evchem2
Forum Replies Created
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You’ve had the jug open for 3 months? I’m not surprised something would show up after continual opening and reuse
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What kind of zinc- particle size, coated vs uncoated?
When you say it didn’t work, in what way- emulsion failed, desired effect not present at all or not present enough? -
You don’t have a lot of surfactant, so even though salt can help thicken it may not be enough to build viscosity like you’re hoping for. Did you make a salt curve for your formula? You also already have acrylates and HEC thickening, so why add salt on top?
I second Abdullah that Glycol stearate should have a better pearlescent look. You can also try heating your base and cooling slowly, this should help the glycol stearate form some larger crystals that create the effect you’re hoping for. If you don’t want to heat the whole base, you can buy a premade pearl blend for cold-process use, or try to create your own premix.
https://knowledge.ulprospector.com/5647/pcc-adding-pearlescence-in-cosmetics/
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@Farah - I’d say yes to overhead mixer before homogenizer. Being able to get different blades will allow you work on a variety of product types, the homogenizer can help with stability but I think you can still achieve a lot without it. I do think you’re right about the stir bar solution mixing too, especially if you’re using xanthan and guar together. The tea sieve should work decently well
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@Farah yes the drill with its various blades would mimic what overhead stirrers do. For homogenizers they are really more rotor stator types (at least from my experience), the benchtop version is usually something like a silverson or a rotosolver. Your immersion blender may replicate some of the high shear, but will also likely bring in air if you can’t control the speed.
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@Farah okay so I’d definitely recommend upping the oil used to disperse the gums, or (my preference) you can use any glycol (ex glycerin/ propanediol/ butylene glycol) to slurry. The glycols are all miscible in water, they’re humectants, and they can help the preservation of your product (lower water activity).
I’d say with that equipment you are going to incorporate air very easily which is a problem for serums but even worse for any emulsions you may want to try in the future. If you have even a drill you could buy different blades that would provide different advantages and should reduce air incorporation (a prop style blade), or ones that provide shear would help mitigate clumping issues (Cowles type blade).
The guar, xanthan, and acacia should all hydrate in room temperature water just as much as they would if heated. If you do incorporate too much air, you could use the heat to thin out your solution and stir carefully to help get some air out. Hope this helps- good luck!
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@Farah if you’re going to do the slurry, a ratio of ~3:1 dispersant: gums should be a good starting point- when you say it wasn’t easier to hydrate you mean you saw clumping?
Maybe I’m missing something but why are you heating this formula? I believe all your gums are cold water soluble (aside from the flax mucilage)
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not as sole preservative if that’s what you’re asking (in combo with Euxyl PE9010 INCI: Phenxyethanol /Ethylhexylglycerin), but I did use it in a cream and it had a bonus side effect of reducing the soaping I was seeing.
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Can’t really help on the filters, maybe look at some commercial reef safe benchmarks for inspiration?
Are you looking for an exact replacement for Ganex or just another oil-soluble film former? Ganex is now sold under Antaron trade name, there’s Unimer U-15 from Givaudan, and Coast Southwest calls their Endicare® SC-530 an alternative to Ganex though it’s water soluble. -
Well I guess mpg is monopropylene glycol? That’s what I’d go with, I don’t think it will affect much
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Cab-o-sil is available from Amazon.. though I’m still a little warying of ordering chemicals off there. You can also use Aerosil 200 from Evonik , but I’d recommend wearing a respirator-like mask if you deal with large quantities
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These are all pretty different ingredients- what’s the purpose of adding any of these? Are you just trying to pad your LOI?
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you could try PolySugaMulse D9, not sure how it would work at such a high use level. you should be wary of statements like ‘all natural’ though as your emulsifiers have been chemically processed.
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Prop mixers in general easily incorporate air, if you want to try switching to a different blade style you made find a cowles or jiffy blade works better for your system. Other tips and tricks include: moving mixer slightly off center from your batch, and periodically stopping mixing to let some larger air bubbles rise to the top (I’ve heard it called ‘burping’ the batch- when you restart do it at a lower speed if you do see some air come up). When you do the final pour how high do you heat? Are you noticing these bubbles even when the stick solidifies?
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Not sure what you have access to but you could try other natural polymers like carrageenan or guar. Try cutting xanthan in half, I doubt you will totally eliminate flaking but that could help reduce it
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@Newtoformulating, sorry my aim isn’t to confuse you.
You don’t have a traditional oil phase. I’m not well versed in haircare so maybe my understanding is wrong but ceteareth-25, PEG-40 HCO, and PEG-7 are all emulsifiers/surfactants. The ceteareth is necessary for creating the gel, the accudyne is your fixative, so I was wondering why you include the PEGs when you don’t have anything that won’t go into the water phase (unless there’s fragrance?). If you are happy with your product performance then there’s no reason to change, I was just asking to learn
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Does that incompatibility have anything to do with coacervate formation or is that really just for deposition benefits?
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@Sara21 I would reverse that order and put xanthan gum in first, PQ-10 you could reserve a small amount of water and add that as a premix last
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@Newtoformulating okay maybe I missed it but you don’t have an oil phase? You have multiple emulsifiers/solubilizers but I don’t see anything they are needed for.
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second Bills suggestion. You can try more viscous oils, smaller particle size (lighter) mica, there are several oil thickeners (polyamides or the Ajinomoto products)
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If you reduce the pH you will lose some of the functionality of the acudyne. Why are you adding the PEGs? What do you think they contribute to the formula?
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When are you adding the xanthan gum and the PQ 10?
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Don’t increase the sodium benzoate any more you are already well over the recommended use level. If your pH is 6 it is not actively preserving anyway. Swap our for one of your other listed preservatives (parabens? Not sure how well they perform in surfactant systems) and keep to use levels that are realistic for the product (<0.1%). More is not always better
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I would say try again at 1% at the indicated pH range. It’s also possible they could have gone much higher, say 3-4% carbomer.
What’s your order of addition? They do have TEA listed higher than carbomer, so maybe they are neutralizing and then breaking the carbomer/ reducing pH using the aloe (possibly some of the vitamin C or DHA too) which contains electrolytes that most grades of carbomer (especially 980) will be sensitive to.Other links of interest
https://dewolfchem.com/formulations/peeling-gel-190111k/
https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015018134A1/en -
What phase are you adding the zinc oxide to- water or oil? below pH 6 zinc oxide will start dissolving and you will have Zn ions in solution or new complexes which causes some formulation instability