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jeremien said:

O/O emulsion interesting concept. I already know about  W/W emulsions.. 

That’s two new thing I have learned today!

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Perry said:

@Dtdang - of course, being misinformed about a subject is usually worse than being uninformed about a subject.

So true - Misinformed means you are arguing with a brick wall. At least you can educate the uninformed.

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lactobacillus will not extract anything from the plants; but what it will do is ferment any sugars to alcohol and lower the pH.

Others doing this are purely doing so to offer the liquid that contains the probiotics; some will separate and dry and mill the plants.

To be honest, there is no benefit to doing this other than claiming some marketing BS. The use of lactoferments is more of dietary use than cosmetic.

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Creatine and creatine monohydrate are essentially the same thing. One is anhydrous the other is hydrated. Unless you are using this in a dry powder, it isn’t going to make any difference.

Even if you do use it in a powder, anhydrous will turn to monohydrate quickly enough. It is a fairly hygroscopic material

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@”Dr Catherine Pratt” Thanks for your suggestion. I’ve just had a 25 kg sack of Kaolin (Halloysite) clay dropped from a rep at Axieo.

I’ll update how I get on - I guess I will need to add more than I used for titanium dioxide.

Thanks again.

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@”Dr Catherine Pratt” A white clay such as kaolin? Or do you have a preferred white clay?

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That’s the problem with marketers and management - they want a lab to look like something out of the movies that they can show off to prospective clients and not something that looks, as @Duncan says, a glorified kitchen with some measuring equipment.
I’ve done a lot more with a lot less than people would think.  

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L-ascorbic acid is the true vitamin C. USP just refers to the United States Pharmacopoeia, the standard to which it is tested. Ascorbic acid, Ascorbic Acid USP, Ascorbic acid BP, L-Ascorbic acid (with or without BP/USP) is all the same thing.

D-ascorbic acid is often sold as Erythorbic acid. It’s much cheaper and tends to used in foods as an antioxidant.

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Google can be your worst enemy at times - its always hard to find the authoritative information and if you don’t know the names of the equipment to search for, you can search forever.

I’m not looking for cosmetic use - I tend to work in the dietary supplement industry and there seems to be a lot of interest in Liposomes in the industry at present. Since preparation is the same whether it is cosmetic or pharmaceutical…. I just thought I would ask.

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The company I work at has a sequential numbering system but not much else and it all somehow works.

In the previous database system, we had separate codes and separate areas for raw materials, packing materials, finished products etc.

The new ERP system doesn’t seem to differentiate that easily - all areas are in one page only. As long as you know what you are searching for and can isolate the data interrogation to the items you are after, it is fine.

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Happy Birthday, old chap.

4/4 is lucky for some, unless you are Chinese!

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@Bozchemist

Thanks for that. The Guar/Xanthan blend is a TIC gum product, which along with the Acacia gum, worked very well when making a stable emulsion.

Re Flavours being microemulsions (esp soda) yep - I did know that. I worked as a sales rep for a flavour house for a year. I sucked big time at sales and decided to go back to doing what I enjoy the most - being a lab rat!

Cheers

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@bobzchemist - I wish I had a like button for that! I will have to remember that.

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Thanks for your comments @bobzchemist.

Silica - I have to use this as part of the formulation anyway since the customer wants to make the Silica claim (about 47% Silica)  and that was why I was wondering whether I could use Silica to use a Pickering emulsion. I think the Silicon Dioxide we have at work is Aerosil (need to check the type) which is fumed silica (I believe, but happy to be corrected on this), and I like the idea of the Calcium Silicate.

I did do a nutritional emultion a year or two back using roughly 1/3rd Sugar, 1/3rd Oil, 1/3rd water using gum arabic 2%, and Guar/Xanthan blend at about 0.2% and this created a nice mayonaise like emulsion.

I guess I could try:

• Acacia gum 2%
• Guar/Xantham blend 0.2%
• Silica 3.5%
• Oil 2%
• Everything else QS to fill

I will let you know how I get on. Thanks for your thoughts

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The Ester-C that is often sold is a Calcium Ascorbate-Calcium Threonate complex bound with an ester bond between the two.

I think the original Ester C is under patent, but I think Monarch sells a version of the Calcium Ascorbate Calcium Threonate but unsure whether this is just a blend of Ascorbate and Threonate or whether this is actually ester-bonded.

I’ve only worked with this material in dietary supplements creating a chewable tablet so am unable to advise on the rest of your questions

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Regarding Stevia - you can source Rebaudoside A, which is much sweeter than Stevia alone and allows you to use less of it. Most of the stuff I have found is very fine - almost talc-like

in the USA, contact Cargil, if elsewhere in the world, contact Layn in China. They do some very nice product - and perhaps look at their Monk fruit/Reb A blends

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depending on how waxy it is, I would probably finely mill some high intensity sweeteners - Sucralose, Aspartame, Acesulfame Potassium (Ace-K), Stevia Thalin/Thaumatin etc and disperse throughout the lip-balm.

I have done flavoured fish oil softgels this way.

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It would probably be easier to use a protease and a low pH  to digest the proteins and release the vitamin C - but there is also the danger of the Ascorbic acid would oxide and disappear anyway.

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 I guess the best way would be to speak with the manufacturer to supply an assay method for protein encapsulated vitamin C. Most suppliers would supply this (well, in pharmaceutical fields at least).

However, I have my doubts - it doesn’t add up to me.

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Probably look at a high-school chemistry text book and remove anything you don’t feel is important for cosmetic chemistry might be the easiest place to start.

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Most of the verbosity surrounding logo redevelopment is really just marketing masturbation.

The logo looks fine, but CEO’s explanation of it is utterly meaningless. It has been written by marketing consultants to sell a re-developed logo to an idiotic CEO who then parrots it out to the general public as it the words actually mean something. A touch of the Emperor’s new clothes perhaps?

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If it is a fractionated coconut oil why not consider using a hydrogenated coconut oil?
Depending on the amount used, you should be able to retain some clarity.

In the course of my work, I have to do this sort of thing a lot - but clarity has never been an issue. We tend to use GMS, Beeswax, hydrogenated oils and the like.

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I can comment on the botanical part only.

The botanical extracts, such as Aloe, come as extract ratios. Aloe is a 200:1 extract, meaning that 1 g of the powder is equivalent to 200 g of the fresh inner leaf gel.

It doesn’t take a lot of maths to work out that in a 200 mL bottle, you could have 1 g of active and still be able to claim 100% activity!

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@pma - I read something about this a few months back. Using polyphase emulsions to stabilise vitamins in food.

Can’t quite remember the reason why they were doing this in foods though.

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You can get Sucrose BP, EP, USP/NF (Pharmaceutical grade not cosmetic
grade) - but as @Alchemist and @Duncan says, you will be charged a
premium for it and you would be better buying from the local cash and
carry store - unless of course, you do need Pharmaceutical grade for
some reason.