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@oladapo That color is normal, and you’ll see it going away when you add more ingredients during the process.

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@GARIFUNA In your formula, the true emulsifiers are glyceryl stearate (low HLB) and ceteareth-20 (high HLB). A mixture of both gives a more stable emulsion rather than using just one. Behentrimonium chloride gives not such robust emulsions (you see that for how easily affected they are by share, and also, when you add some oil or fragrance during the cool down phase and you see a marked drop in viscosity, even in the presence of ceterayl alcohol, which is a co-emulsifier).

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@Rookayerh123 I’d choose pairs of surfactants that have interactions between each other:

- either Cocamidoproply betaine and Alpha olefin sulphonate/SCI,
- or Decyl glucoside and Coco glucoside

If you only have Xanthan gum or Guar gum, I’d choose Xanthan gum. PQ-10 gives a bit of viscosity, but it’s mainly used as conditioner (being a cationic polymer), which you also need in your formula.

I wouldn’t worry about adding Glycerin, but you can add a bit if you want (keep it not more than 0.5% because it can impair foam).

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@qwerty Polyquats/dimethicone is a good performing and cost-effective system for shampoos, but if you have some more money to spare, I’d go for a cationic silicone also in the shampoo, to avoid PQ buildup. But the first combo is still valid (just keep in mind you’ll need a good surfactant system to remove the PQ’s). For the serum, a cationic silicone (especially a microemulsion) would work well. For the pre-shampoo, it depends…do you want a product for gentle cleansing before the shampoo? of a refattening product to avoid excessive removal of lipids? I believe that in any case, no silicone would be needed.

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@ritag You can add a surfactant (like amine oxides, sultaine or cocoamphodiacetate), or a polymer (one that comes to my mind is Supracare 801 from Dow, but there are many more) for that matter.

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@Dan Indeed, they use special equipment to do that. You could alternatively heat the drumm a bit, or if your formula allows it, mix it with some Ethanol (in wich SLES is very soluble).

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@Abdullah It’s the ingredients. A non structured shampoo has mainly surfactants, like SLES, CAPB, CDEA and NaCl. A structured shampoo includes also cationic polymers, anionic rheology modifiers and some materials to suspend (like silicones).

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@qwerty Those are good questions. In a shampoo, polyquats actually help “neutral” silicones (like dimethicone and dimethiconol) deposit on hair, through what it’s called assisted deposition. The story is different for cationic silicones like amodimethicone, with which polyquats will compete for binding sites on hair. 

In the case of a conditioner, the story is different, since contact time and vehicle varies. Dimethicone and Dimethiconol deposit driven mainly by hydrophobic forces in an uneven way, with the possibility of particles being deposit on top of others. Nevertheless, since they are hydrophobic, the forces that make them stick to hair are low, and a good shampoo can remove them (residues will remain probably, if your surfactant system is not good enough). In the case of Amodimethicone, ionic interactions play a great part, and that’s why it usually has more changes to deposit where there is damage on hair due to electrostatic interactions. But even though forces are stronger than just hydrophobic and it’s actually harder to remove them than neutral silicones, they form a very uniform film and they tend not to deposit more particles on top.

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@dmh0023 You need to temper your butters before manufacture. You can warm them at aprox. 60C for 15-20 min, and then add them to the process.

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@chemistgr1 If quantities in your formula are based on 100g, then 1g (or 1%) or fragrance could be a bit too much, specially for skin irritation; also, if your fragrance is not so soluble, it’ll not be solubilized properly and impair your stability. Regarding keratin proteins (which I believe are hydrolyzed proteins), I wouldn’t add them in a shampoo since they will have little chances to do interact with hair fibers. If you don’t mind using SLES, then replace your SCI with it, and you’ll see the benefits in foaming, detergency and viscosity of the SLES-CAPB mixture. As @seaberry mentioned, acrylates/c10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer help both stabilize and thicken your surfactant system, just keep in mind that the order of addition has to avoid direct interaction between your thickener and your PQ-7. 

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@LongXi You really need to add the Sodium citrate. At the pH you mentioned, it’ll be in equilibrium with its former acid (Citric acid), which will help buffer the system, controlling pH drifts. Sodium citrate has to be added before your preservatives. Citric acid and Sodium hydroxides are added to reach your final pH, you don’t need to use both, only the one that can make your reach your final pH, and it’s better to dilute them first, for proper incorporation.

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@qwerty The main cause of build-up is actually polyquats, so I’d worry more about the type and amount of polyquat you’re using (PQ-10 is harder to remove than Guar HPTC, even when using SLES). 

When you’re talking about silicones, by heavy you mean to their nature (non modified dimethicone vs modified -hydroxylated, cationic-) or to their molecular weight?

As I mentioned, due to their hydrophobic nature, silicones can be removed from hair by common surfactants (providing your formula is cleansing enough), it’s polyquats the ones that resist washing more.  Nevertheless, since silicones can deposit in good amounts specially in the presence of polyquats, you could feel your hair overcharged after only one application of your product, so you need to regulate the amount of silicones you want in your shampoo.

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@Batya The frosting you see is from the butter. Butters should be tempered before manufacture. Try placing it at around 60C for 10-15 min befor the process. Also, you mentioned you’re using Candelilla wax and Cetyl alcohol, which are the waxes that will provide hardness to the product. Try to change the ratio between them, favoring Candelilla wax which will give you a more firm product.

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@Batya There are actually several issues here. The low pH is propbably causing your color and scent change. What’s the initial pH of your product? Maybe the product itself has a low pH from the start.

Also, even though I’m not familiar with Lecithin as emulsifier, I see few things that can cause separation:

1) xanthan gum might not be able to hold such a high level of electrolytes (from MgCl2)
2) preservative system might not be sufficient since you’re using quite some amount of soy lecithin which itself is a source of contammination, exposing also xanthan gum to attack
3) I read that lecithin alone doesn’t give stable emulsions, so maybe you could consider adding a co-emulsifier to the systems (in foods, usually whey or other related proteins are added for this purpose, but that will also increase your risk of contamination, so maybe a less “natural” co-emulsifier might help).

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@himansh_20 Just by reducing or removing Glycerin from your formula (since it doesn’t do much in a rinse-off product other than maybe help with clarity) you’ll improve foam. Another thing you can do is adding an Amine oxide, which will improve your foaming behavior. Increasing CAPB and DEA will also imrpove foam density and stability.

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@vandrean Sodium benzoate has a fair antibacterial activity, also the low pH could also play a role (depending how diluted was the sample for the test). And last but not least, the amount of SLES is higher (surfactants also have antimicrobial activity).  

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@Abdullah The benefit would be given by using more CAPB, but as I mentioned, it depends on your system, and if your formula is that of a structured cleanser, then you should be very careful with the amount of CAPB.

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@vandrean Not only the amount of Benzalkonium chloride (BC) is a bit low (you can try at least doubling it, assuming you’re using an 80% BC), the manufacturers state that BC shouldn’t be use with anionic surfactants, not only because of imcompatibility issues, but because of that, BC will be “kidnaped” by the anionic, without being able to perform.

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@qwerty If by water-soluble you mean ethoxylated silicones (which allow formulation of transparent surfactant-based formulas), they are actually not water soluble, but easier to disperse in water systems. Generally speaking, ethoxytaled silicones sacrifice transparency for performance (the more dispersible the silicone is, the less final conditioning on hair). But that’s generally speaking, you really need to get in detail through each molecule to understand the final performance it gives.

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@amitvedakar Due to its ability to interact with the polar groups of surfactants (same as Cocamide DEA does), it might actually stabilize foam by increasing rigidity of micelles. I just would’t use much more beyond that 2% since rigid lamellas (depending on your formula) could eventually settle down if not properly suspended. 

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@Abdullah That’s a very interesting situation, and it all depends on what else is in your formulation. H&S and Pantene are what it’s called structured shampoos, meaning they are not just a mixture of SLES, CAPB, CDEA and NaCl, they also have cationic polymers, (anionic) polymeric rheology modifiers and silicones, which make the system very sensitive. High amounts of CAPB in those systems can push the formula to the limit, making the gel network prone to phase separation. So, again, it all depends on your formula. 

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@nishil113 That’s good news. If you want to add more slip, you can ad a silicone as suggested before. Usually ethoxylated silicones impact less on your stability. 

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@nelson Dipropylene glycol and Propylene glycol are mainly used as solvents (for diluting purposes), and they would impair the viscosity of your fabric softener (especially Dipropylene glycol), so I wouldn’t use them. 

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@Agate The problem is that mechanisms are different: it´s like trying to remove water from a leak using a mop (Triethyl citrate) instead of fixing/blocking the leak (aluminium chlorhydrate and the like). Ok, maybe the example is not so accurate since Triethyl citrate doesn’t adsorb but destabilize some chemical bonds (supposedly), but the point is that nothing workd better than attacking the source. Also, doses of Triethyl citrate are usually high, and I’ve seen it cause some sensitivity issues. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it, but know your expectations.

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I tried Zinc ricinoleate in the past for an aluminium free deodorant, but unfortunately I didn’t see any benefit, even t high doses.