Microformulation
Forum Replies Created
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I do Formulations under the Natural standards. If you have Formulas, I would suggest Steve Berry at Greenblendz perhaps for those levels. http://www.greenblendz.com
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This is the closest I have seen to Lemon;
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I would not even begin developing the product until I took Perry’s class or one of many others on starting a cosmetic line. Learning the proper way to develop a product first is critical.
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Steinberg Associates brought on a new Regulatory person to help companies with the transition. Google them. They are out of NJ.
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2. I would check with Schulke as I have found that they generally have the most data available as their product PE9010 is pretty common and well documented.
3. Not to be a jerk, but I since natural (undefined) is a marketing term it really doesn’t give me much to work with. What Natural Standard are you trying to meet. I could get you a Priest to exorcise your materials so we know their are no “supernatural” ingredients if we are dealing with just a marketing term.
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Even simpler, test your pH first, especially with shampoos when thickening is an issue. I get about 5 “emergency” calls a year…”My shampoo isn’t thickening.” I ask “What is the pH?” Half an hour later I usually hear “Never mind, it’s fixed.”
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These Hydrosols are sometimes sold without preservation to pander to the uber natural chemophobia. I see it with Crafters a lot. However they hopefully grow and realize preservatives are needed, especially in a product with such a high Aw.
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@davidW I agree. It really is a different exercise if it is a Shampoo, Facial Wash, or even a peel.
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I have solubulized SA numerous times. Just takes a little practice and getting the right solute. I will say I have used the Salvona SalSpheres product successfully in the past and avoided the whole issue. It is a bit $$$ but it does have less irritation and is incredibly easy to use. So easy a marketer can use it…..
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@bobzchemist I always like your cynicism. It is resulting in some straight forward advice for the client.
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@Jon_R I only formulate. I don’t produce. That was based upon historical data relayed back to me from clients. Once you have a Formulation you can approach a Contract Manufacturer. Some here can also weigh-in.
You really wouldn’t “test different iterations of Formulas” since the testing is pretty expensive.
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@DavidW I type pretty fast and I was waiting for my water bath to reach 75C.
@Jon_R David could most definitely get you a strong product out. In your case it would free you up for Marketing. This is where your real focus will need to be.
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@Jon_R Don’t feel as if anyone is discouraging you, just urging you to put a great deal of thought into the product and to closely steward your costs. Bob is absolutely correct about determining your finished goods cost and then working backwards.
Let me give you some insight into why everyone is urging caution. This is an area where the acronym BDSB (hear that from Marketers all the time) comes into play. This stands for Big Dreams Small Budget. In short it is very easy to price yourself out quickly.
My experience was this. I was contacted by a Cosmetic “Entrepreneur” to create “the best anti-aging product ever!” His experience wasn’t in Cosmetics but he observed that his wife went through a jar of Olay Regenerist a month and it was pricy. So he started a long path of research and had lots of it. He wanted to use multiple actives (such as retinol, Matrixyl, and many others). He had strong references for each and wanted to use “all of them.” On the initial call I went through his entire list and the percentages that he wanted to use. Well, it came out to about 115% total, JUST WITH THE ACTIVES. Note, I still hadn’t selected an emulsifier, products to make it feel and apply well, preservative, fragrance and any other needed materials to create a stable emulsion. So, then I got to be the bad guy, rightfully so. I think we can all agree you can’t go more than 100%. I felt like a parent at the toy store making a kid put things back.
Well, the development was hard. As any Chemist can attest you need at least some water in there. Many of the actives were water soluble and I needed some solute to get them into the formulation. We kept paring down. On my part I was so limited that it was a HUGE challenge to get the prototype right and approved by the client. After the original prototype and 3 revisions I finally nailed it. He loved it. “We have a great product! It will sell itself.”
So, I send him his Formula and he begins to shop it around. Every warning that I gave him about price was valid. In the end it would have had to charge over $175 an ounce to make even the lowest margin. After the third manufacturer priced it out I got the call that every Formulator has received and hates to hear. “Can we drop/decrease the percentages of the actives to make it affordable? It still has to be the best though.”
Remember, the actions of these products are very discreet and essentially you are trying to provide a non-invasive “botox in a bottle.” You will always fall short of a botox treatment. The testing for efficacy is expensive and in my opinion uses a lot of junk science to support the activity. Not standardized testing as much, but the junk studies the larger manufacturers use to support their sales.
Here is my best advice. Start with this exercise. Pick FIVE marketing type terms to describe your claims. You could say “Wrinkle Reduction”, “Replenishing”, “Moisturizing” and the list goes on. Why only five? Well, first no product is going to do EVERYTHING. Too many claims will muddy your marketing. Too many claims and you will have an even harder time substantiating all the claims. Secondly, as a Business Person do you really want your line to be a one trick pony? Remember you aren’t developing a new raw material or a new process at this level. We are all working from the same parts pin so to speak. Select good FINITE levels of the actives.
Once you have the claims, select Raw Materials that support the claims. That should be your starting point. Based upon too many issues to discuss here, your Formulator will select an emulsifier, a preservative and help you to select a fragrance. Put the emphasis on CORE performance and Claims substantiation. Have a product that spreads well and leaves a nice residual feel. These are all factors in designing the Formulation.
When you have all this shop out for manufacturing. This will be where you see the sticker shock. It is difficult to guess but if I had to you are probably looking at an overall budget from about $27,500 to $30,000 (anyone feel free to weigh in to augment/correct that number) to get product to your distribution point.
Now, lastly I agree with Bob entirely. Don’t fall for the fallacy of what I call the “Field of Dreams” Marketing plan (If you [make it}, they will {buy it}). This doesn’t work at all. I am sure that Bob’s “Once” is backed up with an interesting but uncommon scenario.
In the end I think you will find that the Product Development, Formulation and Production will only be about 25% of the task overall. Marketing, making sales and other such functions will rightfully take up the bulk of your time.
In the last 4 years in Consulting I have tied the bulk of the Product failures to two simple factors; being under budgeted and an immature Sales/Marketing strategy. If this is your first foray into the Cosmetic Field I would recommend taking Perrys Course on Starting Your Own Cosmetic Line or one of many others. It is a unique Business with unique processes, service and demands. One needs to explore the Business end fully and get acquainted before jumping in with both feet. That is my opinion.
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I have done several anti-aging products. The real challenge will be to make an affordable product to produce. In my experience initially these lines start off throwing everything but the kitchen sink in there. In 100% of the cases where there was a disconnect between the costs of the raw materials the lines failed. Remember these ingredients can add up.
Target your claims and then match up with the raw materials. It will make the sticker shock later on less painful.
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Dear Kathy,
First and foremost I cringe whenever someone throws out “natural” vaguely. It isn’t a defined term at heart and it needs to be qualified. If you are trying to meet your clients demand for “safer” products. I would investigate the Natural Standards (NSF, NPA, USDA), learn one, endorse it and then use it as a qualifier for your ingredients. This is simpler, it gives you third party validation and you can move onto what is more important, the performance of your product. If you leave it undefined you will either be too non-compliant (green washing) or too scared to use anything. Using the Internet/Google as your ingredient validation is dangerous. Nobody will agree and you can argue all day long. You can make most Cosmetic Chemists grumble by even mentioning the “paraben scare” and you can infuriate the super strict “natural good, synthetic bad” crowd by telling them about naturally occurring parabens. Endorse a standard and get out of the whole muck pile.
There are numerous preservative systems with long records of success and lower costs available and endorsed under the Natural standards. Their inclusion is generally not controversial and both camps (strict, mainstream industry) can generally agree.
That said, can I recommend any ONE preservative that you can buy, use in every product and buy exclusively? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! When selecting a preservative the entire Formulation must be taken into account. If it is a surfactant system, will a preservative for a basic cream work? Not necessarily. I encourage you to take a look at the FormulaProtect site that Lonza has and run a Formula through their decision engine. In the end it spits out a Lonza preservative of course, but you will be able to see how many factors will come together to suggest a best preservative on a case by case basis.
Other factors contribute to the preservation strategy as well. Some packaging is more secure than others. For example a lotion pump would provide more protection than a jar. Final pH of the product has an effect. For the informed Formulator adding a glycol can augment the preservative system.
Sorry I didn’t answer your question outright, but I think my point is that preservation takes some due diligence and research. Jane at Making Skincare (she can chime in) has some documents that will give you an overview of preservation. Again, it is not impossible to learn preservation but it does require more information than could be included efficiently in a single or even multiple discussions. I read 4 Journals a month plus multiple RSS Feeds and Professional blogs. I would estimate that at least 30% of that reading is in the area of preservation and new preservatives.
Lots of information. I hope I didn’t discourage you or come off as pedantic. It is simply a topic that needs more than time and effort than a blog can deliver. As for wanting just ONE preservative for everything the best analogy I can give you is in food. I am letting you buy ONE condiment for every meal you cook. To paraphrase some arguments I have heard in preservation “I only want to pay for 1 condiment, paprika is too expensive, etc.” You can have salt, but not pepper also, You might want Paprika but you can’t get it retail. Any good chef would balk at that scenario. You can’t limit yourself to one preservative as well as a universal preservation panacea. It doesn’t work.
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I pulled this out of my notes from one site visit. Here is the mixer blade they “re-purposed.” If you note, it says it is galvanized steel. This is not SS 316.
http://www.toolking.com/squirrel-mixer-69003-steel-5-gallon-paint-mixer/
They were smaller and it was performing “like a champ” per the owner. They were attaching it to a smaller Lightnin’ Mixer in Manufacturing (small batch manufacturer). If you looked closely you could see rust building up.
@DMTCBrands If you are using any innovative (and that is common, no insult intended) you would need to confirm the grade of steel. Another issue I sometimes see with re-purposed equipment is it is harder to breakdown and clean sometimes.
Lastly, get into the habit of cleaning your equipment as quickly as possible. At one plant I worked early on the Plant Manager was very strict on this. We would sometimes get the employee who finished a batch at 4:30 and would try to “hide” the equipment until the next day rather than at least do an initial cleaning (remove all residual product). When this ever happened, it would be entertaining. It wasn’t until later when I was in the Military that I would meet someone who could match that Plant Manager in the grasp, depth and creativity in his use of the curse word.
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@Bill_Toge That was what I thought. Thanks for the confirmation. Doesn’t Food service (professional) generally use SS 316 also?
My thought is if they have adapted equipment (no offense dmtcbrands, I don’t know your manufacturing size or capabilities), they may have “re-purposed” equipment that isn’t SS 316. I have seen this happen with some start-ups. For example, some smaller process settings will utilize mortar or “squirrel” mixers (look that last one up, it exists) that they have purchased at Home Depot/Lowes. After several months they will notice marked corrosion on the mixers. I have seen the same on re-purposed mixers used in the lab.
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Passivated. Sadly enough I was able to recall what that meant. Does SS 316 even need passivating?
“Type 316 is considerably more resistant to solutions of sulfuric acid,
chlorides, bromides, iodides and fatty acids at high temperature. In
the manufacture of certain pharmaceuticals, stainless steels containing
molybdenum are required in order to avoid excessive metallic
contamination.”“The addtion of 2% molybdenum makes 316 considerably more resistant to corrosion and oxidation than the 304 family of alloys.” An engineer at Lee Groen once told me that this eliminates the need for passivation.
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http://www.ajmfg.com/faq/304-vs-316-stainless.html
See the description of SS 316 grade. Generally this is preferred in processining in Cosmetics.
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What grade Stainless Steel is the mixer constructed of? SS 316?
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You can email me at markfuller@microformulation.com. That is right in my area of expertise.
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Contact Ben at Cometic Test Labs. I believe the terminology that you should use is a “European Challenge.” Yes, you should send them out, they will need to be done under the validated protocol.
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I know some Color Cosmetics manufacturers but I think anything below 2500 units per run will be difficult to obtain.
You could try contacting;
Ivonne G. Ruggles
Contemporary Cosmetic Group, Inc.
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Come on guys, manners. I know that feelings get hurt but the focus of this Forum is to further Cosmetic Science.
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The preservative is Plantservative from Ross Organics, sold in my area by Essential Ingredients. The Capryl glycol came from one of the extracts and was declared. I can say this since I had some input into the Formula.