evchem2
Forum Replies Created
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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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Since you’re saying it’s not related to optics/path length, there’s three possible culprits made from the points here:
1. different mix energy (this sounds most obvious, you can try to calculate energy being applied in the small scale and match it in large but not sure how feasible that is for you)
2. raw material variation (not clear if you used the same lot of keratin/ other materials in all your batches so maybe this isn’t an issue. On a related note we once had an issue with a contaminated barrel from a supplier and when we pulled from the bottom with a pump vs syringed off the top made a difference- took way too long to realize there was some residual mystery material in the bottom of the barrel)
3. formula incompatibilities/ chemistry - we don’t know what exactly is in your serum so not sure how much we can help on that front. How is your keratin supplied (solution vs powder? is it functionalized?) -
Titanium Dioxide itself won’t need heat, but you’ll still need to add something to suspend it- synthetic or natural polymers could work. There are other synthetic opacifiers as well, but they may not be favorable for cost/ environmental reasons
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Are you in the US? I see people working on these types of serums constantly, if they were taken to market are they not in violation of L’Oreals current patent?
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050154054A1/en -
Level of surfactants is low, is this for hand washing clothes? You’ll need more surfactant if you want to salt thicken.
What grade (molecular weight) CMC are you using, and is it for antiredepostion? you could use a higher molecular weight to thicken your fomrulation, but I don’t know what impact (if any) that would have on washing performance
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amodimethicone is supposed to be better for damaged (color-treated) hair, as it can bind to the damaged sites more effectively than uncharged silicones
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You have a very small oil phase, so w/o which is already a difficult system to stabilize is even more unlikely to form because of the high amount of internal (dispersed) phase vs the extremely low continuous phase, on top of the other issues already mentioned.
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You can try deoplex from carrubba for odor masking
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Color cosmetics isn’t my wheelhouse but my thinking is: go the dye route for no tint (lakes if your formula is anhydrous, though I’d be concerned these might have some payoff) - if you are US based check the allowed dyes/lakes for contact with mouth Part 74, Subpart C:
Alternatively look at burts bees or similar commercial product you want to mimic and check what ingredients they are using.
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Haven’t worked on these kinds of products, but my guess is maintaining certain pH range could be important for the dyes used and their stability.
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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”