evchem2
Forum Replies Created
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Can you explain how you incorporate the ingredients (process and order of addition)? How do you know the xanthan gum is the thing separating out?
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Do you know how much salt is in your formulation ( for example, CAPB normally has ~5% salt content when sold as ~30% ASM)? What is your ASM (active surfactant matter) overall?
You can google “phase separation salt polymer systems” or “aqueous two phase system” to see that when enough of both polymer and salt are present in a system, it will separate into two phases- one rich with polymer and the other rich with salt.
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Do you have any preservative? If I were you I would start by making 4 solutions (with preservative):
- 4% herbal extract in water
- 2% capixyl in water
- 2% anagain in water
- the combination of all 3
I would let those sit for a week and observe if you see any of the particles. That might at least tell you where the particles are coming from (or where it’s not). As far as what they will do to your formula, only stability testing can say for sure. Your bi-phase product is already “shake before use” so this might not be a huge issue aesthetically. But if the particles are not able to be dissolved in water again at some point during use then whatever the sediment is, it’s not as available to help with your product’s ‘performance’.
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We used to use SDA 40 B, so tert-Butyl alcohol and denatonium benzoate. For some more natural-oriented products we also considered SDA 38-B (lavender essential oil)
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Some of the resources suggested here can help you : https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/laundry-care-resources/
chemistscorner.com
Laundry Care Resources - Chemists Corner
Hello, I hope this is somewhat good enough to be related to cosmetics science, please let me know if there's a better place for this.…
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Is this for US market? Laundry formulations can vary by geography. I don’t have much homecare experience but a couple resources I’d suggest:
HCPA Cleaning Fundamentals (a webinar series, it is ~$400 though ) - I attended in 2022 and it has a nice overview of surfactants, solvents, some regulatory concerns, and a few laundry formulations - though I don’t remember any specific odor remover formulations. HCPA has other resources you may find valuable too.
https://www.thehcpa.org/cleaning-products-fundamentals-webinar/
The other resources I know of are literature, but not sure how well they match with current practices. So you might also want to peruse recent patents from Unilever, P&G, KAO, etc.
-Formulating Detergents and Personal Care Products: A Guide to Product Development Hardcover – January 1, 2000 by Louis Tan Tai Ho (Author), Louis Ho Tan Tai (Author) - this one is a personal favorite though it is getting old.
I may be able to dig up some other recommendations if these are of any help to you
thehcpa.org
Cleaning Products Fundamentals Webinar | HCPA
Cleaning Products Fundamentals Webinar | HCPA
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What is your water source? Are you using tap, distilled, etc?
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Is your process the same from initial to scale up (ex same mixing blade types, scaled heating/cooling rates)? Are you using different raw material lots? Are you evaluating the initial vs scale up samples in the same kind of container, under the same kind of light?
If you believe the mixing isn’t thorough enough, can you remix for longer time and see if color improves?
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Hi @Perry44 , I think this post is missing a link to the webinar? I’m not able to see it
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@jonathan02 to answer your questions:
1. Can you add a colorant? Sure if it is approved for your region. In the US colorants must be from a list approved by the FDA (https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetic-ingredient-names/color-additives-permitted-use-cosmetics ). If I were you I would look for other colored hair waxes on the market in your region to get an idea of what is already out there.
2. I would not remove the antioxidant completely if you have any oils with unsaturated chains
3. 0.5% mixed tocopherols seems high, you could try 0.25% and see if the color/scent/overall attributes of your formula stay in good shape.
@reynard, do you have a source showing tocopheryl acetate has the same antioxidant potential as mixed tocopherols? Everything I’ve ever read is that the acetate form is not a strong antioxidant, and chemically it makes sense as the acetate group has to be removed somehow before you can get AO potential
fda.gov
Color Additives Permitted for Use in Cosmetics
Table of color additives permitted for use in cosmetics provided as a quick reference to help in determining which color additives may be used in different types of cosmetics.
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Hi! Lots of possible explanations for seeing different viscosity. The formulation itself (kinds of ingredients used, type of emulsion)- are your raw materials from the exact same lot as previous batches or different? Did you scale up at all? Did you cool at a different rate?
Then there’s the measurement method itself-how are you measuring viscosity (the equipment type and the temperature, time, spindle geometry)? How different is the viscosity from your previous batches? For example a few hundred cPs is likely not cause for concern, but several thousand? might want to monitor and assess if your product looks/performs any differently than expected. If this is a new formulation its common to keep a broader viscosity range specification until you have made several production batches (say 10 +) to get an idea of your normal batch to batch variation (and what is not normal)
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Is this your order of addition? I’d suggest getting the xanthan in earlier, right before or after the carbopol addition. You also have PQ-10 and combining cationic polymers with anioinics can cause precipitation/opacity. Also what is your final pH?
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How low in pH are you targeting?
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I’m no preservation expert, but both products also have the multifunctional caprylyl glycol which should help with preservation somewhat. Also I seriously doubt the aloe/oat content is significant in either product, and the raw materials may be held to strict specifications on incoming micro count. There are also preservatives that can fall under the “fragrance” INCI like p-anisic acid in the moisture cream.
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If you search in this forum for bloom/blooming, you can see this problem has been discussed a few times here.
https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/bloom-testing/
chemistscorner.com
Bloom Testing - Chemists Corner
Hi all,I'm working on a lip balm (going into a tube, not a stick, but is anhydrous) and my customer asked if I've done bloom…
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When you say cushy/cushiony are you referring to the way the product itself feels or how it makes your hair feel? You should be able to use salt to thicken this formula as well, and maybe the addition of a cationic guar could help with some of the feeling on hair.
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You are using Potassium Cocoate which is a true soap (carboxylate). These kinds of surfactants need to remain at alkaline pH (close to 9-10) otherwise you protonate the carboxylic acid group and your material can become insoluble. So my guess is the pH was brought down too far and you lost the solubility (and performance) of that surfactant
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When using a solubilizer ( the polysorbate) for fragrance, a general recommendation is to use 3-5x of that compared to your fragrance. Are you premixing the polysorbate and fragrance before adding as well?
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the INCI name I see for colloidal oatmeal is Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Flour . The difference between OTC and cosmetics really comes down to intended use. See FDAs page on this: https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-laws-regulations/it-cosmetic-drug-or-both-or-it-soap
and their definitions of cosmetics vs drugs.
If you want to include colloidal oatmeal in a cosmetic, you cannot claim to treat or prevent any disease. Colloidal oatmeal is a registered OTC active for skin protectant claims, so if you make that claim on your product (or even if it is strongly implied, the FDA also considers consumers understanding vs companies explicit descriptions) the FDA could determine your product is a drug and needs to go through proper process. Take a look at commercial products with OTC claims (ex Aveeno Baby Ezcema Therapy ) vs cosmetic claims (ex Aveeno Calm + Restore Facial Moisturizer for Sensitive Skin). Skin dryness is a fine line for claims and I’m not a regulatory expert, but some level of moisturization/hydration related claims seem to be fine, it’s the prevention or disease mitigation that veers away from cosmetic territory.
fda.gov
Is It a Cosmetic, a Drug, or Both? (Or Is It Soap?)
An overview of the legal differences between cosmetics and drugs, and whether a cosmetic can be both or just a soap.
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Is this from an indie brand or a large multinational? Do they make any claims about efficacy/ skin improvement? What I’m getting at is just because they put it in the formula does not mean they ensured retinol stability/performance
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What’s the pH of your formula? How do you incorporate the PQ 10? If you make the formula with everything but PQ 10 do you still see the separation? Lastly, can you explain why are you including 20%? glycerin?
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Your surfactant blend has some salt content (4.5-5.8% from the data sheet) so you have anywhere from 2-2.5% salt in your formulation already. In my experience trying to use xanthan gum with formulations containing high salt, you will get separation into a salt-rich phase and a gum-rich phase. If you take out the xanthan gum do you still see separation?
I work for the company that manufactures keltrol. I would probably suggest not using the gum at all unfortunately, but if you want to try and make it work:
1. You don’t have to use dispersant like glycerin , you just have to have high enough shear and a method to remove any air incorporated. Use a Cowles (dispersion type) blade or a silverson rotor-stator (if you have ability to do something similar in production) and you can sift in the powder to try and minimize lumping. If you have significant air incorporated, you can heat the solution and mix slowly to encourage air bubbles to come out of the batch. You can also DM me if you need additional help on dispersing/hydrating the gum.
2. I’d highly recommend adding the xanthan into water first, prior to any other ingredients. Once you have electrolytes in the system it can be more difficult to hydrate the gum fully, meaning you might add more than you need / have additional issues with cloudiness.
I think your other best bets would be something like Lamesoft PO 65 or crothix liquid type. If those materials don’t fit your theme, then on the biopolymer side you could try adding something like iota-carrageenan (Genuvisco CG-131) which gels in the presence of salt and might help boost the viscosity, though you will have to determine if the appearance is acceptable to you. If you do use carrageenan the pH really can’t go much lower than 5 which is at odds with your preservative system.
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Good luck on your quest, I think you’ll need it.
1. Impurities do not inherently mean a product is poor performing or unsafe- can you elaborate if there are specific impurities you are worried about? You may also want to consider the reality of producing at scale- if you are single sourced on all your ingredients because your acceptance criteria is unnecessarily strict, then you are at the mercy of your supplier(s) in terms of pricing, availability, and lead time.
2. Transdermal absorption can happen with cosmetics, but can you point to why you think it might occur in a system you are designing to wash off with no stated deposition mechanism? At worst I think you might get some damage of skin proteins because you are planning to use a single anionic surfactant when there is a significant body of literature showing mixed micelles using multiple surfactants are generally milder to skin (less damaging to the barrier, and I think this would indirectly prevent some of that absorption you are so worried about).
3. can you explain why xanthan and guar are off the table but CMC (another anionic polymer) was acceptable for you to test?
I’m confused about why you feel your goal will lead to a better cosmetic product and I’m inclined to agree with ketchito- you may not be ready to consider options that have merit if you just don’t like them.
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Alcohol may be causing some issue but at 10% I’d think xanthan would still be okay- can you try to make a batch with just the PVA and xanthan (no ethanol) to see if you still observe the separation?
You are incorporating xanthan and letting it thicken first before adding PVA? That’s what I would have recommended. There are clearly other ingredients in your formula (at least a colorant) so it might be helpful for you to list everything in the formulation.
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The thickeners you have available are almost all “shear thinning” in behavior (not sure on the Crothix behavior but might be similar based on your perception )- also called pseudoplastic. It means when you scrub the product into your hair and apply more force, the formula gets thinner. At high levels each of those polymers might not shear thin as much, but as you noted they might start to feel too heavy/glue-like. Salt-thickened surfactant systems have more newtonian behavior- they flow about the same regardless on force you use. That might be the ‘cushiony’ profile you are used to in retail products.
As for how much salt to use, I’d suggest setting up a salt curve- Perry has a good explanation here (https://chemistscorner.com/salt-curve-analysis-how-to-control-cleansing-cosmetics/)
Since you don’t have a way to measure viscosity, just follow the first steps and keep small samples of you batch- one with no salt and a few with various levels, ex 0.2,0.5,1.0,2.0% . You can check those the next day or after a few hours and see which level works best for your system.
chemistscorner.com
Salt Curve Analysis - How to control cleansing cosmetics - Chemists Corner
When you formulate an anionic surfactant based cleansing formula, you don’t normally have to include a separate thickening system. This is because salt will thicken…