[Gunther]

EGMS is tricky to use on its own.
Ready made, commercial pearlizers are cheap and convenient to use.

[Gunther]

Formaldehyde is banned as a preservative.
IMO parabens work fine.

[Gunther]

On the chap you can do some melting point testing,
get its optical rotation analyzed with a polarimeter
and see if Thin Layer Chromatography can give a hint on its purity.

For a true purity % analysis you’ll need to send it to a lab that does chromatography testing.
That can cost more than $500, if not $1000.

[Gunther]

Almost everything with a Bromine atom is more toxic than those with Chlorides.

Consider salt Sodium chloride is actually healthy and needed in small amounts, while Sodium bromide is toxic.

Stick to Cetrimonium chloride or methosulfate and forget about CETAB, ill advised by online bloggers who don’t seem to know anything about chemistry or toxicology.

[Gunther]

giddie15 said:

Another question. Does anyone know what chemical is in vego liquid? I know its a bubble enchancer but i could not find any lead what chemical is it. Thanks. 

Consider starting a new thread for that. This one already lost steam (and you’re getting off topic)
Also, try looking for its MSDS or datasheet to see if the ingredients are listed there.

[Gunther]

amitvedakar said:

Perry said:

With SLES, Betaine, and CDEA you don’t need a thickener. Just adjust the viscosity with salt.  Do a salt curve analysis.

yes sir,

Thank You.

One more question: Does salt make skin or hair Dry?

By using CAPB and CDEA you’ll need so little salt to thicken it, often less than 1%, that you won’t notice any difference.

Is the betaine you have actually CAPB (cocamidoproyl betaine)?
Is that 5% as supplied, or 5% on an active basis?
If it’s the former, then it’s 1.5% active CAPB, that’s a bit short. You may increase it to 10% (3% active CAPB) for further mildness and thickening.

[Gunther]

giddie15 said:

Any thoughts on using methyl paraben as preservative here?

That’d be great.
You have to options:
A. Have the surfactants dissolve/emulsify parabens to keep them in solution.
B. Add paraben Sodium salts as they’re readily water soluble.

By the way, stay away from mild preservatives like Sodium benzoate, dishwashes need sound preservative systems as they may get in contact with (bacteria containing) rotten food debris.

[Gunther]

JonahRay said:

Is it due to the volatility of the silicones?

Just one silicone, cyclomethicone, is volatile
the other one, dimethicone, isn’t so it was supposed to leave a dimethicone shiny film.

[Gunther]

I don’t think you can sue the preservative manufacturers
I doubt you can even get your money back, since the product wasn’t defective, just improperly used.

Next time do some challenge testing.
Better yet, check preservative MICs Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations and you’ll see that they are almost guaranteed to fail challenge testing, unless you use huge amounts of them.

You can try parabens below the EU limits (methylparaben 0.4%, propylparaben 0.14%) used at 75-90% of that limits and they work so much better.
I still have to see a single product to fail challenge testing with that (but we don’t add natural or hard to preserve products)
Add some EDTA 0.1% if you want.
Paraben scaremongers can GTHO Get The Hell Out.

[Gunther]

argelbiz123 said:

I was trying to make a shampoo that would degrease my hair from the use of pomades. I need help on my formula because it does not create enough foam even if i use more than recommended value of foaming agent! thank you! here’s my formula. I would like to thicken also the product thank you.

Aqua- 36%
Cocoamido Betain- 40.5%
Lanolin- 2%
Cetrimonium Chloride- 5%
Peg-40- 1%
Glycerin- 1%
Stearic Acid- 4%
Virgin Coconut oil- 1%
BTMS-50- 2.5%
Fragrance oil-1%
Phenoxyethanol-1%
Sodium chloride-2%
Shea butter-1%
Cetyl stearyl-1%
Dimethicone-1%

I would also like to know what are the ingredients that i used that is anti foaming agent? I also believe some of the ingredients i used is not required for a shampoo, but i added it because i would like my shampoo to have a conditioning effect even if its little

That’s a hair conditioner formula, not a shampoo.
Conditioners don’t foam nearly as much as shampoos do.

I’m still trying to make a properly foaming cleansing conditioner.

You can get rid of things that serve no purpose, increase cost and complexity and inhibit foam:
- Lanolin
- Glycerin
- Stearic acid
- Virgin coconut oil
- Shea butter
They don’t work in rinse off products so you’d better leave them for a leave-on conditioner.
So drop them, or at least reduce them to claim-ingredient levels, 0.1% or even less.

- PEG-40? Is that PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil?
You don’t need that. BTMS already works as an emulsifier

I am surprised that you were able to keep 40% betaine in emulsion.

As an additional cleanser/foamer you can try 2-5% of an ethoxylated alcohol. It doesn’t disrupt the emulsion as much as betaines do.

[Gunther]

giddie15 said:

i made a wrong calculation my bad. salt is only 2.2%. here is the corrected formula 

9.09% SLES
0.9% LABS
0.9% CDEA
0.9% Coco Betaine
0.3% Benzalkonium Chloride
2.2%  Salt
0.5% Fragrance
0.5% Colorant
84.71% Purified Water

Make sure that’s 9% active SLES, and not SLES as-supplied which only contains 70 or 30% SLES

What’s there to neutralize LABSA?
Otherwise it would become too acidic

Don’t blindly add salt
Make a salt curve analysis to determine the optimum amount

[Gunther]

ngarayeva001 said:

@Gunther, no, it’s a sulfate free shampoo. Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, CAPB and cocamide DEA. I use it 3 times a week and I don’t really feel any build up. I can see it to be more relevant for fine hair but I think the problem is exaggerated by fear mongering beauty bloggers.

 I actually added 0.3% of lavender EO to that silicone blend. It made it slightly cloudy (really insignificant) but it’s for my use, so doesn’t matter. It doesn’t separate. I have been using it for several months already.

Does it has less silicone deposition compared to SLES shampoos?

What did you use to thicken it? Crothix?

[Gunther]

ngarayeva001 said:

I am speaking as an advanced user rather than a formulator. The issue with so called build up is severely exaggerated. I wash my hair three times a week and  use shampoo with 0.8% of Polyquaternium 10, 0.7% of Polyquaternium 11, and 1% of Amodimethicone (blend).

Interesting formula
May I ask what the surfactants were like? SLES?

ngarayeva001 said:

And I finish this routine with a very simple but extremely efficient detangler: 20% of dimethicone  1000 +80% of cyclomethicone. If after all of this I don’t have a “build up” I don’t know who would. 

May I ask how did you add fragrance to this silicones only formula?

[Gunther]

Rimshah said:

I have read many articles stating that surfactants are absorbed by skin and damage the lipid barrier,  but adding the Hydrophobically modified polymers (HMPs) to the product prevent damage. I searched  about HMPs and there is a lot of material on internet depicting its harms as well. Traditional soap is also not good because of its very high pH according to some. 

Everything is very controversial on internet. Could anyone please help?

P.s. I was planning to use mild surfactants i.e. sodium cocoyl isethionate, capryl glucoside and disodium cocoamphodiacetate. 

Do they cite an actual study?
It looks like they’re just trying to sell HMPs or products that contain it.

Even if they cite an study, they likely left surfactants sitting on skin.
Surfactants are meant to always be rinsed off.
Don’t believe anything you read in internet.

Speaking of studies, read one about CAPB Cocoamidopropyl betaine actually reducing irritation. It probably works better than HMPs, and it has studies to back it.

[Gunther]

That’s just 3.5% active SLES and 1.5% LABSA
it will be very hard to thicken this formula.

You’d need more LABSA , SLES or both
and try to avoid salt, it just sharply rises cloud point.

You can find better formulas in this board by using the search function
And don’t try to make all the 20 liters at once. Start with 0.5-1 liter to see how the formula turns out.

[Gunther]

Quimico said:

Use the following stable formula;
LABSA (96%) 13%
CAUSTIC SODA 1.56
SLES(70%). 7
STPP. 1
EDTA 1
NACL. 1

IMO refrain from using NaCl if it has good viscosity on its own, otherwise cloud point sharply rises with salt.

You can easily try it yourself:
Make some of it
then pour some in a bottle as it
pour the rest in another bottle and add some salt
put in the fridge without freezing
the one containing salt is likely to become cloudy.

EDTA is a salt and likely to cause the low temp cloudiness problem as well
1% EDTA is too much, 0.1% is enough.

Is STPP Sodium TriPolyPhosphate?
If so, phosphates are banned or frowned upon as they lead to rivers and lakes eutrophication, so it’s better to get rid of it.

If you need to increase viscosity, some CAPB can help without rising cloud point.

[Gunther]

IMO the best things for conditioning shampoos are
1 Quaternized silicones i.e. amodimethicone
2 Non-quaternized silicones like dimethicone or dimethiconol
3 Cationics like Polyquaterniums or quaternized guar
4 Cationics like Cetrimonium or Behentrimonium in a non-anionic (i.e. no SLES) surfactant formulas
5 Very mild or very low level of surfactants so they strip less oils from hair (but they won’t clean and foam as well)
6 Co-wash (washing your hair with conditioner)

Everything truly natural is just doomed to fail as it will go down the drain in rinse off products.
Albeit they may do something in leave-on products i.e. coconut oil applied on hair.

[Gunther]

Does ‘balanced pH’ have any exact definition?

“Optimized pH” works great in my opinion:
Slightly acidic pH (5-6) for skin mildness
a bit more acidic (4-5) for smooth hair
and about neutral pH to reduce eye irritation.

[Gunther]

RedPill said:

Pharma said:

They’re fairly similar and switching might be possible with only minor adaptations. For what do you need DPM?

As a solvent (3%) for vehicle cleaning shampoo.  

Did you mean car shampoo?
If so, cars don’t really need harsh detergents or solvents
otherwise you’re just stripping oils and solvents from the paint and paint will become dull after a few washes.

A plain SLES+SLS shampoo formula works fine on cars.
At the most add some ethoxylated alcohol for extra grease cutting.

I have succesfully used dypropylene glycol (the plain DPG) to lower cloud point in neutralized LABSA formulations like laundry and dishwash liquids. So much better than propylene glycol for lowering cloud point.

[Gunther]

This study states neutralized LABSA cloud points as:

https://ejchem.journals.ekb.eg/article_7631_aed50d75c833b783095ca669b368d51a.pdf

This might explain why I had trouble getting clear formulations beyond 15% neutralized LABSA.
While I was able to get some clear 15-20% sulfonate formulations at room temperature, I’ll see if they cloud at low temps.

Also, the study shows that cloud point is highly dependent on salt content.

[Gunther]

Being both cationic they’re likely chemically compatible.
Only experimentation can tell if too much cationics can lead to build up. I personally believe buildup is a myth and never experienced anything resembling that.

[Gunther]

What’s the purpose, if any, of using PEG-400?
Is that actually Polyethylene glycol 400, or some other PEG derivative?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_glycol

[Gunther]

It looks like it is shrinking on cool down
it seems to adhere to the glass walls, and leaves a hole in the center when shrinking.

[Gunther]

Hard to answer without knowing the actual ingredients and % in the formula.

[Gunther]

Usually no, as most simethicones are white solids (used in pharmaceutical products for GI issues), unlike dimethicones which clear solids or gels.
https://www.cosmeticsandtoiletries.com/formulating/function/moisturizer/87227367.html