[Gunther]

shuchi said:

Hi,

I was quite impressed with the look, feel and fragrance of my conditioner. On trying it, I instantly got a headache and felt slightly tipsy for a while. Will be happy to bust the possible error in my formulation which was as below:

D/w 67.6%
Glycerin 1.5%
Aloe gel 1.5%
Xanthum gum - q.s

Stearic acid and glycol stearate 4%
BTMS 50 -0.92%
Grapeseed oil+ Argan oil+ Sweet almond oil - 2%

Dimethicone - 1.5%
Cetrimonium chloride - 1.5%
M paraben - 0.80%
fragrance - 0.50%
citric acid - 0.10%

Is that 1.5% active cetrimonium chloride?
Or as-supplied (usually 30% active CETAC)
If it’s as supplied, then 0.45% active CETAC + 0.92% BTMS-50 is too little to keep all that dimethicone, stearic acid+glycol stearate and oils in solution.

By the way why oils (grapeseed, argan and sweet almond)?
Oils do nothing in rinse off conditioners (or shampoos).

Get rid of glycerin and aloe gel in rinse off formulations as well.

[Gunther]

Any film on skin can work as an anti-pollution barrier.

You can devise a test where you apply a petrolatum or silicone containing skin cream, then spray some dilute acids (or other chemicals) to mimic acid rain
The petrolatum or silicone film should lessen the skin damage.

No animal testing please.

[Gunther]

PVP dissolves in water.
PVP can provide a nice hold on its own so I don’t think you need any extra acrylates polymer.

By non-aerosol do you mean it will be sold in a pump spray bottle?

[Gunther]

Even if you don’t have any oils, you still need an emulsifier to emulsify the water insoluble fatty alcohols or fatty acids (often needed to thicken the formula).

[Gunther]

I do believe panthenol can do something beneficial in skin applications
(for leave-on applications, it is totally useless in rinse off ones as it all goes down the drain)

Not surprising since panthenol structure is roughly similar to glycerin which is proven to help moisturization (both are polyols).

In my opinion, once absorbed, panthenol leaves a less sticky afterfeel than glycerin does.

[Gunther]

@Aziz @Belassi Sodium hydroxide would look nasty on a label.
Even if harmless, tiny amounts are used, customers would perceive it as harsh.

So do strong mineral acids.
Hence my question.

[Gunther]

My point is

Wouldn’t strong mineral acids like Hydrochloric, phosphoric or sulfuric acids look too harsh on an ingredient label?
Even if they’re used in tiny amounts, some customers who know no better would get scared just by reading that.

Therefore I’m considering acetic acid which is found in vinegar, which some people apply vinegar on their skin.
Concentrated acetic acid smells nasty, but we’ll see if the finished product does when diluted.

[Gunther]

You can do some stochiometry math to find out how much TEA do you need to neutralize acids
then you can so some pKb math to find out how much TEA is needed to rise pH once the free acids have been neutralized.

[Gunther]

Pharma said:

Ketoconazole is an antifungal agent, it only kills fungi .

Newer research suggests ketoconazole may have some anti-DHT activity

In this paper, evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that ketoconazole 2% shampoo has a local disruption of the DHT pathway. It is proposed that using ketoconazole 2% shampoo as an adjunct to finasteride treatment could lead to a more complete inhibition of DHT and thus better treat AGA.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14729013

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3262531/

omparative data suggest that there may be a significant action of KCZ upon the course of androgenic alopecia and that Malassezia spp. may play a role in the inflammatory reaction.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9669136/

[Gunther]

That study was only meant to demonstrate that hair absorbs some panthenol.

This paper shows the same thing
http://www.healthart.gr/images/pdf/7.AQUARECALM%20cream%20file.pdf%20D-PANTHENOL.pdf
but coming from a panthenol manufacturer it must be taken with a grain of salt.

I agree that panthenol is worthless in rinse-off applications
but may have some modest benefit in leave-on ones.

[Gunther]

This study proves that some panthenol is absorbed by hair
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4794562/

I tried a simple experiment on myself
I sprayed some panthenol dissolved in water, and compared it to some bare water (leave-on)
and hair felt a bit better with panthenol.

Sure, it wasn’t a blind experiment. It was only conducted in one subject me,
but hair felt a little bit better.
I don’t know if that was only because panthenol attracts some dirt, thus making hair less squeaky clean.

[Gunther]

@Pharma what additional antioxidants do you suggest?
Are BHT and propyl gallate fine when combined with Sodium metabisulfite?

[Gunther]

1 Lanolin is useless, remove it.

2 Same for glycerin

3 What’s silicoid? A silicone? If so, how is it emulsified?
4 Glycol distearate is tricky to use on its own, you’d better get a ready-made, ready to use pearlizer that’s already emulsified.
5 Tetrasodium EDTA is easier to dissolve than the disodium one.

[Gunther]

For rinse-off products, about only silicones (and polyquaterniums to a much lesser degree) have good enough deposition (if properly formulated).

For leave-on products you can add silicones, coconut oil, and panthenol.
All of them have scientific studies to back up their effectiveness.

[Gunther]

reddymandy said:

Hi, I’m looking for formulations for dish wash liquid and an all purpose cleaner. Must be in tablet form, dilute in water and use. Similar to effervescent tablet. Dish wash tablet is for hand wash and not dish washwer

Please clear up the highlighted part.

For dishwash tablets you can do something similar to bath bombs
dry Sodium bicarbonate + citric acid with a dry, preferably powdered surfactant like SLS, and some binder.
but that’d be too harsh for hand use.

I’m still trying to figure out why a DISH wash tablet will be used on hands and not on dishes.

[Gunther]

If this product actually reduces freckles, spots or any skin pigmentation
you can be sure it ain’t because of any Vitamin C
It likely contains something like hydroquinone as an UNDECLARED INGREDIENT.

BTW they should rename it to
LOL’ not real

[Gunther]

Gunther said:

Gunther said:

This one felt nicely conditioning with mild cleaning as desired but it has almost no foam:

Phase A.
Water 60%
Polyquaternium 0.7%
Triethanolamine 0.05%
Heat and stir

Phase B
Add the following ingredients to Phase A in the listed order
EDTA Na-4 0.1%
Methylparaben 0.3%
Propylparaben 0.105%
BTMS-50 5%
CETAC solution 2%

Phase C
Laureth-9 (ethoxylated lauryl alcohol-9EO) 3%
Dimethicone 350  0.75%
Dow Amodimethicone 8087  0.75%
Premix and stir
Add phase C to A+B while heating and stirring

Dehyton-K  10% (3% active CAPB)
Protelan LS-9011 10% (3% active Na-lauroyl sarcosinate)
Cocamide DEA 1%
Cetearyl alcohol 4%
qs with water to compensate for water evaporation when heating
Fragance 0.4%

Phase D
Glycerin 1%
Polyox 0.1%
Premix, and add to the previous phases.

It looks like there are several things hindering foam

1. The surfactants are used at low levels and are mild.
3% active CAPB
3% active Sodium lauroyl sarcosinate
1% cocamide DEA
3% laureth-9
So I may try increasing them.

2. According to a study, 2% dimethicone (PDMS) hinders foaming to half, while amodimethicone (ADMS) only reduces it by about 10%
So I will try switching to 1.5% amodimethicone instead of 0.75% dimethicone, 0.75% amodimethicone.

3. Fatty alcohols reduce foaming.
I will try reducing that while still getting good viscosity and feel.
Will try switching to cetyl instead of cetearyl alcohol.

4. CETAC doesn’t seem to offer anything that BTMS doesn’t, and it’s supposed to reduce viscosity, potentially needing more foam reducing fatty alcohols to restore viscosity.
Although I didn’t notice 2% CETAC solution dropping viscosity too much. Not clearly visible to the naked eye.

5. I will try some Crothix thickener to reduce fatty alcohols usage.
Albeit I tried thickening it with Crothix before and it lead to a “watered-down” white, instead of a creamy white that fatty alcohols provide.

This formula separated after a few weeks

Doing some knock off testing, I figured out that it’s the Sodium lauroyl sarcosinate that’s causing it.
The one with CAPB did fine.

[Gunther]

We “dry” mix LABSA with SLES to form a paste (in a water bath as it warms itself up)
then add some water, allow to hydrate/dissolve
Then slowly pour NaOH solution
Then color and fragrance.

[Gunther]

Large industrial-scale tanks have some welded, protuding marks to top it off with some extra water compensate for evaporation.

You can do the same, just don’t blindly trust the beaker marks as they’re often way off
Check the marks with a quality graduated cylinder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduated_cylinder

[Gunther]

This study shows that despite using Na-metabisulfite, undegraded hydroquinone will still drop to < 50% in 12 weeks
So Sodium metabisulfite is no silver bullet, albeit the cream pH ain’t mentioned in the study at all.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.584.6620&rep=rep1&type=pdf

So it looks like you’ll need to Google more hydroquinone cream stability studies and patents before you keep on formulating.
Please keep us posted on your findings.

[Gunther]

You can also consider a low pH to help hydroquinone stability

The conventional pH for hydroquinone topical formulations is preferably acidic,
and generally below or close to a pH of 4, even though this can be harsh to the skin and possibly other
components of the product. Hydroquinone is more stable, and less likely to discolour under acidic
conditions. Variations in pH have been shown to result in marked discoloration [5,15]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332214383_Tuning_the_Transdermal_Delivery_of_Hydroquinone_upon_Formulation_with_Novel_Permeation_Enhancers
(You can download the full PDF by clicking on the ‘Download full-text PDF’ blue box on the upper righthand corner)

I wonder if Sodium metabisulfite is stable at relatively low pH levels
but likely it is as it’s used in some acidic beverages.

[Gunther]

@Gordana you’d need the SE grade glyceryl stearate as previously mentioned.

By the way for hand creams, you may wish to look into factory, ready made emulsifiers that will provide better stability and skin feel.
See what emulsifiers you can buy in your area (or online), and use the search function decide which one to use.

[Gunther]

ngarayeva001 said:

Also you don’t have enough BTMS and cetyl alcohol and way too much oils in that conditioner.

Agree. Not enough emulsifier (BTMS) and too many oils.
By the way I don’t think rinse off conditioners can deposit any significant amounts of oils on hair or skin.

@cheekychooky what’s your question?

[Gunther]

unconditional said:

Gunther said:

Behentrimonium chloride works more or less the same, and so does Cetrimonium chloride.

Does behentrimonium chloride always come with alcohol (ethanol or isopropyl alcohol?)

You’d need to read out the manufacturer specs.

Generic Cetrimonium chloride is pretty cheap and works identically to behentrimonium.

[Gunther]

What’s acid slurry?