ngarayeva001
Forum Replies Created
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HMW Hyaluronic acid is the best natural gel maker. It is a humectant and forms crystal clear gels with a texture similar to Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer (carbopol). The only problem is that it is very expensive.
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@O12, I understand now what is happening. I am pretty sure that your pH is so low because of Aloe extract. Aloe Vera water causes a drop in pH, so probably this one does the same. You are using too much of the extract, consider reducing to 5% (I would not actually use more than 1% because it doesn’t do much anyway). Regarding glycerine, I would say stay at 4% or lower. Glycerine makes it sticky. If you want to add more humectants consider propanediol (I would say butylene glycol, but that would not fit your “natural” story). A mix of 4% of propanediol and 2% of glycerine should feel nice for such formula. Your preservative is way too high. Check the supplier recommendations but usually, preservative blends should be within 1%. Where is your gelling agent in this formula? What you listed should be thin like water. If you want to be “natural” and cost is not a question add from 0.2% to 0.4% of high molecular weight hyaluronic acid. It will form a nice gel. Or you can add xantham, but I personally don’t like the texture it gives to a product (I think it makes a serum look a ranch sauce).
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Polysorbate 80 is used in food industry. Don’t know if it passes as ‘natural’ because of it but it’s definitely safe. Regarding stearic acid and cetearyl, both are thickeners. Ceteatyl is a co-emulsifier but can’t be used alone. Now, they both can contribute to an unpleasant application and make lotions ‘foam’ (white trail). To reduce this effect you have to add silicones, which will not go well with ‘natural’ claim. Cetearyl works well with polusorbate 60, but both are rather high HLB. I think you should analyze ingredients list of ‘natural’ products in the market. The more you read the better your understanding of what they use will be. But again even when you google a perfectly safe ingredient you get chemophobic articles like ‘10 worst skincare ingredients’ or ‘why you should avoid Xx in your skincare’.
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I am not an expert in soaps, but citrus essential oils and “sensitive” don’t go together.
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You are very welcome. I make a brightening serum with 2% Alpha Arbutine, 6% Niacinamide, 2% NAG and 2% Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate. It clearly works, but I don’t know what makes it work (a combination of the ingredients or just one of them). I suspect that MAP doesn’t do much at this concentration.
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Just an update. I excluded T-Resveratrol from the formula and the color doesn’t change. Observed since August 14.
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Alpha Arbutin:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ics.12275 Alpha Arbutin is stable in water solution for 16 months. Stability in a formulation depends on pH. Suppliers say that should be formulated in a range from 4 to 6.5.
Niacinamide:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16029679
Here is NAG and Niacinamide study
https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(14)00104-2/fulltext
It is Procter and Gamble. I will agree if you say that it might be biased.Cosmeceuticals for Hyperpigmentation:
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@Belassi my favorite topic. 1) There are studies that show that Niacinamide is effective, especially mixed with N-Acetyl Glucosamine (4% Niacinamide and 2% of NAG). I will lookup the study tomorrow, but it was a legit one. Additionally to this, I can say that I saw a great results as a user (not very scientific I know). 2) isn’t alpha arbutin stable? I read a research that suggested it’s perfectly stable for 16 months in water solutions. Does it change color when oxidizing?
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@Dtdang I believe you are looking for slow release retinol ‘liposomes’. If so, makingcosmetics sell them. I have not heard about vitamin C or E liposomes. https://www.makingcosmetics.com/Vitamin-A-Liposomes-retinol_p_1222.html
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@Gunther in my formula it’s 10% as supplied which translated to 3-3.8% of active surfactant. Baby products should be below 10% of active surfactants. I think it works perfectly without any oil. Oat powder isn’t a must either. It is just commonly used in baby products.
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Again the only reason I said PEG-100, is because it’s high HLB and the mix with Glyceryl Stearate is commonluy used. Maybe Polysorbate 80 is an option? It is high HLB and as far as I know it is used in food, so should work in a “natural” formulation.
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@Microformulation, I only have experience with non-ionic emulsifiers so far. I don’t know whether it’s even scientific, but if I am not sure if the formula stable I am just adding a polymer emulsifier. They tend fix all imperfections. I understand that it’s not an option with natural formulations though.
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@Microformulation can you suggest a high HLB emulsifier that might work with Glyceryl Oleate? I said potentially polysorbates, because I know that Sorbitan Oleate which is also low HLB mixes well with polysorbates.
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Thank you for the guide @Microformulation, I guess my oils HLB list is less precise than yours as my HLB is 9.54. I agree it’s a starting point and it doesn’t always work as expected, that’s why I suggested Glyceryl Stearate and PEG-100 mix. It works pretty well in this type of emulsions. Also, there is Cetyl Alcohol which is advised as a thickener for this blend in this formula.
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One general comment on oils. You have a nice blend of saturated and unsaturated fats here, but I have an observation from reading ingredients of countless number of baby products. You will not see a lot of oils there. I remember I saw shea butter in one product, but they mostly use petrolatum and other syntetic oils. The reason is that syntetic oils don’t cause allergies yet do the job (emollient). It also could be due to the fact that synthetic oils are cheap and people don’t tend to pay much for baby lotions. Nevertheless, I would probably think twice about nut oils (Almond) in baby products.
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@Tattvas, I recalculated, and my number is also close to 10. So, Glyceryl Oleate alone is not the best option for this formula, because it has required HLB of 3.5. You can try a blend of high and low HLB emulsifiers. Calculation is the same as for the oil phase. For example if you take PEG-100 (HLB 18.
at 1.5% and Glyceryl Stearate (HLB 3. at 2% you will arrive to total HLB of around 10. I used this example because I prefer this particular blend, but if you don’t want to use PEGs because of marketing, you can try combining Glyceryl Oleate with some high HLB emulsifier that will be in line with your marketing claims. Maybe Polysorbates? -
@sven I didn’t say 5.5 is the top end. But Tattvas is looking for a natural preservative system (which are not broad pH like parabens and phenoxyethanol). The one I mentioned requires pH of not higher than 5.5 and I am saying that in the worst case scenario if no other preservative system works the formula can be adjusted for this preservative.
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@Tattvas, to comment on this I need to know exact % of each individual oil. The reason for this is that, if you want to create a stable emulsion, you have to calculate HLB of our oil phase to make sure you are using the right emlsifyer. It is very important. What I see at the moment is that you are using oils with different HLBs ranging from 6 to 15.5 (btw cetyl is part of your oil phase too) and an emulsifier for water in oil emulsions at a rather low %. You probably need two emulsifiers with different HLBs to make sure that the formula is stable. Also, not related to the stability, as per my experience glycerine at % more than 4 tends to make the formula very tacky.
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Also, not sure about this “nano-collagen” but regular hydrolised collagen protein makes formula rather sticky, which doesn’t add anything good to the application.
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@Doreen, I am very well familiar with La Mer. I repurchased it several times before I got into formulating :smiley: it has an excessively long list of ingredients that made me, at that point, believe that it must be something backed by science. However the trick with all of those expensive products (La Mer, Sublimage by Chanel, Skin Caviar by La Prairie, SK-II etc.) is that they offer very pleasant application properties and “luxurious” feel. They achieve it mostly due to addition of polymers and right combination of surfactants, thickeners and emollients. Regarding this particular product, they claim to be “natural” and use a conventional combination (cetearyl alcohol, cetyl alcohol, ceteareth-20, xantham, etc.) that doesn’t provide this “luxurious” feel. That is why I am so curious why people don’t just return it.
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Have you considered using honey powder instead of raw honey? I don’t have experience with such type of products but it seems to me that such a system would be ahydrous and thus won’t need preservative (and since you want to stick to “natural” it will be a problem to find effective natural preservative). Also, 15% of honey might make it too sticky. If it’s for “claims” you can add much less.
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@Tattvas this is what manufacturer says: “Sodium benzoate & Potassium sorbate is normally used in concentrations of 0.5 – 1.5 %. It does not effect the foaming results of shampoo and shower gel making it highly useful as a preservation system in these products, providing the pH is less than 5.5. Sodium benzoate & Potassium sorbate is fully effective in both cationic and non-ionic systems”. So you actuclly can reduce pH to 5 in no other preservative works for you. I understand it’s all about perception of the customers, but nothing is better than parabens…
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I just wonder if people actually return it or not. Because it is very clear for me that this product won’t do much. Also, has anyone ever seen tocopheryl acetate as a second ingredient?
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I am still learning, so like trying new ingredients. I always keep HMW (because it forms gel) and SLMW (as a humectant) hyaluronic acid in my stock. I recently overpaid for ULMW (ultra low, 5000 daltons) and saw this ‘nano’ product next day after I tried ULMW it and noticed no difference. Will be calling my serum an ultra serum now
