[Herbnerd]

I suspect the INCI you have been given is incomplete. A quick search on google led me to this site selling wig glues.

I had to giggle at the lay-language used especially for What is Acrylic? “Short Answer: a substance cooked up in labs.”

I can only suggest spending more time researching similar products.

https://blog.walkertapeco.com/our-10-most-commonly-used-ingredients/

blog.walkertapeco.com

Our 10 Most Commonly Used Ingredients | Walker Tape®

Walker Tape & Beautify products are staples for both their performance and literal ingredients. Here's a breakdown of our top 10 ingredients.

[Herbnerd]

Acid value, peroxide and anisidine are used as markers of rancidity in oils. The Peroxide and Anisidine is often used in a calculation called TOTOX (2PV+AV) and a TOTOX value above 26 is considered rancid.

However, this is really useful in polyunsaturated oils such as fish oil, flax oils and generally oils used for nutrition rather than cosmetic use.

I guess the manufacturer is just proving their oils are not oxidised in bulk, but I would think it is of little use in cosmetic applications

[Herbnerd]

China is no problem - check the IECIC 2021 for the latest list of cosmetic ingredients

Korea & Japan you need to check whether your product is classed as a quasi-drug. If it is, then you will need to find a pharmacopoeial monograph to support it. (I’ll save you time, there isn’t one for mica) in the Big 6 Pharmacopoeia permitted in Korea (KP, JP, BP, USP, EP and the German Pharmacopiea (I think that was the last one).

Korea is very tough, even tissues are classed as quasi drugs. Japan does have some cosmetic regulations as well as quasi-drugs.

Japanese Cosmetic Ingredient

list https://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/2008/04/dl/tp0407-3a.pdf

https://www.jcia.org/user/business/ingredients/namelist

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  Herbnerd.

[Herbnerd]

There is a difference between salicylic acid and salicin - the latter being the salicylate compound found in plants.

Salicin is a glycoside which is highly soluble in water (43 g/L) (not so much in ethanol at 3 g/L); however Salicylic acid has poor solubility in water (about 2 g/L)

[Herbnerd]

I asked this question a few months back as was guided to Alconox.com

However, because we are working to Natrue standards (manufacturing toothpaste) it turned out we couldn’t use their products (or our local distributor was useless) so we use citric acid to dissolve the calcium carbonate based toothpastes only and just our existing approved surfactants should we need it.

[Herbnerd]

You don’t dissolve the iron oxide - you just disperse it. You just need to ensure it is evenly dispersed and there are no lumps. Any lab mixer should be able to do this.

[Herbnerd]

I’ve used Capric/caprylic triglycerides as an alternative but I am working to Natrue and the other options were somewhat limited.

[Herbnerd]

I’ve been developing toothpastes for a few years now. Most of our toothpaste does not use any sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate or any other preservative; however two of them do - our toothpaste is stable based on low water activity (0.2 from memory), high pH (calcium carbonate pastes are generally pH 8-8.5).

We have tested to various PET/Log count methods (ISO, BP, USP etc) and all passed with the exception of the kids toothpaste.

With the kids toothpaste we sought extra advice on pH from Indiana University’s Oral Health Research Institute as to the lowest pH we could go to - and the advise we received was surprisingly low; however, we ended up using potassium sorbate and targeting a pH of 5-5.5 and we passed PET/Log counts.

Note: We develop to a natural standard and many options for effective preservation were not available to us.

[Herbnerd]

When we moved from our old manufacturing site to a new site; our QA manager at the time drew up new site plans and asked our auditor to review them. The auditor came up with a few things he would like to see and the QA manager updated the plans to include comments from the auditor.

This was certainly cheaper than paying someone to do the plans for us.

BTW - Operations manager took those plans and ignored them and built something incompatible with future plans. We moved into the new site and he promptly resigned!

[Herbnerd]

No reliable way.

Most companies hide their IP by stating ranges for their ingredients. Even with experience, you can sort of guess the approximate ratios - but may not be exactly right.

[Herbnerd]

Is this an annual subscription? If so, what is the cost for this?

[Herbnerd]

Often it is around the purity of the ingredient in question - and sometimes there is no difference at all. Food products tend to have a higher purity (lower heavy metals and other contaminants) because we ingest more food and smaller quantities of pharma and in theory, not ingesting cosmetics.

Generally (at least here in NZ) the main difference can be who is selling what and the agreements they have with various agencies. One supplier has the agency for food products and another has the agency for pharma and yet another has the agency for cosmetics.

[Herbnerd]

Raspberry ketone as a multifuntional has been out a lot longer than March this year - the article you posted dates from February 2021.

I looked at it as part of a reformulation of a natural toothpaste. But being a flavour (raspberry ketone is primary a flavour ingredient) it obviously imparted a distinct raspberry flavour. Depending on your intended product, you may have distinct raspberry notes to cover. But we never progressed further than a lab sample. It has also been used previously as a weight-loss supplement (I doubt it was effective anyway).

We ended up using potassium sorbate.

[Herbnerd]

Charcoal is just wood burned without oxygen. Charcoal is just ‘activated’ using steam - all it does is increase the surface area to increase absorption capacity.

I can’t see it in the NPA list, nor on Natrue. However, this would be acceptable by Natrue because Charcoal would be considered a natural product.

But if I were to look to the Australian definition of ‘natural’ it would include very few ingredients - even something as simple as Lavender oil would be considered synthetic because steam distillation does not exist in nature.

By all means use a natural standard - but it comes at a cost. Weigh up whether the cost of an external audit is outweighed by the sales of that product meeting that standard. If it does, it may not be worth it.

[Herbnerd]

Do you think MoCRA will follow the EU with their 82 Mandatory allergens or the old 26 allergens used by a few other countries or publish a list of their own?

[Herbnerd]

I can help you with toothpaste - but I need a lot more detail of what you are trying to achieve and the formula with which you are working.

[Herbnerd]

If you are doing an oil extraction of the plant, it is unlikely unless there are any oil-soluble salicylate compounds present. Salicylic acid is soluble at about 2.4% in oil; however the acid form may not be present in appreciable quantities to be considered therapeutic.

Plants are full of a tonne of compounds - and depending on the plant (genus/species) and sometimes down to chemotypes of plants, also where it is grown, when it is harvested the target compounds may be present in greater or lesser quantities.

You may be better buying a standardised extract (such as Salix alba bark extract standardised to X% salicin; but if you are using this is a topical cream the salicin won’t be broken down from its glycoside to the free acid.

You could however, use another salicylate compound - such as methyl salicylate or wintergreen oil. You can buy synthetic methyl salicylate but wintergreen oil if you want natural.

[Herbnerd]

Fair comment, I hadn’t considered that aspect of it. And I should, because for the last 5 years I have been fixing all sorts of issues from when the company I work for bought out the company for which I have been sorting out documentation, labels, international registration etc.

I guess I assumed that wouldn’t have been so widespread an issue in the industry.

[Herbnerd]

There is that - but also when a corporation buys out a company they impose their ethos over everything; this can be completely at odds with the original founder of the company.

Body Shop was good in their day, but as consumers demand more of a story, more ‘natural’ ingredients and Body Shop failed to keep up with what their customers want. As such their customers deserted them in favour of brands that are more closely aligned to their ethics.

[Herbnerd]

China has recently published new standards for cosmetics and since our business exports toothpaste to China, this affects us. The new regulations were published late September.

My boss is complaining that we should have let him know ‘months ago’ and not just now. The new regulations are to be implemented on 1st December this year. Our supposed head of innovation has no idea of innovation or regulation.

[Herbnerd]

We are not US based - but our company has decided that the USA is to be our next ‘home base’ and so far everyone is oblivious to MoCRA. I’ve discussed it, sent emails out defining what needs to be done and by when.

Nope - I’m just putting in road-blocks. Oh well, they will find out soon enough and I have an email trail to back me up.

[Herbnerd]

I actually had this discussion with my boss this morning. He was ‘unaware’ of this and wondered what we have done to mitigate the situation.

Thankfully I have emails dating back almost a year appraising him of the situation.

[Herbnerd]

Absolutely.

[Herbnerd]

I guess that is corporate life.

One company buys out another, then employs ultracrepidarian managers who not only have no experience of the industry we are in but know enough to tow the company line with their pretty powerpoints and incomprehensible jargon where we have ‘medium term event horizons’ and the need to ‘litigate’ with other team members.

Meanwhile, in this company there are two people who actually do have industry experience propping up an organisation with deep pockets and zero competency.

[Herbnerd]

“When clients embark on creating “natural” cosmetics, they often lack a
clear direction. Consequently, the product design phase becomes
challenging, resembling herding cats. Clients may resort to unreliable
online sources to scrutinize unfamiliar raw materials.”

Now substitute clients for Marketing and you have totally describes the marketing team at the company where I work! I mean, they cannot decide on timings, namings of projects and generally cause all round confusion - let alone give an ordered brief.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Herbnerd.