[justaerin]

Hello, fellow hobbyist!

This is anecdotal, but I haven’t had good luck with that emulsifier staying stable when much under pH 6, so 5 may be an overly optimistic rock-bottom. Also make sure it is under 40 C before you add anything in the cool down. It doesn’t like being rushed. I wrecked a batch with optiphen at 45 C.

I don’t know how much of a lift or effect you’ll get from 1% vanilla extract, because I’m assuming that you mean the kind for cooking. In which case I would put it in the heated water phase. Remember to check the IFRA or supplier recommended safe usage for any essential oils.

[justaerin]

@1Armand2  AOS is short for Alpha Olefin Sulfonate, which is another way to refer to Sodium Olefin Sulfonate.

[justaerin]

@abierose we all have to start somewhere.

First, please don’t take my word for any of this, always do your own research. But I’m not trying to sell you anything, so I’m less likely to tell you what I think you want to hear. People who are open to learning often know a lot. Many of the people here know more than I ever will about cosmetics and chemistry in every way, but I am pretty good at shopping online. At this point, don’t buy essential or fragrance oils on Amazon. Even the otherwise good brands are relatively poor quality. Don’t buy MLM oils either. Buy them from local stores or order directly from specialty, soapmaking, or cosmetics raw materials suppliers.

Not all information is equally good, so consider the source. The same is true for sellers and products. You can learn how to tell the good from the bad.  Popularity doesn’t imply quality or authenticity, it just means that it appears that people buy it and leave positive reviews. People follow other people.

In this case, as in most, it helps to know at least a bit about what you’re buying, then figuring out how much it should cost.

Most essential oils are distilled from plants by boiling parts like leaves, roots, bark, and occasionally flowers. Citrus oils can pressed or distilled. There are a few natural extracts used in perfumery that are sometimes essential oils but sometimes CO2 extracts or concretes or absolutes or oleoresins, however they are usually very expensive.

Sold by unscrupulous sellers as essential oils that are always fragrance oils: musk or anything else that comes from animals, coconut, nearly all fruits, berries, melons, most florals

Often sold as essential oils, and these oils/extracts do exist, but will be adulterated, substituted, poor quality, or fragrance oils if they aren’t expensive: rose, neroli, helichrysum, ylang ylang, sandalwood, jasmine, rosewood, vanilla, coffee

[justaerin]

Does that strawberry oil smell like strawberries? Because there is no such thing as strawberry essential oil. There are strawberry fragrance oils and, much less common, strawberry seed oil.

Strawberry fragrance oils that I’ve looked at often contain quite high amounts of benzyl benzoate, and some also contain benzyl alcohol. While they are safe even at high rates of usage, they are both known to be irritating.

I also find phenoxyethanol quite irritating to my face, and even more when mixed with strawberry fragrance.

I’d just use 5 or 6% emulsifying wax and drop the BTMS-50. Not because it is irritating, but because it probably won’t make much of a difference in the final product and BTMS-50 is way more expensive.

[justaerin]

Belassi said:

PhilGeis said:

Sodium benzoate by itself is not adequate.   A simple check of cosmetic labels (not just for micellar water) shows virtually none using that option.  Pseudomonads eat benzoate.

Tell that to Coca or Pepsi Cola. That is the preservative they use.

But the pH of cola is ~2.5, not 5. I’m guessing that makes a difference, but I don’t know.

Cola facial peels might be the next big thing. Or cola cleansers. Or a post bar soap washing cola hair rinse. The stickiness is just natural humectants!

[justaerin]

I did a bit of experimenting with HEC recently, because I had bought it and why not. The HEC is whatever they sell at Lotioncrafter that I am too lazy to check right now.

What I learned is that this HEC really wants to be hydrated in nearly plain water that is neutral or alkaline before adding anything active. It was ok with a small amount of glycerin, and heating made it hydrate faster. 0.1% tetrasodium EDTA was fine too.

It does not like acidic water. As in, it won’t hydrate in acidic solution under about pH 6. Didn’t matter how long I left it or how much I stirred it or heated it.

If you are trying to hydrate it in 21% aloe vera with a bunch of other extracts too, you are going to be disappointed. Even if you neutralize the aloe/extracts before adding the HEC, I don’t know if there will be enough water in it to make it work.

Try a batch where you replace all of the extracts with plain water and see if that works.

[justaerin]

Galaxy1111 said:

wait…why cant i dissolve pepper is it impossible to do so?

Because cayenne pepper is a ground up fruit. It is not completely oil soluble or water soluble. There’s other material there, like fiber and cellulose, that doesn’t dissolve in either water or oil. You’d need to filter it out in order to make your creation sprayable.

[justaerin]

I am not a chemist. I am not great at math. Maybe I can help.

(Note: I am not suggesting that anyone do this, it is just an example on how I
do the math. I am more comfortable using this incredibly roundabout way
because it is simple and easy to remember how to do. I apologize to any
chemists reading this. I know that it is especially bad because it is
about an acid and the original version is probably a v/v not w/w
solution.)

Does it help to think of it as a solution where 1 arbitrary unit, like a gram, of this solution is 0.7 glycolic acid plus 0.3 water?

So if you use 10 grams of this solution, 7 of that is glycolic acid and 3 is water.

If you put 10 grams of this 70% glycolic solution into a bottle, and you add 90 grams of water to it, you’d have 7 grams of glycolic acid in 93 grams of water, or a 7% glycolic acid solution.

If you needed some other amount of a 70% solution as an active percentage in the final product, say 5%, there’s probably a better way to do it, but what I do is get out a calculator and start putting in numbers. To get the active amount you take a number and multiply it by 0.7.

So to get a 5% active solution from a 70% active solution, I started with 8 x 0.7, which is 5.6

That’s too much, so then I tried 7.5 x 0.7 = 5.25

Closer, but still too much so 7.25 x 0.7 = 5.075

Ok, then 7.15 x 0.7 = 5.005

If I really wanted to play it safe, 7.1 x 0.7 = 4.97

So to make 100 grams of a 5% solution using a 70% solution, I’d use 7.15 grams of the 70% solution and 92.85 grams of water and end up with 5 grams of glycolic acid in 95 grams of water.

This method works better with less scary ingredients. Like 70% sorbitol liquid.

But I hope that it helps with the math or thinking about the math.