rotor/stator head on the left most closely matches the industrial scale units we have in general use. Silverson carries different shear-head combos for these. Missing from this thread is scale-up speed. Virtually all powered industrial homogenizers run at 3500 rpm, and that is with a 15hp/460V/3phase motor. A scant few may go to 6000 rpm. I’ve had to school many a bench chemist on this when they say “Wheee, look how well it worked at 15,000 rpm!” If you cannot scale-up then why bother unless it is for home use?

[chemicalmatt]

Perry & Ozgirl are correct on the order sequence. Dyes generally are nonreactive so put first in case of an error, you only lost water as Perry says. Likewise ALWAYS add the NaOH into he water first, then slowly add LABSA to saponify in situ. Then add the rest, though I suggest adding a hydrotrope next (CAPB here). Sodium citrate is a “natural” but somewhat lame chelating agent, placed to retard redepostion of soils. Use tetrasodium EDTA for better results. Cheaper too. To answer your revision question: heck yes, NPE/Laura-O is a better detergent system than CAPB by a long shot. You have to watch out for NPE limits in California though. I hate it when they take our chemical toys away from us.

[chemicalmatt]

Closed cuticles are a good thing, lucky you. We’ve been down this road before, so here goes: to enhance ingredient penetration into the hair cortex, for hydrophilic ingredients use ethoxydiglycol, for lipids, use dimethyl isosorbide. 

[chemicalmatt]

Do not use any enzymes whatever you do, art, dogs are hyper sensitive to most. 

[chemicalmatt]

The diluted product IS the finished product as applied to humans, so you are OK as long as you do the math right.  More importantly is your solubility limit with that preservative blend. Can 10% even stay soluble? Good ‘ol Kathon should solve that problem: 0.25% should go into that easily.

[chemicalmatt]

I think that “S” may stand for surface-treated if memory serves, that’s why it hydrated without you needing to acidify slightly as usual. Like all cationic polymers it comes down to charge-mass ratio. I’ve found C-17 to be the most efficient all-around workhorse of the Jaguar cationic guar series.

[chemicalmatt]

Thanks, Doreen, you are agem. BTW, I once took a SCC seminar with Steve Herman many, many years ago on same subject. Hilarious guy, he really made it fun.

[chemicalmatt]

If that softener is an alkyl quaternary compound, which it likely is, your formula may be self-preserving. Otherwise BIT (the HI&I answer to MIT mentioned by Pharma) and a little IPA could go in there for good measure.

[chemicalmatt]

The industry mainstay (in the USA) is LANETO-50 from R.I.T.A. Corporation. This surfactant is the original water-soluble lanolin. It supports all the functions of lanolin only disperses in water easily. It would take a 2000 word article to fully explain its uses here. 

[chemicalmatt]

Sure, Mark. Try a tiny bit of lecithin in there. Prevents crystallization of those butters on cooling. 

[chemicalmatt]

PG is a lousy humectant and not much of a moisturizer either. In hair conditioners it’s use is mainly to mitigate the tackiness of glycerin or CETAC or another ingredient. It helps a bit with freeze-thaw too.

[chemicalmatt]

Use GMS - Self Emulsifying, instead of “non” there and you may be OK. Not much oil to emulsify there either. I’d use a higher HLB co-emulsifier if you decide to increase that oil load. PEG-150 Stearate (HLB ~ 12) comes to mind, and not much of it.  I’ll leave the HLB math up to you. As for books on cosmetic emulsifiers, try the Allured index or buy Perry’s starter book. 

[chemicalmatt]

How bout just using more silver ion as silver chloride - a preservative in itself?!

[chemicalmatt]

smok, your distributor may stock “cetyl esters”, which is essentially the same thing. Stearyl Stearate may be a Plan B.  If you cannot get either, then you may be out of luck with any suitable alternatives. That ester grants a powdery afterfeel to creams and lotions on dry-down. Pretty useful material for your formulating toolbox. Good luck.

[chemicalmatt]

No reaction, dude. Substitute another Na+ ion for the proton in bicarbonate and you have the carbonate. Why use bicarbonate at all is the question?

[chemicalmatt]

You need to vet your contract manufacturer (CM) to know their inbound inspection procedure. Should they determine your bottles to be in a state of non-conformance, they will HOLD and notify you.  These are blow-molded at high temp, so as long as they packaged correctly and didn’t store outdoors or in a yurt on the steppes, your bottles should be fine.  

[chemicalmatt]

We’ll assume you are referring to lemon oil (d-limonene) “to solubilize.” Your final pH does not need to be acidic, so don’t bother, plus potassium sorbate isn’t needed - but tetrasodium EDTA is! Better yet, raise the pH to 10 - 11. As far as stickiness goes, add an amphoteric hydrotrope like disodium cocoamphodiaceate (along with that EDTA); will help with that solubilizing problem too.