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Name: Wilson Cabrejos Caracciolo
Area of Formulation Expertise:- Personal Care: Specializing in the development of hair care and skin formulations, including sulfate-free shampoos, conditioners, treatment, antidandruff products, skin moisturizers, sunblockers and cleansers (specially for atopic skin). Expertise in surfactant-surfactant and surfactant-polymer interactions, formulation of mild systems, and performance optimization for skin and hair care.
- Home Care & Laundry: Extensive experience in developing laundry detergents, softeners, stain removers, degreasers, surface cleaners and sustainable cleaning solutions. Focus on surfactants synergy, builders, and environmentally friendly formulas.
- Technology Transfer & Process Scale-up: Proven track record of taking formulations from laboratory scale to production, ensuring efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and regulatory compliance.
Types of Projects Preferred:
- New Product Development: Leading the creation of innovative formulations for personal and home care products, with a focus on sustainability and performance.
- Product Optimization and Troubleshooting: Enhancing existing formulations to improve market competitiveness, including cost reduction, ingredient substitution, and sensory improvement.
- Collaborative R&D: Working on cutting-edge technologies, particularly in LGN, multiple emulsions, polyelectrolyte complexes, and ultra-low interfacial tension systems.
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Consumers want to feel also conditioning from the shampoo, so silicones are always welcome. You can check big brands’ hair products, and you’lk find silicones both in shampoo and conditioners. If you use ether silicones or microemulsions, you might not need a suspending agent, but for macro and flluid silicones, you do.
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You should add the oil nto the water phase while keeping the heat during the entre emulsification process. Only after that, you start cooling (not before). This prevents crystal formation of your high melting point waxes so they can properly mix.
Also, the amount of mineral oil might also be to blame for the viscosity loss. Non polar oils are hard to emulsify. Are you making a massage cream? If that’s the case, then build a more robust interfase to support the mineral oil. If not, then just drop it to 2-3%.
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The gel you see might be one of the silicones, especially if any of them is a gum (Panthenol is water soluble).
The stability turns from milky (you might be using a silicone emulsion) to a clear and yellow solution, since heat increases flocculation, creaming and lately phase separation (you might also see an oily layer on top). The yellow color is usual in amodimethicones, I believe due to amine impurities.
The sticky spots on the cap are again silicona that sepárate (one of them might be a gum).
As a test, remove your silicones and do stability again. To fix that, either use a more water dispersible silicone (ethoxylated), a microemulsion or add emulsifiers to create an emulsion on your own.
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If those levels of PQ’s arr of active material, then you’re using too much. Also, you need some emolliency (silicones are used for that).
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Nothing useful to add here, just the conspiracy theory that “they” are slowly wiping out organic chemistry (all the chemistries or hard sciences to be fair). “Make culture accessible” is the name of that movement…either we’re all dumb or no one is dumb😅
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That has to do with the solubility of your fragrances. Chances are that the 80% of your fragrances (the ones that don’t make your product turbid) have a solubilizer or mixture of them. So, if possible, ask your supplier to send versiones of the problematic fragrances, that are more soluble in your base. If that’s not possible, then add a solubilizer (or mixture). Usually, a 2:1 up to 4:1 dose of solubilizer/fragrance is required, but ever 1:1 could work with not so heavy fragrances.
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Hi! Do you want to know the best level or dosage of each? Or their relative proportion? Not sure you’ll find that info. They are all considered mild surfactants. When it comes to viscosity, glutamates are very well known to be very hard to thicken, and I don’t think a glucoside could help much (they are not very antagonistic). And when it comes to detergency, there is also little interaction (among other things, because of the high solubility of glutamates) as to have a synergistic surface activity increase. Perhaps you could clarify which properties you’re searching to increase.
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I’ll reply more later, but could you make a sample without Citric acid?
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Yes, sodium lauroamphoacetate is fine. The common weight ratio (as active matter) of anionic/amphoteric is around 4:1 to 3:1, but when you have low content of anionic, then you could start with 1:1 that is closer to a gel phase. If it got thick but not enough, then you can start adding little by little the electrolite. A cationic polyelectrolite is ideal for performance (conditioning), but ai’d start adjusting the base.
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To tackle your main issues:
- If your only anionic is SLSA, then 2-3% is way too little for a shampoo, especially to achieve the consistency you want without any other surfactant
- If not Cocamidopropylbetaine, perhaps you could use an amine oxide (it boosts foam, makes the anionic milder to the skin and aids with the viscosity)
- Another option is to use either PEG-4 rapeseedamide or Crothix Liquid (or similar), which could work also in synergy with the amine oxide
- Acrylates-homo and copolymers are also good choices, but I don’t know what standard you use to choose, considering that the many studies conducted for each ingredient were evaluated by independent panels of toxicologists, who considered them as safe
- Finally, if you use the amine oxide or an amphoteric surfactant (like amphoacetates or amphopropionates), then you could Benefit by the addition o fan inorganic salt
I think my comment about qNMR was missunderstood, since you consider impurity anything that is not the molecule you want, while from a safety point of view (both for the consumer and your product), it’s usually something you don’t want in your products, like free secondary amines, 1,4-dioxane, and heavy metals (for the latter, Atomic Absorption is a more reliable tool). That’s what I meant with not suffiecient, and that’s why analytical labs have different equipments. Also, in qNMR, some bands could overlap due to coupling, and there Mass Spectroscopy is key.
Big guys (like P&G, Unilever, etc.) which again, have the best scientists in the industry, take actually advantage of the “non purity” of ingredients. For instance, Sodium 2-laureth sulfate has a distribution of ethoxylates, which has a media of 2 moles. If you’d have only the 2 mole molecule, you’d miss the extra mildness and viscosity response of having both 3 mole and 1 mole fractions, respectively. I’m attaching a screenshot from the book “Detergency of Specialty Surfactants”, where you can see that lower or higher (tan C12) chain lenght, make the glucoside surfactant milder.
About the comment that Sodium Caseinate can form micelles with limited surfactant properties (I asume you mean the interaction of your surfactant with the caseinate, since the latter doesn’t have surface properties), you need to keep in mind that surfactants form micelles in solution above some concentration (CMC). Mixtures of surfactants (especially antagonistic) can form micelles below this concentration. Mixtures of surfactants with some polymers (especially the ones with opposite charge) can also form micelles below this concentrations. That’s how colloids work. From there, to get a viscous fluid with a syrup like appearance, you’ll need to have a higher concentration so you can get worm-like micelles (preferibly entangled) or even vesicles, but again, you need higher concentration. Rheology modifiers can mimic this effect by restricting movement, but you have little shear value.
Anyway, I really hope you can manage to ge tour formula, and try to check the large amount of papers and scientific books on the matter. And don’t stress out too much about having only pure ingredients, just try to minimize only the impurities that are proved to be risky. Good luck!
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By “creamy”, do you mean that has a solid white color? It that’s the case, you could use an opacifier. Polymeric ones are extremely efficient at very low levels (Acripol OP 315 or Euperlan PCO). To make it more conditioning, add a polymeric surfactant (PQ-10 or Guar HPTC). Are you reaching good viscosity with that base?
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Lauric acid as we use it, is not pure. It’s a fraction that was first hydrolyzed, separated, evaporated/condensed, recrystallized….and still, there might be some by-products. This process is time consuming, expensive and not needed. If you want more purity, then you’ll need to use fully synthetic products that use very specific catalytic methods of synthesis, which is what Pharma mostly does since the highest purity level is required, both for safety and performance.
This is all not necessary for us since cosmetic ingredients are safe (not sure what you mean by “enhanced health benefits” from a cleansing product). The best independent toxicologists perform systematic reviews of evidence (something most of us can’t do without that type of training) to assess ingredient’s safety, which you can access through CIR database and COSING. Also, how did you test purity? only using qNMR? Usually, to cover all possible impurities, you use different techniques (atomic absorbance especially for metals, HPLC/GC with different columns and solvent mixtures, mass spectroscopy with an adequate ionizing source, etc.).
Now, to your tests:
- fatty alcohols for sure won’t help with your viscosity if you didn’t form a lamellar phase first (this requires specific ratios of water, FFAA and surfactant)
- MgCl2 helps transition from one colloidal arrangement to a higher one, but this requires a lot of it (if you’re using pure anionics), or you’ll need to also add an amphoteric surfactant to have a quicker salt response, which I don’t see you did
- Na caseinate won’t help build viscosity as much as other polymers, and might increase contamination risk of your formula
- if you’re not using cationic polymers, you’re missing the main conditioning mechanism available for a shampoo, which is coacervation
- Oleamide DEA has the same issue as Cocamide DEA: presence of free secondary amines that could turn into nitrosamines (now, that’s an impurity I would be more focuesd on)
- you mentioned Lauryl glucoside, and that’s funny since when you compare Lauryl glucoside with Coco glucoside, the first one is more detersive, but the second one builds viscosity better and is more gentle with skin, beause of the diverse fatty content in Coco glucoside, so, you’d actually might use Sodium coco sulfoacetate instead of Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate, both for better viscosity and mildness
The bottomline: diversity is always good, especially in real life 🤓. Good luck!
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Please don’t get me wrong, but just reading your post, I don’t know if you’re willing to accept evidence-based information. Just as a side note, most Cocamidopropyl betaine use coconut or palm oil as one of the starting materials, probable same as the sulfoacetate you’re using.
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I believe you want to make a microemulsion. If that’s the case, I don’t believe you can do that from already formed macroemulsions, since it’s not only the process but the formula that form a microemulsion (eg. Specific types of surfactants, co-surfactants, small molecules, etc).
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It says its melting point is around 200°C (and the boiling at around 400°C), so unless there’s some reactant to cleave a bond within its structure, it should be fine to heat it in the water phase at 90°C.
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Can you make a sample without PEG-120 methyl glucose dioleate? In some systems, it tends to gel the product. What you see at the bottom might be water, and the upper part might be a surfactant-rich phase.
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You could make a microemulsion or use an ultrasound device, but the first requires advance knowledge on colloid chemistry (and specific type of surfactants), and the second requires special equipment.
Now, an oil phase of 1% migh not be worthy to make an emulsion, but if so, there are plenty of emulsifiers other than polysorbates (which are actually pretty safe), some in liquid form and/or water dispersible.
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You can also check all the series of “Handbook of detergents” (parts A to E), “Liquid Detergents” and the “SEPAWA proceedings”.
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Glyceryl stearate SE is still one of the best emulsifiers on the cosmetic market, and one of the best to get very stable lamellar phases. I don’t think these old materials get outdated (just ask guys like P&G, UL, L’Oreal and the likes, who spend millions of dollars on research and have the best cosmetic scientists, and yet still use very “old” ingredients 🙂).
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You could add an oxidant (like hydrogen peroxide), or a metal catalyst (if you could get iron chloride, that’d be great).
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The amount of water soluble extract is so small (consider that extracts at most have a 1-5% concentration of the real active and the rest is just solvent) that I’d just remove it.
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There are actually few studies using low pH formulas to improve hair properties. Keep also in mind that while water wets hair, there’s dilution and an increasing raise in pH until the solution has the same pH of water, so no change on skin. A different story is the lipid removal from surfactants.
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I wouldn’t rely on citric acid as a chelant, since you don’t have free electrons to interact with metal ions (which you have in citrates); rather, you have protonated groups that at most have a dipole (a ion-dipole can be feasible, but metal ions would compete with hydrogen bonds).
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The first thing to know is that glyceryl stearate is not a soap (like sodium stearate), but an ester.
Now, skin “acid mantle” is a semi-solid (with crystalline domains), the same as creams that are usually applied on the skin. That makes the concept of pH less relevant as opposed to liquid solutions, so I wouldn’t worry that much. Perhaps the pH range for this emulsifier has more to do with the risk of hydrolisys during product’s shelf life.