[Farah]

pH 5 all the way. Curly haired here and makes a HUGE difference to tangling 

[Farah]

@MarkBroussard interested in your perspective since you formulate in the natural product space… hope you don’t mind me tagging you! 

[Farah]

I have some additional thoughts:

Hair prone to tangling tends to detangle much, much easier at lower pH. At a higher pH, the cuticle layer lifts and my hair becomes an impossible to work with mess. I experience this with shampoos that aren’t pH balanced. As soon as I add a conditioner with lower pH I feel a world of a difference. My understanding is that it helps the cuticle layer lay flat thereby reducing the snarling and tangling. I understand that this will result in less conditioner being deposited on hair but what’s the point of it being deposited on my hair if I’m going to end up with a lot of breakage from the tangling? 

I think as @Perry says the best thing is to try and make something and try it. But I know that most people with curly hair love acidic conditioners because of their detangling abilities.

[Farah]

Ah, thank you @Graillotion! 

Here are the two units I’m deciding between:

https://m.vevor.ca/magnetic-stirrer-c_11062/100-w-lab-electric-overhead-stirrer-mixer-variable-speed-0-3000rpm-p_010360350641

And much larger capacity:

https://m.vevor.ca/magnetic-stirrer-c_11062/20l-digital-overhead-lab-stirrer-mixer-speed-adjustable-2000rpm-p_010434825593

[Farah]

@Fekher I haven’t tried pectin myself. I’ve heard it’s very difficult to work with and can get sticky. But it seems to work well in this product.

[Farah]

@evchem2 thank you for the insights! 

@Anca_Formulator - I’m in Canada. I’ve been eying these Vevor stirrers. 400 Canadian dollars gets you one with a capacity of 20L. Feels a bit too good to be true compared to how much IKA costs. I’ve promised myself to get to a formulation people would pay for before I invest in more equipment but with a toddler running around the equipment can help me iterate much faster. I wonder if anyone’s used these. Maybe I’ll start a different discussion to ask… 

[Farah]

@Fekher I’ve thought of the option 2 that you’re suggesting but I will lose so much product  performance in the interest of easier gum dispersion. So I will persevere in finding the most efficient way to do it! I have high hopes for the tea sieve!

[Farah]

@Fekher it’s the pectin. And the agave adds additional hold. 

[Farah]

Thank you so much @Anca_Formulator… I’ve actually read their blog post on this but haven’t watched the video until now. Unfortunately, I can’t use glycerin or glycols. Lots of curly hair hates them and I’m already using other humectants. I have my eye on the tea sieve method! I’m already starting out with a viscous solution (the flax seed gel I start out with is quite thick), so I don’t know if the magnetic stirrer method will work. It seems like it would only work if you’re starting with water and you’re just using it to initially disperse the gums before they hydrate and become thick. Do you have any insight? Do you think it would work even if the starting solution is viscous? Still, the tea sieve will make my life much easier even if I just stick to the handheld kitchen mixer… until I find a quality overhead mixer for a good price!

[Farah]

I use agave and have used honey in the past! They work when humidity and dew points are manageable. They lose their ability to provide hold at high humidity and dews. They are typically used in conjunction with natural polymers like xanthan, etc. Very popular in the curly hair community. Honey is photosensitive so I’ve stopped using it. I have challenge tested one formulation with agave in it and it passed. 

Kinky curly curling custard is one of the most successful commercial products that uses agave in its formulation. You may want to check it out. Never worked for my own hair but others swear by it. 

[Farah]

Thank you so much @evchem2.

I’ve been thinking of purchasing an overhead stirrer to make this process easier and because I’d like to start learning how to make my own conditioner. Do you think that would be overall more useful than getting a homogenizer? 

[Farah]

@Anca_Formulator honestly, consumers are not as purist about natural as we think. Sure, there are a few. But I think if you explain your ingredient philosophy honestly and provide products that produce results and that they can delight in, they’ll be game. Good synthetic trumps bad natural. Also I don’t think synthetic preservatives are selling out. They facilitate the 95%+ being natural. Without them, that simply won’t be possible! 

[Farah]

Can you tell us more? Who are your target customers? I think that will also affect your marketing strategy. I’m an “elder millennial” and have never been on Tik Tok. My 20 year old cousin has informed me that all of her body and bath and beauty purchases were impulse buys driven by things she sees people use and review on Tik Tok. That’s an alien concept to me. Someone like me could be reached on email lists, Facebook or Instagram although I find Facebook ads generally annoying and I’m very unlikely to buy anything advertised there. This will sound silly but I will often Google “best eye cream”, “best AC”, “best Indian restaurant”, read reviews and make a decision. Who reviews products in your category? Can you get yours in front of them?

I think a good start is to just keep asking random people: the last time you bought x product, how did you make your decision? The answers will inform your strategy. 

[Farah]

Thank you so much @evchem2. I’ll try these tips. I’ve been meaning to ask… what professional equipment would the drill be approximating? An overhead stirrer? Or a homogenizer? I do have a drill so I’ll look for those bits!

@Abdullah - Depends on what you’re aiming to do I guess? The guar and xanthan I’m still experimenting with but I’ve had some very nice results. The flax I’ll have to disagree with. It’s a holy grail for so many. For my hair, nothing beats just the pure flax seed gel with a sprinkle of citric acid to bring the pH to 4.5. It is just inelegant because of the hassle of having to glop a lot of it on to get decent hold… hence every kitchen DIYer trying to improve it without spoiling the magic of it. All that said, I’m going to order some HEC and experiment with it again as a thickener not a hold agent because I do remember it made very elegant and clear and professional looking gel that was a positive sensory experience in terms of application.

[Farah]

You just have too high a percentage of film formers. The HEC, guar and sea moss. I’m not sure what amaranthus is, but that might be one too. I’d try to bring down their total % gradually until you see no more flaking. The hold in your gel is coming from your 4% agave anyway. Not sure this much thickening is actually required? Also not sure what the sugar cane extract is doing? Is it a humectant? Does it add hold? 

Adding glycerin could help with the flaking some. I personally don’t love glycerin in my hair so I avoid it. 

Let us know how you fix it?

[Farah]

@evchem2 

Yeah I still saw significant clumping when I poured the slurry into the flax gel and stirred. I always thought heat helped with dissolving the gums. I don’t have any sophisticated equipment beyond a hand kitchen mixer and immersion blender and I usually mix with the hand mixer on and off until the clumps are gone and the gums are dissolved. The immersion blender introduces too many bubbles for my liking. I had also once read that xanthan gum does need heat to reach its potential so to speak? 

But this is all coming from a hobbyist. I don’t think you’re missing anything. I’m probably working inefficiently and incorrectly! Appreciate any tips or advice!

[Farah]

Reporting back after an experiment: I hydrated the acacia gum separately with room temp water and added it to the flax/xanthan/guar mixture after hydrating the other two gums in the double boiler and allowing the mixture to cool. It didn’t turn grey. Still can’t answer whether it was the flax, xanthan or guar that the acacia had reacted with, but at least identified that the heat facilitated the reaction. My toddler allowing, I’ll try to find out which of the other ingredients was the culprit. But for now my gel doesn’t look grey anymore!

One other change from last time was that I used the slurry method for the Xanthan and guar and had mixed them with some oil before adding to the flax seed gel. Not sure if that made a difference. But I suspect it’s the just the heat. 

FWIW the slurry method didn’t make the gums any easier to hydrate for me. Probably because I’m using very little oil. 

[Farah]

@Anca_Formulator that’s exactly what’s getting my goat!! 

[Farah]

Thank you all for chiming in! I appreciate the insights. 

@MarkBroussard - I fully understand the word play and how it can be explained. But is the true intention to coin and perpetuate the use of the phrase “organic beauty” to refer to the beauty of living things? How many customers will have that interpretation? I personally find the attempted deception so irritating that I’m put off trying their products (which I’ve heard positive feedback about and could stand on their own without all of this). But for most customers it will likely have the opposite effect. 

@Perry I doubt a lawsuit would work in this instance since the tagline is so carefully worded to have a whole other non-ingredient related meaning. 

I guess what I’m bitter about is that these successful “ethical”  companies have an opportunity to break the stigma surrounding synthetics and to educate the consumers on the benefits of using both natural and synthetic ingredients as needed. Instead they are just riding trend waves. Also, so much hard work goes into formulating truly compliant natural products and this just seems like a clever branding loophole… 

[Farah]

I’m curious to hear the answer too. Did he mean oils as well? Do they oxidize slower when they are in an emulsion? 

[Farah]

@Anca_Formulator yeah I can get behind “mostly natural” but their tagline is indeed organic beauty… I don’t know if there are any legal consequences to a misleading tagline. If not, then this is a very clever ploy. They don’t have to state “this is a mostly organic product” and be inaccurate. But their tagline is on the bottle right under the brand name and it’s super implied. 

[Farah]

@Fekher I just mean that no effective preservative = microbial growth in the product = possible infections in consumers. I’m just making fun of how the obsession with “natural” forgets that microbial growth is also natural and an infection should a contaminated product get into a wound is also “natural”. I think I’m just frustrated by how consumers are marketed to but also how a lot of them just accept it without questioning. Flax seed gel has high water content and a lot of long chain polysaccharides are often used to thicken it and is notoriously hard to preserve. I’ll be honest and say I went straight for the Germall plus. And I’m looking for something to boost it too. I’ve never tried the more natural alternatives. I would only do it once I have the budget to challenge test multiple possibilities. 

[Farah]

@Abdullah I’ve been meaning to try the 2/8 ratio instead of 5/5. I will soon. I was just worried about losing the flexibility that way. But perhaps I can bring down the total %ages. 

I’ve used HEC in the past… like 10 years ago? I used it alone and it didn’t give much hold at all. Perhaps it’s time to experiment with it again. I like that it’s nonionic. 

I do use conditioner in my hair. This formula will form the base of a last step styling product for hold, definition and frizz control. 

@Fekher I will try some more controlled tests on my hair and report back! Thank you! I understand the natural instinct with current trends. I’m more invested in breaking out of the cycle of dependency on products that build up then require harsh surfactants which really ruins the condition of curly hair. To me good results trump being able to say all natural any day. And anyway, there’s no way to preserve something like flax seed gel “naturally” and have it pass challenge tests and be safe. If there is, I don’t know about it. Infections are also natural and I want to be able to sleep soundly at night!

[Farah]

@Fekher I layer it over leave in conditioner that does have cationic ingredients. I’m not entirely sure if it’s in my head, but I feel like too much of it doesn’t play well with such leave ins. My hair has felt more tacky in such instances. But with curly hair there’s so many variables so this is very anecdotal and not the result of a controlled experiment. Would love to hear your insight… do you think it would matter much with products that are applied to hair in sequence and left in it? Some people also like to mix the leave in and gel in their palm before application. This may be a good experiment for me to try and see at what % xanthan may cause a problem. 

[Farah]

@Perry I’ve made it without acacia gum countless times. No color problems… I think it’s some component of the flax seeds as you say! If it was the xanthan or guar there would surely be something in literature.

@@Fekher - us curly haired people are weird and finicky about what each thickener brings to the final product. Xanthan alone is too stringy (not enough “clumping”) and too much of it is problematic with cationic conditioners used in most leave in conditioners. Guar alone is too rigid but it gives me better clumps. Acacia too crunchy but brings good hold to the table. Xanthan and guar complement each other when it comes to increasing viscosity. I’m trialing acacia to see if I get longer lasting hold with it.

I’m not super fussed with “natural”. I’m trying to see how far I can get with natural thickeners because I like how they feel in my hair and they make for a very simple care routine that doesn’t require harsh surfactants to avoid build up. I understand they perform poorly in shampoos and conditioners but lots of curly haired people love them in styling products. 

Thank you both!