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ngarayeva001 said:

@Agate, I agree censoring is evil. This situation is just frustrating. How many people would bother reading WHO recommendations? Not many I guess, but much more would use ready formula. People enjoy cooking and there are much more chances that someone repeats it when it’s written in a format “1 cup of alcohol, 2 cups of aloe etc”. And some of them would think, “I don’t have alcohol, I will replace it with vodka, it has alcohol too”. So even if the DIY formula measured in cups was written correctly and has 60% v/v of alcohol, it doesn’t mean that people will reproduce it right.

Honestly, I find the best approach if I see friends posting such stuff is to advise them that they need minimum 60-70% alcohol in the finished product - using vodka at say 40% means there is only 24% ethanol - barely enough to keep the product self preserving.

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@alchemist01

Lobelia inflata because of its toxicity  (lobeline and isolobeline content) is used at very low doses and it is more than likely that this is a homoeopathic tincture.

As for definitions of 1X (also referred to as a 1D in some countries) best to refer to a homoeopathic materia medica - the X (or D) refers to a 1:10 dilution. That is 1 part herb to 9 parts solvent (ethanol, water etc)

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Perry said:

This seems like it is a reference to food extracts. See this description of vanilla extract. 
http://www.amadeusvanillabeans.com/extracts/single-fold-vanilla.php

For vanilla extract
1X = 3.45% vanilla beans, 96.55% alcohol
2X = 6.9% vanilla bans, 93.1% alcohol

True - but vanilla is the only herb I have come across listed in this manner. Also, vanilla can be listed as 1-fold, 3 fold extract too.

[Herbnerd]

Normally a 1X refers to a homoeopathic extract - 1 part herb to 90 parts water and succussed 200 times (a sort of mix of shaking and banging the extraction vessel onto a hard surface.

However, you could have a 1:10 extract - which is little more than a weak plant extract, usually reserved for toxic plants used in herbal medicine. That said, it could also be used to produce plant extracts for cosmetic purposes for the purposes of a claim. Herbal extracts are never stated as 1X but 1:10. This means 1 part herb to 9 parts solvent

Most herbal extracts are concentrated powdered extracts as 5:1 - one part extract is equivalent to 5 parts dry herb.

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Never formulate with raw honey - it makes it difficult to export to some countries.

Pasteurised honey is fine. I have done work with honey powder - from 100% Freeze dried (never use this - it is as deliquescent as hell), 70% spray dried on maltodextrin (hygroscopic and turns sticky), 50% spraydried on cyclodextrin (was fine to work with - but expensive)

If you are working on a cream, better dissolve your honey into your aqueous phase, but use pasteurised honey to prevent micro issues too.

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Pharma said:

 Greta Thunberg must be smiling too…

Hardly - it looks like she has a permanent scowl.

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Bill_Toge said:

a vacuum pump can only do so much; the best way to avoid bubbles is to avoid introducing air into the product in the first place (prevention being better than cure)

So true - but it seems my vacuum mixer is whipping more air into the product than I started with. 

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Hong Kong is officially part of China, but is an SAR and has its own laws and governance.  For China (Mainland) we had to comply with the GB regulations. HK was very different and a lot more relaxed is its regulatory framework.

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We are formulating and reformulating all of our products to COSMOS Natural standards. The only reason is we sell our products in Australia, and Australia’s definition of what is and what is not natural is extremely restrictive. They consider orange oil that has been mechanically pressed to be natural, but a steam distilled essential oil is not.

The sole reason we took this route is that we are not claiming natural, but we are using someone else’s trademark and audit process to say we meet their standards - In essence, it is a low risk claim that actually isn’t a claim.

As many have pointed out to me, if you want to claim natural you can just make up your own definitions. If you want to claim organic - you must meet the organic definitions and certifications of that particular body - Soil Association in UK, NOP in USA etc.

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Regarding “expired” ingredients. We use to regard some ingredients as expired and would dispose of at that date, for others, such as vitamins and minerals we used the date as a re-test date to the assay against the C of A. And this does seem to be accepted pharmaceutical practice for some materials

We used to re-test micro, loss on drying and assay of the vitamin concerned to ensure it either complied with the manufacturer’s C of A or didn’t deviate far from it (in which could be considered analyst error during testing).

However, for 25 g it is probably not worth paying a couple of hundred dollars to do all this. For something that is barely 6 months past expiry, and a product of this nature, and the fact you are likely to be using it in a trial product - I would suspect you can safely use it.

I would be more concerned if you were making a 3 tonne batch and had a couple of hundred kilos going into it - then I would test the hell out of everything and ask QA to extend the retest date.

[Herbnerd]

Depends on many thing.

Perfume ingredients can be:

• Natural (from fully natural sources) or,
• Artificial from synthetic analogues of natural compounds (used to be called “Nature Identical” but this is deemed misleading now.
• Synthetic  - from the laboratory only.

Geraniol can be sourced from Rose Geranium (Pelargonium graveolans) and the geraniol can be fractionated from the steam distilled geranium oil.
Geraniol can also be synthetically manufactured.

It can be the same for Citronellal (natural from lemon grass, or synthetic). Both can be combined with other natural perfume ingredients to make either a natural rose oil or a synthetic rose oil (depending on the source of the perfume chemicals). The manufactured stuff is cheap - but both the natural and synthetc perfumes can also be referred to as rose oil. 

Rose absolute can be produced from rose petals and is very expensive. I’m not sure enfleurage is still used, but CO2 can be effective at extraction.

There are a number of truly synthetic flavour and perfume ingredients, such as ethyl vanillin, which was one of the first synthetic perfume chemicals.

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It should be one of those discussions you have with a CM before you impart any information. Some labs will have different fees depending on whether they own the IP or whether you retain ownership regardless of the work they have done - and in which case, they may charge you a development fee.

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Yep - still a thing. I am currently reformulating a range of toothpaste to “remove the nasties” (that was the brief - and I had to get the marketing team to define the nasties they want removed.

I guess their thinking is that green tea saponins or olive oil glutamate looks better on the label to the natural crowd than Sodium Lauryl Sulphate.

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I have a lot of experience in nutraceutical formulations - anything from tablets and softgels to spray dried powders. I’m happy to give you a hand.

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Dr Catherine Pratt said:

Use Leucidal 2% and Amp cide 2%

hope this helps

@”Dr Catherine Pratt” Who supplies this in Aus?

[Herbnerd]

You can go as much as 50% water/glycerol and still have a low Aw and at that level it shouldn’t degrade the vitamins too much (add 100% overage) and have good shelf life stability too. Adding the acacia/Xanthan/guar or other water soluble rheology agent should help with your gel.

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Belassi said:

Dammit - I want to visit

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@mikethair @Perry Thanks you for your advice. 

You have been very helpful. It seems also the Chinese GB standard for cosmetics follows the EU standards too - but with certain parts omitted that are not relevant to China.

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ozgirl said:

Just be careful with colorants because the US only allows a small number of approved colorants to be used in cosmetics.

That’s easy - we are not using any colourants.

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Did you try the beeswax-oil suggestion when you posted this last time?

With a 40% powder loading it is hard to prevent separation over time. I can’t see that glycerol will be any better. I don’t know of any viscosity modifiers that would work in glycerol alone.

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Dr Catherine Pratt said:

Beet powder inevitably turns poo brown….

Delicately stated

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mehrzadkia said:

Perry said:

@mehrzadkia - very good question. The unsatisfying answer is because that’s what the regulations are. 

The FDA even specifically says “Approval of a color additive for one intended use does not mean approval for other uses.”  Therefore, even if a colorant is approved for food, that does not mean it is approved for cosmetics.

The cosmetic industry in the US is not highly regulated except in a couple areas. Colorants is one of those areas. Formulators (who follow the law) are limited to the colors listed in the FDA approved colorants. The safety or origin the ingredient does not matter. If it’s not on the list, it’s illegal to use as a colorant. 

Thank you Dr. Perry for the clarification.

I guess it has something to do with the stability and subsequent changes of natural colorants in the formulas. As far as I’m concerned, beetroot powder and all other food/fruit/vegetable powders do not work in color cosmetics as they are. They either don’t work at all (they color the product but not the skin) or they stain the skin irreversibly (like turmeric or henna).

Natural colours are really unstable. Most change colour with pH and have been used as pH indicator solutions, those that don’t tend to have high light instability anyway.

In one formulation (this was naturally coloured fish oil softgels) the turmeric produced a beautiful shade of yellow - then bleached in barely 48 hours to white (the base colour of the softgel is titanium dioxide).
Anthocyanin colours are often used as pH indicators too. Hibiscus for example is yellow at neutral pH, green in alkalis and only red in acidic solutions. 
Blue pea is blue in neutral solutions but turns pink in acidic solutions.

Beet powder is a little more stable compared with others, but it does go more pink in an acid and redder in alkali.

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I have been on the receiving end of documents not intended for me. I usually just reply to advise that these have been sent to me in error and the emails have been deleted and the attachments have been unread.

One occasion the supplier sent me docs and included the managing director of a competitor company in the email. I can only assume extremely apologetic emails were sent to the MD and others in the team.

Another instance a govt agency sent the results of an audit to the wrong person (a friend of mine) in the wrong company - news got out very quickly about the failed audit… 

Mistakes happen, I guess it is better to admit the mistakes and apologise profusely; but if you are on the receiving end of those emails, discretion is better.

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@Perry Thanks. I thought this was the case, but it is great to get confirmation.

Now it just seems Korea and Japan have their own curious regs to work through

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LuisJavier said:

wondering how thick an acacia gum ‘firm-hold’ product would feel and in what medium it would be stored in. 

In a word “Crispy” when dry and in your beard/moustach. As a liquid it is viscous. 

The product I used is an Indian “Fixer” and it really is just acacia gum, water, preservatives & perfume. It does give a very firm hold and washes out easily.