[Gunther]

I will try to contact Colonial chem, because Vantage doesn’t reply the inquiries.

Thank a lot for all the replies guys.

[Gunther]

I’m skeptical of the results too.
Esters, fatty alcohols or anything other molecules don’t pack together as close to each other like petrolatum does, thus not as effective as forming a tight “palisade” barrier to prevent TEWL.

[Gunther]

Is STPP = Sodium Tri Poly Phosphate?
If so, get rid of it. Phosphates cause algae bloom.

[Gunther]

Adding more fatty alcohols (like cetyl, stearyl, cetostearyl), usually increases viscosity and emulsion stability.

[Gunther]

In my opinion stay off from ‘free of’ claims
most customers don’t know and don’t care about chemicals like parabens or silicones.

About the only customers that complain are usually the loud and broke ones who have too much time to spare.
They aren’t likely to pay top $ for your products.
Time is the most valuable commodity and they are wasting theirs by reading stupid internet scarmongering blogs. They aren’t worth it. They will always find something to complain about.

If you want to advertise your products as safe, then you can get your products tested in a lab, usually using chromatography devices to test for chemicals that are proven to be harmful like traces of dioxins, formaldehyde pesticides, etc.

[Gunther]

natzam44 said:

Hello,
I have seen many product with the term “Oil Free” which is obviously a marketing term. My question is what do they consider as “oil”? 

Would something like PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil still be considered an oil?

Thanks

First, do a quick survey to see if your prospective customers actually care about oil-free claims.
Most often they don’t.

[Gunther]

chemicalmatt said:

You be they do…if you are formulating them correctly. There are several deposition considerations and additives that are critical for dimethicones to work well upon rinse-off. Read up, my friend.

Thank you.
I have been reading a lot but so far I haven’t found anything about silicone deposition on skin.
On hair, then yeah a lot of tech stuff, but not for skin.

So the same principles apply to both skin and hair silicone deposition?

[Gunther]

You can make a great skin cream yourself with
some cetrimonium (or behentrimonium), petrolatum, dimethicone, cetyl or cetostearyl alcohol, glycerin and water.
They are widely available pretty much everywhere.

It should work and feel great, unless you want to include additional anionic ingredients that would cross react with the cationic cetrimonium or behentrimonium.

[Gunther]

No chemist can know it all.
There are billions of different chemical substances (and zillions of possible combinations).

At the end it all depends if the contract manufacturer or chemist already has experience developing that specific type of products. Otherwise the learning curve can become too slow and costly.

Often, both contract manufacturers and chemists charge a relatively small amount to prepare the first samples for you. They are often off the shelf formulas for them. Make sure they prepare the first samples including the specific fragrance (and fragrance amount), and even coloring that you want in the final product.

Besides the formula price and samples cost, you need to ask them how much do they charge to develop (tweak) the formula, until you (and your prospective customers) are fully satisfied with the final product.

[Gunther]

Is that a hair conditioner or a skin cream?

If it’s the former, then why it contains oil, isopropyl myristate, propylene glycol, Sodium phytate and keratin?
They do nothing in a rinse off product, increase cost and may destabilize the product.

Why so much citric acid?

You can try some cetyl + cetostearyl alcohol instead of just plain cetyl, it makes the emulsion more stable, albeit the texture is slightly different.

[Gunther]

Is cocamidopropyl betaine cationic? Ain’t it amphoteric?

[Gunther]

What’s the formula like so you can get useful replies?
Nobody leaves a car shampoo on for 6 hours so it doesn’t matter.

What matters for car shampoos is to try to emulsify some wax (i.e. carnauba wax) and get at least some useful wax deposition.

[Gunther]

Some say Guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride (which is widely available) works almost the same as PQ-10.
You can order tiny amounts of PQ-10 overseas to make some tests and compare with Guar HPTC.
You can buy them online and have it shipped to Mexico, or use some online shopping and courier companies. They do all the customs clearance for you.
https://www.makingcosmetics.com/Polyquaternium-10_p_82.html

As for amodimethicone, you can contact your local DOW chemicals distributor and see if they sell either 8170 (amodimethicone emulsion) or 8087 (pure amodimethicone), or some other amodimethicone.
Even if they don’t, you can often place a special order for it. It comes in 20 or 25 Kg vessels from the factory, so it’s not like you have to buy a huge drum.

Please keep us posted with your test results.

[Gunther]

stearalkonium is a type of benzalkonium 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stearalkonium_chloride
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzalkonium_chloride

Benzalkoniums are banned by the FDA in actibacterial soaps
I wonder if they were banned because they don’t reduce bacterial counts much more than washing the hands with soap does, or if it’s because it actually has some toxicity.

The Stearalkonium molecule has an aromatic ring that cetrimonium or behentrimonium don’t.
I wonder how this makes it different, both regarding its conditioning effects and toxicity.

I believe Cetrimonium chloride is just as good, if not better then behentrimoniums.
I tried making both leave-on and rinse off conditioners with equivalent amounts of BTMS-50 and Cetrimonium chloride + cetyl alcohol and my customers just couldn’t notice any difference in a blind test.
https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/5938/anyone-else-believes-cetac-fatty-alcohol-is-more-detangling-and-conditioning-than-btms

While CETAC works the same than BTMS, in order to make a superb conditioner, I believe that you just must use some Polyquaternium-10 and amodimethicone.

[Gunther]

@gidalbom I wonder if the positive effect you noticed is actually because of the cationic it contains (Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, and Polyquaternium-7 to a lesser degree).

You can try dropping the anionics (Sodium Laureth Sulfate and maybe Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate too) and try making a bodywash with nonionic surfactants, with small amounts of cationics (cetrimonium, behentrimonium, some polyquaterniums) added for skin conditioning.
It feels WAY better than those made with SLES.

About the only problem is that you’ll need an external thickener (like Crothix) to increase viscosity.

@ngarayeva001 may I ask if you notice any actual beneficial effect from PEG-7 glyceryl cocoate in rinse off cleansers?

[Gunther]

I don’t think dimethicone or any silicone provides much Trans Epidermal Water Loss reduction.

I believe silicones are better used to reduce foaming (in skin creams), not to reduce TEWL. Petrolatum (not mineral oil) is the best for that.

[Gunther]

ngarayeva001 said:

A random question to the experts: why the majority of commercial micellar waters have poloxamers (or PEG-6 C/C glycerides) as main surfactants? The first ones are less gentle on eyes and the latter is extremely bitter (it maters when you use it to remove lipstick). There are wonderful and cheap polysorbates without above listed issues and they cleanse well. What’s the deal with polaxomers?

Interesting point.
I thought the same thing too.

Which polysorbate would you use and why?

I read that SPAN (Tween/polysorbate younger cousins) may work better than polysorbates do, and Tween/Span combinations would be even better to remove makeup.

[Gunther]

High percentage LABSA will surely become cloudy.

You’d need to both reduce LABSA and add some SLES, CAPB, CDEA, alcohol or propylene glycol to rise its cloud point (the temperature at which it becomes cloudy).

P.S.
Read the study quoted in this post and you’ll see why
https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/6658/why-i-cant-replicate-the-same-results-with-the-formula-used-in-this-dishwash-scientific-study

By the way, can you try to replicate the formula they suggested to see if it works for you?
It is: 10% LABSA, 2% SLES, 2% CAPB. All of them in an active basis.

[Gunther]

They forgot to mention that in the 70s some people took several GRAMS of vitamin C a day
and none of them had great, smooth skin from it.
Vitamin C is useless (unless you’re truly deficient).

[Gunther]

Drop the glycerin (or reduce it to claim ingredient levels, 0.01% or so). It does nothing and may leave a sticky afterfeel.

You can try reducing SLES to about 8% active ingredient, using about 28.6% )at 28% concentration).

[Gunther]

ngarayeva001 said:

A random question to the experts: why the majority of commercial micellar waters have poloxamers (or PEG-6 C/C glycerides) as main surfactants? The first ones are less gentle on eyes and the latter is extremely bitter (it maters when you use it to remove lipstick). There are wonderful and cheap polysorbates without above listed issues and they cleanse well. What’s the deal with polaxomers?

I wonder if that’s because poloxamers reportedly become slightly gel-like at body temperature and liquid at room temperature.
They don’t fully gel in micellar waters because they’re used in at low concentrations

Other than that I can’t think another reason why they’re used. We’ll have to wait to see what the more knowledgeable guys say about it.

An important characteristic of poloxamer solutions is their temperature dependent self-assembling and thermo-gelling behavior. Concentrated aqueous solutions of poloxamers are liquid at low temperature and form a gel at higher temperature in a reversible process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poloxamer#Micellization_and_phase_transitions

[Gunther]

Polysorbate 20 rarely works at 3x
http://www.colonialchem.com/fullpanel/uploads/files/poly%20sugamulse%20d9.pdf

[Gunther]

Polysorbate 20 and/or PEG-40 HCO often need 5x the oils weight.
Only about Poly Suga Mulse D9 works fine at 3x.

[Gunther]

Is that really soaping?
It might be the white fatty alcohols taking some time to disappear.

[Gunther]

ngarayeva001 said:

 (because there’s no such thing as too much of petrolatum jk)

How much petrolatum before you find it too greasy?
for both night and day creams