[IrinaTudor]

What ingredients are you missing?

I would say: leave the essential oils out and the fragrance (there is a difference here the ‘fragrance’ can be any kind of mixture of aromatic raw materials) and make an unscented version first. Lush make their products (to look) like food so use ‘fluff’ natural ingredients that don’t add much to the performance. Basically this a mixture of hydrated powders to be used as a hair mask (there was a thread on this a while ago). It makes for a messy and slimy product (I bought and tried it, it smells nice but that’s about it).

So you need to ask yourself: what is it about this product that you actually like or is it the fluff that you’re after?

Good luck!

p.s Lush overdose their products with fragrance like crazy, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the fragrance comprised 5%-10% of the final formula.

[IrinaTudor]

Hi @odehn24, for which fragrance supplier do you work? Do you make finished products and/or raw materials or re-sell them? Most fragrance suppliers have a database of raw materials that include specs on stability in bleach. Like this one:

http://www.givaudan.com/Fragrances/Fragrance+Ingredients/Advanced+Search_hidden

This is an example of the steps for a bleach stability protocol:

1. dosing a perfume material under test into the standard unperfumed bleach base and incubating the dosed base at 20°C in a sealed container for seven days;

2. dividing the bleach base into two portions and adding to each portion 13% sodium perborate tetrahydrate, together with either 10% TAED granules or sodium sulphate (to act as an inert filler in place of TAED)

3. incubating both test and control bases in sealed containers at 45°C for a further seven days; and

4. assessing samples of the test and control powders according to a standard triangle test as described in “Manual on Sensory Testing Methods” published by the American Society for Testing and Materials (1969), using a panel of 20 assessors, who are instructed to judge by smell which of the three base samples is the odd one out, the perfume material being designated a bleach-stable perfume component when - the odd one out of three is correctly identified by no more than 9 of the 20 assessors. 

And you need to check the lipoxidase-inhibiting capacity of at least 50% or a Raoult Variance Ratio of at least 1.1.

hth

[IrinaTudor]

You’re most welcome @nasrins!

[IrinaTudor]

@milliachemist, yes, I would. But @nasrins can’t do that, as the fragrance mixtures are provided as such: mixtures of an unknown number of undisclosed mystery components. This is often the case with pre-mixed fragrance blends.Unless the supplier can provide a spec sheet where the polarity of the mixture has been determined (not likely to happen), there is not much she can do other than prevent further or trouble shoot existing issues.

[IrinaTudor]

Hi @nasrins a lot of excellent advice has been given. I would like to add the following:

-first add polysorbate 80 to the fragrance

-then add the surfactants to the fragrance 

So basically you first need to prepare your fragrance solution. Then add the surfactants bit by bit while mixing them in to the same beaker that contains the fragrance concentrate. A bit like making mayonnaise from scratch

You can always ask a fragrance specialist for designing a fragrance that is compatible with your specific formulation. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need specific help with this.

p.s. I don’t think that nonylphenol ethoxylate is necessarily the culprit, most solvents used for fragrance concentrates are DEP, DPG and IPM. DPG and IPM can indeed pose viscosity and stability problems when mixed with surfactants. I wonder how you came to that conclusion @chemicalmatt? There is always so much to learn

[IrinaTudor]

Are you planning to sell the products to the public? 

Ethanol will indeed work as an enhancer, of all other ingredients too. Any irritants will also have effect on the skin.

[IrinaTudor]

Where on the body will you apply the product? Black Pepper EO can be extremely irritating, same goes for citrus oils… Why do you want to restrict yourself to natural aromatics?

[IrinaTudor]

Indeed @Bob. I remember an article on the blind evaluation of cosmetics and I believe the 3 main factors were of a sensory nature with the top 3 being fragrance, color & texture.

And yes, duplication of fragrances is getting better all the time (and very handy and educational), but it will still remain a ‘smell alike’ and seldom a ‘smells the same’. 

[IrinaTudor]

I doubt that too, plus caprylyl glycol is an alcohol not an ester.

In this case I would say, from all ingredients, Biosacharide gum-2 could have some odor, as it is a rhamnose derivative. It would account for a very light sweet fruity odor. From what I see it could be part of Rhamnosoft and I haven’t smelled that one yet.

[IrinaTudor]

Indeed @Bobzchemist and @Ajmcguire.

I would like to add that reverse engineering a fragrance is a little bit more complicated and also more costly than your average cosmetic formula. 

First you will indeed need to run a chemical analysis. But the results can only be interpreted correctly by a fragrance specialized chemist or analyst. Natural aromatics like essential oils, for example, are made up of several single molecules.

Then you will need a perfumer that is able to identify molecules that are added in trace amounts. Some fragrance molecules have a huge impact on the odor even in quantities as little as 0.00001 %.

And you will probably stumble across ‘captives’. These are aroma molecules or a mixture of aromatics that are patented and cannot be used by other companies than the one that synthesized them. 

A nice book on the subject is “Scent & chemistry” 

http://www.amazon.com/Scent-Chemistry-uuml-nther-Ohloff/dp/3906390667

[IrinaTudor]

Well, here in the EU, an ingredient list must mention if any of the 26 (!) fragrance allergens are present in the cosmetic product above a 0.01% for rinse-off products or 0.001% for leave-on products. 

Linalool is an example of such a fragrance material that is also considered a fragrance allergen. This doesn’t necessarily mean it comes from an essential oil, it may as well be part of a fragrance formula and be of synthetic origin. However most natural fragrance ingredients contain a variety of fragrance allergens. These will all need to be listed separately at the end of the ingredient list.

Also ‘fragrance’ as an ingredient will always be kept secret and may contain up to 500 different single molecules, most will remain undisclosed. One of the hardest things to reproduce in a cosmetic product is its fragrance.

[IrinaTudor]

Hello all,

I love this site and forum and have added to some discussions in the past under a different name, when I had to remain anonymous due to ‘trade secrets’. 

Anyways, I am happy to come out and play again, especially as I am proud of my new website & projects.

I’m based in the Netherlands, Europe and my passion is fragrance and everything smelly Smelling, scents & perfume have been my passion all my life. It kinda entered my research career unnoticed (like most ambient scents do) almost 15 years ago and it stuck with me. By a combination of  sheer luck and seizing opportunities, I ended up working for the fragrance industry as an olfactory scientist, then as a perfumer and cosmetic scientist. After doing trade secret work behind the scenes of some of the biggest brands of the F&F industry, I decided it was time to own my skills and help others. 

It feels a bit like starting over and a big smelly adventure

If you have any questions about smells, fragrances or scents, I’m your gal. And am always happy to learn new things and tricks of the trade.

Smell you later!

[IrinaTudor]

Hi everyone,

I am a cosmetic scientist & consultant based in Europe, The Netherlands and I’m specialized in fragrance and everything smelly  

You can contact me with any and all questions regarding fragrance & perfume formulating, perfumery training and olfactory science & research. I am also a qualified EU safety assessor for fragrance and cosmetics. If you are not based in the EU, but wish to market your products for the EU, I can fulfill the role of responsible person and explain the regulatory steps you need to take.

For your daily smelly (science) news, please follow us on Twitter at @SomethingSmelly. We hope to expand on YouTube as well and add more content that puts the FACT back in olFACTory

Smell you later!

Irina