[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]

Its not the worst.

The worst would have to be some hippy-made product where they included ‘love’ as an ingredient. I wish I had photographed it now!

[Herbnerd]

Technically you are wanting to make fluid extracts rather than tinctures. Tinctures tend to be 1:5 extracts or lower. 1:3 to 1:1 are fluid extracts and are not as simple to make.

The menstruum (liquid portion) to herb tends to be lower and the herb content much higher - Equal parts herb and menstruum in the case of 1:1 to one part herb to 3 parts menstruum in the case of a 1:3.

The menstruum needs to be appropriate for the herb you are extracting. Some herbs only require 25% ethanol/water, others require 90% ethanol/water. This depends very much on what you are extracting - resins require a higher ethanol content.

The actual technique is too long for me to explain here - just google it if you are determined to make your own extracts.

However, for cosmetic use, the fluid extracts (or tinctures) tend to get evaporated down to remove the ethanol (and maybe some of the water) and then diluted with glycerol.

[Herbnerd]

Just wondering if it is oxidation of the unsaturated fatty acids in the apricot kernal oil that is causing the colour change. I am unfamiliar with some of the other oils used.

[Herbnerd]

You can probably remove the colour. But from a herbalist point of view, the colour will be from the actives extracted from the plant - Anthocyanins are red/blue, tannins tend to be red/brown (think tannins from tea), catechins from green tea - brownish. Curcumins - yellow

Remove the colour and you will just be left with water & glycerol (or whatever these extracts are extracted in).

As for whether they are active/functional - highly improbable since they will be so highly diluted any bioactives will be far below any therapeutic levels to do anything anyway.

[Herbnerd]

Happy birthday Perry. I’d get my ukulele out and play/sing Happy Birthday - but I can’t play ukulele and neither can I sing!

Enjoy your day

[Herbnerd]

There are a huge number of options to what one might call ‘natural colourants’ but most depend very much to whether you are working to a natural standard such as COSMOS or Natrue or some other standard. For example in Australia, the standard of what is considered natural is very tight. Elsewhere this definition can be a lot looser.

Natrue has a lot of nature identical pigments and colours permitted for use in formulae. But the real problem is deciding what to use and when.

A lot of plant sourced natural colours are unstable - Chlorophyllins work best in alkali media, they go from green to yellow to clear in an acid medium. Something I wasn’t aware of when my boss wanted me to add Chlorophyllin to a silica gel toothpaste. It faded pretty quickly in stability trials

Curcumins fade very quickly - and go from yellow to clear in sunlight

Anthocyanins change colour depending on pH (they can be used as pH indicators)

Mineral pigments may or may not be permitted depending on your product, application and market.

[Herbnerd]

I’ve sold a number of formulations in the areas of food and dietary supplements and infant formula and cosmetics. The level of information I give is quite detailed.

I tend to include the formula, any specific manufacturing instructions, raw material suppliers used, packing instructions (including packaging suppliers) regulatory, allergy information, free-from statement (if required) and any certification details required.

Perhaps some may say I give away too much information - but since the customer is paying for it, they may as well have the whole lot.

[Herbnerd]

Essential oils can help. Common ingredients include menthol (usually extracted from Mentha arvensis (Field mint); also methyl salicylate - this can be synthetic (cheap) or natural as wintergreen oil (expensive option and only about 70% methyl salicylate). You will find products such as deep heat rely heavily on these two - you can include capsicum extracts, black pepper oil, camphor too.

These have such wide and common usage that you should not have difficulty sourcing or formulating with them

[Herbnerd]

For those who missed it, it was a great webinar.

For me, I wasn’t expecting to be called out for my 5 am attendance NZ time. I’ve shared this with my colleagues.

[Herbnerd]

Fantastic - thank you

[Herbnerd]

Does anyone know if this seminar be recorded and streamed?

Sounds useful - but in another seminar at the same time.

[Herbnerd]

I develop toothpaste - and I do make toothpaste for my own use. It allows me to play around and work with either the flavours or ingredients I want.

I like Euthymol from UK - but it is bloody expensive in New Zealand - so I make my own version because I like the flavour.

Also, I can make my own theapeutic products and not have to buy them - such as Fluoride 5000 ppm. It is available, but prescription only through dentists and not cheap either.

I also play around with fun concepts for my colleagues kids - such as for a Harry Potter fan, I made a green, salty flavoured toothgel can labelled it ‘troll bogies’. Kids loved it - but I can’t see the marketing team going with it.

[Herbnerd]

I can’t say for everyone, but I have conducted stability programs with lab samples and with scale up production trials and our quality program extends this to the first three production runs and one production run per product per year.

However, we may not do all tests at all stages: For example, I have been developing toothpaste. RDA/PCR/Fluoride studies have so far only been on the scale up production samples owing to the cost of this test. Preservative efficacy tests too.

Ambient stability and accelerated stability and micro have been on everything.

[Herbnerd]

perhaps flag @Perry and see if he is able to assist you since he is admin of this site.

[Herbnerd]

Joy said:

 Vegans are only about 2% of the population. 

Assuming this is the USA then vegan being 2% of the population is still almost 7 million people (based on 332 million people in USA according to google).

This is still enough people to support a brand - even if you were only reach 10% of those. Vegans don’t support any animal exploitation and see bees being exploited for honey and beeswax (though many conveniently ignore the bee exploitation to product almond milk!).

Coming from a country of around 5 million, there are a couple of vegan brands doing quite well.

Not pro or anti vegan. But technical challenges of trying to meet vegan, cruelty free, Natural/organic standards etc is what keeps the job interesting to me.

[Herbnerd]

Most natural colours are highly pH sensitive. Chlorophyll for example, is only stable in alkali media, it starts going yellow to clear once the media is acidic. 
Whilst the blue spirulina is based on phycocyanins, I understand that this too is affected by pH as well as light and chemical degradation.

I tried this in a silicon dioxide gel toothpaste - the colour disappeared during manufacturing.

[Herbnerd]

If you are using other essential oils, such as peppermint, menthol will dissolve into it easily (a bit of heat will help), more slowly, menthol will dissolve into other vegetable oils too. Once it is dissolved, it is unlikely to precipitate out.

I’m using this at 0.3-0.6% in toothpaste for flavour; however, for topical applications you may want to start at 0.01% and see what the feedback is like - and either increase or decrease from there.

[Herbnerd]

@MapX
What is your formulation? 

Whilst I can get a nice clear gel in the lab, production seems to be a hit and miss - though it seems that the vacuum pump wasn’t drawing enough vacuum and not de-aerating properly.  It also seems we can’t manufacture multiple batches without a thorough clean-down between.

We went from 1 kg lab trials straight to 800 kg trial batches (no equipment to do scale-up trials) so lots of trouble-shooting during production at the moment.

[Herbnerd]

@PhilGeis Definitely stainless (I would have to find the technical specs of the equipment to find out what type of stainless). But cleaning is neither pickled or passivated - literally mechanical scrubbing.

[Herbnerd]

@chemicalmatt Thank you - very helpful. I will discuss with the team here regarding your comments

[Herbnerd]

Patents also expire. Check the original patent date and see if it has expired or if it is due to expire.

Also, and this one has caught me, patents can be challenged and overturned in many countries, but still exist in other countries. They chap doing my job before me used Monk fruit (Mogrosides) to sweeten toothpaste - only to find the material was under patent in New Zealand, but this patent had been challenged and overturned elsewhere.

[Herbnerd]

I would suggest you manufacture your extracts separately and combine later; however, be aware that tannins can bind and precipitate alkaloids and also muscilage - for this reason alone you should extract each herb independently - but you also need to be aware that they can still interact once combined as an extract.

To do a 1:1.5 extraction you need 750 g of herb to 1 kg of liquid. Glycerol is not really assisting in extraction - so perhaps max 20% glycerol purely as a preservative. But it would be better to extract with 20% ethanol:water, evaporate to remove the ethanol and a portion of the water and add glycerol to about 50%.

To extract this amount of herb in so little liquid you will need to employ a percolation method - there are enough videos on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exnzhhcnmQ I can’t find anyone one who doesn’t look like a hippy or a prepper) -and I have not watched the video throughout!) but essentially you need a funnel, or as they have used here, a bottle that has been cut to remove the base, and pack powdered herb into the funnel - with some of the extraction fluid poured on top. Once it has hydrated all the herb, a tap is opened, and remaining liquid added and the herb extract drips out of the bottom. Excess fluid is evaporated off to concentrate the herb extracts precisely.

A similar method is used commercially.

[Herbnerd]

@chemicalmatt Thanks for that - greatly appreciate your response.

[Herbnerd]

Fair comment; though in many countries such products are also considered a medical device. However, sometimes it does come down to the wording on the pack.

Treating vaginal dryness would be a medical claim and thus a medical device in many countries.