evchem2
Forum Replies Created
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Agreed with other comments here, we don’t know why you are excluding carrageenan (is it high cost, processing difficulties, performance or supply inconsistency?) so recommendations may not be as helpful. You can use other gelling polysaccharides like low-acyl gellan gum or pectin.
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Can you share your process/order of addition? When do you add gums vs surfactants; how long do you give to hydrate?
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what’s the final pH of your dishwash? Do you add natrosol after surfactants are added to water?
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Where to get sodium alginate depends on your region and volumes you plan to purchase- are you making something at home as a hobbyist or for professional use?
for the hobbyist: https://modernistpantry.com/products/sodium-alginate.html
for manufacturing: several different options, FMC biopolymer/ kelco used to be large sources , but currently JRS, BASF supply.
As for the formula, you can find free formulations on the following sites (may or may not have algin):
https://chemistscorner.com/where-to-find-free-cosmetic-formulas/
People don’t generally give out free custom formulations on this forum, if you are looking to hire a formulator for development :
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I assume the order you wrote is order of addition, are you heating at all and how long do you mix before adding next ingredients? Does this system look uniform initially and you see this separation over some time (how fast) and at room temperature or elevated?
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what’s your final pH? Is your HEC coated?
Ex Natrosol (Ashland’s HEC) recommends formulation pH between 4-10. Do you know the pH of the benchmark?
Why add the solubilizers?
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Is it possible for you to dilute batch 21 (I would make the dilution based on the 3rd ingredient, you’d need to take ~41% of 21) with water and the other ingredients added back in sufficient quantity to reach the same % as 22?
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What kind of gum? Ionic gums (ex xanthan) generally hydrate better in low ionic strength environments, I’d suggest adding them early in the water phase (after a chelator if including) and using a dispersant (such as glycerin again if including that in your formula). You can probably get away with adding the gums later in the process depending on which one it is and it’s role in the formulation (Ex do you need viscosity from something like xanthan gum or just conditioning/deposition from some cationic guar), but you may not be getting the best performance with it.
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I think that costs sounds high, but the run/fill size is likely a big factor in why they are placing cost at that level, especially if they had to order unique ingredients for the run at high MOQ. Anhydrous formulas are more expensive in general, water as the main solvent is cheap in comparison.
Is this cost for formulation alone? Are you asking for any claim validation or specific testing, or help with fulfillment (especially if going international where regulations differ)? Are you asking for quick timeline? There are plenty of factors that can increase cost that have less to do with the formula itself and more with the holistic manufacturing process.
To me as a lab monkey, stability testing is part of the development process, though we often had it itemized separately (you’d have to ask a salesperson why). They may also place an additional charge if you require stability testing outside their normal conditions.
Short answer is CM will charge whatever price they can, the smaller you are the less leverage you have in negotiating price.
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You probably need to provide more information- did you have equivalent mix energy from lab scale to production? That’s the most likely culprit in my eyes. Did you change raw materials lots/sources, order of addition, or rate of cooling? Also when are you checking the viscosity, sometimes it can take a day or two to reach final levels
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You might be able to build viscosity from salt-thickening (@ketchito ‘s answer is solid), but it may not provide enough suspension
You could try ARBALON (distributed by Lubrizol), it requires some high speed mixing to disperse and might not be the cheapest option, but it should work well in your system. Just note that this does not add viscosity.
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I think you already have an answer from chemicalmatt “The polyol and the PEGylated surfactant both act to stabilize gellation and lower the set point of the final product”. So from a processing/stability standpoint the glycol addition is helpful, whether or not it plays a role in sensory attributes
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No personal recommendations, but the Happi directory has several companies listed that might fit the ‘bill’ ex:
https://ithosglobal.com/
https://www.happi.com/buyersguide/profile/ithos-global-inc-/buyersguide/services/professional-services/23334 -
agree with @Lab -check out stepans formulary for example https://www.stepan.com/content/stepan-dot-com/en/products-markets/formulation-finders/formulations.html
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Agree with Paprik’s input, I’d also say when you do add it to try and put it in the beginning of the formulation right after water and maybe chelator addition to give it the best chance to hydrate
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to @toketsu ‘s point , there’s a J&J patent suggesting certain polymers can reduce irritation potential in surfactant systems: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7803403B2/en
I do think the surfactant choice and use of glycerin play a role as well, but I’m curious what has the most impact
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Seconding the polymerics, Pemulen has worked pretty well for me in the past. You can also try low-acyl gellan gum if you want something natural, but you’ll want to control the level of salt carefully and you may want to add an additional liquid emulsifier
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Maybe if you use high MW cationic guar? I would suggest adding the gums early (first if possible) since ionic gums like xanthan or cationic guar tend to hydrate better into low ionic strength environments. So use your glycerin to premix with the gum and create a slurry, then add into your water + chelator, then proceed to add surfactants
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You can take a look at this patent
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thanks for your response. I have seen that is typical for many descaling products, but my understanding is that the lower the pH the more each of these acids exists in protonated form, making them less efficient as sequestrants. I think phytic acid sounds like a good option, just wanted to see if there were any others or additional things to consider.
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I can’t speak much to performance and I don’t work on haircare much, there are some other chemists on this site that can answer better than me in those aspects.
General recommendations I’ve seen are to hydrate those materials into water solutions either early in water phase (especially if using for final product viscosity), or as a premix to be incorporated to the end of the process (typical for lower molecular weights)
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This site contains safety data on many cosmetic ingredients and often reports use levels of the ingredients in different applications
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Thank you, yes I was aware for filters like PBSA of the pH requirement, but didn’t find any glaring warning signs about these filters at this pH range. This is just a prototype and not for commercialization, but I’m basing it off a commercial US product so I’ve got my filter use levels from that.
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Thank you for the recommendation, I appreciate it! I did look up supplier information (and a little bit of literature) and couldn’t find anything on these filters having any issues at my desired pH, that’s why I was confused by the response I got when I shared the planned formulation- this is just a model system to do some testing on, but I wanted it to be at least reasonable
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@chemicalmatt - much appreciated! That document seems like a nice overview, I guess to be more specific what I’m really looking for is if there is any agreed upon terminology for certain characteristics (ex when we want to say something is greasy vs tacky vs lubricious)? Does every sensory evaluation panel decide on these definitions internally?
From the food side of sensory testing I’ve seen things like “Using industry-wide–accepted universal scales, a peeled orange has an orange flavor of about 6 or 7, whereas an undiluted orange drink has a much stronger orange flavor, earning a higher intensity score than the peeled orange”