[Graillotion]

Elegance is in the ‘eye of the beholder’.

Take all the gelling agents you have….and blend them ONLY into water, at the rate you plan to use them.

Rub the different concoctions on your skin….and you will begin to understand.

They will all feel different…some will feel good to you….some will feel sticky….some awesome….pick the one that feels the best to you.

Generally….most people will find Aristoflex AVC….a polymeric with a very good skin feel (elegance).

[Graillotion]

Yes…hurdle technology is JUST a crutch to assist your full spectrum preservative, not a replacement for it.

[Graillotion]

You could look at a small amount of squalane, or glyceryl oleate.

[Graillotion]

Zen is the most forgiving of the polymerics.  You could sure give that a try with the sodium lactate.  (Since your inclusion rate is moderately low.)

I have not worked with the MC product, but they do state it has some sodium tolerance.

I believe HEC is used as a last resort, for difficult formulas….not a ‘go to’ for elegance.

[Graillotion]

DaveStone said:

What about this?

https://lotioncrafter.com/products/sodium-carbomer-preneutralized-carbomer

Same as the other polymerics…very sensitive to electrolytes, hence why I mentioned it above, by name.

Simply put….when you choose to use electrolytes…you do not use polymerics…or if you want to use polymerics…you don’t use electrolytes.   The list of humectants is lengthy….just choose a couple that don’t have sodium in the name.   

[Graillotion]

Nope…same issue.

However…I have been using 

Hydroxyethyl Urea

Which is a different animal (Hydrovance)….and getting by with using a Aristoflex / Carbomer blend and 4% hydrovance.

Granted it is more on par with glycerin (in effectiveness) than the true ureas.

[Graillotion]

Any of the gums, HEC or HPC

Sodium lactate will eliminate most of the elegant polymerics, as it is an electrolyte.  I would certainly evaluate the need of Sodium lactate (and sub it out)…so I could use the elegant gelling agents.

[Graillotion]

CHarley said:

MarkBroussard said:

Ok, so you have an issue with Yeast & Mold. 

Why is your final pH 7.2? … is there an issue with reducing your pH to below 6.0 (preferrably pH 4.?

There is no single preservative that is effective solo in a cosmetic formulation that provides broad spectrum activity at any pH level … that is marketing hype.

Study up on using Hurdle Technology in your approach to preservation.  As I mentioned, the problem is that your product is not properly preserved.

Thank you I will Study about the Hurdle Technology  

I think I can reduce the PH I have to read in that also, to be honest, I wanted as close as possible to PH Balanced between pH 4 and pH 7 with my ingredients I ended up at 7.2 and it makes me happy enough
I will look at every individual ingredient and their PH Value

@MarkBroussard ….what would you add to a typical emulsion that only lacked yeast and mold protection?  Lets assume we are making a proper product, and have the pH at 4.8 (which I do…in all but one product with urea).

@CHarley… your pH in that range will make it very difficult to preserve.  Skin will thank you for taking the pH down to the recommended 4.8!  Just add lactic acid to the water phase until you hit that mark. 

Here is a nice chart on hurdle tech, that someone once provided me: 

[Graillotion]

[Graillotion]

About time….I am on the edge of my seat.

[Graillotion]

What are you after in the Ginger?  Lots of times the good stuff gets left of the wrong side of the distillation process….and maybe what you’re after…can only be achieved with an extract.  I know in my case…that is true.

The extract has a very mild scent…compared to the EO….(I make my own.)

Just need to know what constituent you are chasing.

[Graillotion]

lwere said:

Graillotion said:

Viscosity and water inclusion rate…have little relevance. I’ve only ever seen that discussed on mommy blogger sites.

It is all about the thickeners. 

I can make something that looks like a solid…with 99.2% water.  Hehehe…just experiment with polymeric emulsifiers.

Mommy blogger sites…????. 

So then I need help with that. What % of the thickeners should I use for my particular formula?

This is where trial and error comes in….Just keep remaking the formula, reducing your thickeners each time…until it is too thin….then bump them back up.  (Start with the stearic).

Thickeners will always be formula specific….so the correct answer will be the one I always get from my mentor….’DEPENDS’…    There is no set format.  Just what works.

Aloha.

[Graillotion]

Anca_Formulator said:

Anca_Formulator said:

Graillotion said:

When I read the title….I said to myself….bet there is squalane in formula.

Believe the technical term is: syneresis.

Hemi-squalane is supposed to be a non polar C15, so technically it shouldn’t cause syneresis when it’s mixed with other non-polar oils. Why does squalane cause syneresis (it’s also technically non-polar)?

I am not a chemist, so I will use my laymen terms as I understand things.  Squalane is for all intents and purposes…basically a hydrocarbon.  Therefore when trying to  emulsify it, it behaves much like the silicones.  So imagine in this case…if you added 10% cyclomethicone or dimethicone…would that pose any issues?

One of the things I use to avoid these issues…are crosslinked polymers, which tend to alleviate these concerns….but I never use anything remotely close to 10% of this type ingredient.

Hopefully without doing a disservice to Pharma, I will paste below…a slightly out of context response he gave me, regarding weeping I can get a little of…on a very difficult mosquito formula I have been working on for the last couple of years…and using a crosspolymer to help with weeping:

Your crosspolymer does the same as high cP dimethicone and more .
The statement is correct and is so for all silicone crosspolymers. It’s a bit like vaseline which is basically liquid paraffin embedded in a sponge-like structure built by a wax-like solid composed of huge, branched hydrocarbons… macrostructure-wise fairly similar to synthetic silicone crosspolymers.
Your has a unique feature of being highly hydrophobic alkyl (= C30-45 and cetearyl) chains all over it. It interacts better with fats and oils than, say, vinyl cross-linked polymers. However, I’m not sure if it would work specifically with vanillin given that this molecule is not that hydrophobic and it might not interact well enough with alkyl modified versions especially if there’s a bunch of ingredients around it which do interact better. A PEG, PPG, or polyglyceryl cross-linked dimethicones might work better. However, it will form that sponge-like structure which, in effect, is similar to adding a wax or high-melting fat: it gels the oil phase and hence, a more stable product under others due to greatly reduced Ostwald ripening, coalescence, and creaming.

Again…slightly out of context.

[Graillotion]

Viscosity and water inclusion rate…have little relevance. I’ve only ever seen that discussed on mommy blogger sites.

It is all about the thickeners. 

I can make something that looks like a solid…with 99.2% water.  Hehehe…just experiment with polymeric emulsifiers.

[Graillotion]

Just guessing…but if Hemisqualane is anything like squalane….that typically causes that issue.

Try making it once without Hemisqualane…guessing issue will be Gone.

When I read the title….I said to myself….bet there is squalane in formula.

Believe the technical term is: syneresis.

[Graillotion]

abierose said:

Graillotion said:

I’m just gonna end up ordering some more since I also just ran out of another new-to-me favorite ingredient…pentylene glycol ????

Isn’t Pentylene magical?  Splish splash!

[Graillotion]

Padmavathi said:

Carbomer works!
I usually prepare a 2% solution and keep (with preservative).  I add how much I need of this solution, post emulsification, depending on the viscosity I want, and adjust pH.
From what I have observed, the final product thickens the next day. So I’d say don’t add too much.

Hi, 
I always wanted to work with carbomers but the thought of neutralization of to form a gel holds me back. Your approach seems interesting so
  please explain how you prepare your carbomer’s stock solution.
What bases can be used?
Also does adding a 0.5% or above of this stock to an emulsified cream/lotion, thickens it?
Thanks

Why are you not just using the beginner version… The preneutralized version…toss it in…and foe-get-about-it!

Sodium Carbomer, Preneutralized Carbomer | Lotioncrafter

[Graillotion]

ngarayeva001  May I ask what is it that you like about isoamyl laurate? I wasn’t impressed by it at all.

Did you try the 100% IL….or the one that is 90% IL…and 10% something else….forget the name at the moment…. But I HATED that 90/10 blend.

Hehehe…I can’t live without my IL…. and I have them all.

[Graillotion]

If there is a particular constituent you are chasing…it often can be found in some of the other EO’s….or even synthetically.

Look for the alternatives, where you might like the scent better.

At the moment…I am looking at caravone, so I have the option of spearmint…or caraway…hehehe.

@RedCoast

[Graillotion]

You can drop the carbomer, as the sodium lactate will probably negate that, and it won’t do anything at that rate.  You need a more functional/robust emulsification program.

[Graillotion]

Abdullah said:

If you add 0.01% Cholecalciferol to an emulsion and apply 2g of that emulsion everyday and your skin absorbed 100% of vitamin D3 from it, you get 8000 IU vitamin D from that emulsion per day. ????

Now you calculate the rest of that. 

I assume there are different potencies?  The one I have is:

Vitamin D3 Cholecalciferol 100,000 ui/gr

Is that what your calculation was based on?

[Graillotion]

Perry said:

I don’t know for sure but it is a drug active that requires a prescription. So, then it comes down to why are you adding the ingredient. There is no non-drug reason to add it so that would make it illegal.

That you find creams on Amazon is not surprising. It is difficult for the FDA to keep up on all these different products.

Where can I find this in print?  To this day I can not find anything definitive, for the US market.

[Graillotion]

If using fragile oils like Rosehip and the likes…work on the upper end of the range.

If using oils like meadowfoam and CCT….you can work on the lower end of the range. 

Aloha!

[Graillotion]

I have been using it since almost the beginning….and it is in all formulas.  I view it as a preservative booster.  Since I do not use parabens or F releasers…I figured I would enhance my E9010 multiple other ways, Symsave H being one of them.

[Graillotion]

suswang8 said:

Way too much rosemary.  I thought 0.1% is the recommendation?

ROE is just fine.  Rates range from .02-.5%.  Just depends on what type of oils you are working with.  Carnosic acid levels will vary from supplier to supplier as well, 4-7.5% is common.  It is mostly a sunflower or olive carrier oil anyway.