[ngarayeva001]

Jdawgswife76 said:

ngarayeva001 said:

I am actually using Dimethicone 1000 for hair conditioners. Works fine. Where are you located? I know a place that sells 1000 and cyclomethicone rather cheap in the UK (I have to order 12 from the US, and it’s much more expensive for me). By the way cylcomethicone is also great for hair. I usually mix them.

I am in florida.. U. S

Oh, lucky you. I have to deal with the UK customs everytime I order something from makingcosmetics and lotioncrafter. I agree with your idea to have separate ingredients instead of blends like wrinkleblurr. I advise you to get Lotioncrafter EL61. It is totally worth it. It’s a dimethicone polymer in gel form. I made a primer with it yesterday and pretty happy with the result. Regarding silicones in general, I love them all and it’s never enough for me. You definitely need a light weight one for face products, a heavier one for hair products, cyclymethicone for both hair products and if you decide making dual phase makeup remover (I am currently struggling with one), and a polymer like the one I menioned above for lotions and primers (superior silky feel). Makingcosmetics has Dimethicone fluid 10 cps only. It is my favorite for face products. I do not recommend you to spend money on Dimethicone Satin. It’s much more expensive and nothing special. 

[ngarayeva001]

And sweet :smiley:

[ngarayeva001]

I experimented with it. Yes, it emulsifies, but the emulsion made with it is water-thin and rather sticky. Partially due to high content of glycerin. So, there is no reason to use it in lotions while there are so many good emulsifiers in the market.

[ngarayeva001]

@Jdawgswife76, there are plenty of ” natural” emulsifiers. But the product described above is a conditioning bar (aka large lip balm). If you add water, honey etc, it will become an emulsion.

[ngarayeva001]

@J4ckbird If you want it “natural”, which is not a defined term, replace BTMS-50 (which is a cationic emulsifier) to beeswax. But it will not be conditioning. You need 15 to 20% to make it solid. But again, don’t expect to get a good performance with “natural” ingredients. “Natural” essential oils are much worse than any not “natural” cosmetic ingredients you can think of.

[ngarayeva001]

I found a website in the UK that sells a weird combination of ingredients. They have rare materials but don’t have some basic things. They also sell packaging, but the variety is also very limited. For example they have decent quality pump jars (which are not easy to find) but only 50ml. After some research I realised that they sell both skincare and cosmetic ingredients. So they only have ingredients in their stock that they also also use in their products. They probably buy in bulk at a low price, make their products and also package the materials that they have in stock anyway, and sell it with a good margin. They package ingredients in ziplock bags with a handwritten sticker with INCI and quantity. Extra source of revenue.

[ngarayeva001]

There are tons of products with Sucrose Laurate, but none of them seem to have a combination of all ingredients of Sucragel AOF. I personally had negative experience with it. I made cleansing gels with several different oils (plus antioxidant and preservative) and they all got rancid in a couple of weeks. I didn’t do a stability testing, they just got rancid under normal conditions. I would assume that I did something wrong, but the same oils were stable in lotions (with much more variables). It’s an interesting material though. 

[ngarayeva001]

I totally understand it. The samples are sales materials. My point is this, they spend time/money/efforts for packaging and shipping these sales materials anyway. Would it hurt much to sell “sales materials” (to those who can’t provide company information but are willing to pay extra) with significantly higher price margin? Additional and effortless revenue stream.

[ngarayeva001]

@Microformulation,
I even registered an LTD in the UK to provide a
legal company name to Ulprospector, but they asked for: “a copy of
a business card, a brochure showing the
products and/or services your company
provides, and a copy of an invoice generated by your company confirming company name
and address”. 

I understand that they don’t want to send free samples and I am not looking for
free stuff. I would be more than happy to pay a monthly subscription fee to get access to the materials (tech details,
formulas) and be charged for the samples the same prices as retailers like lotioncrafter charge. I am sure I am not the
only person who is ready to pay for it (for example I have been looking for Easinov for months, but no retailer sells it), so that might be another small revenue
stream for them. You might argue that these companies are interested in bulk
sales, but they send free samples anyway and I am sure there are still a lot of
free samples sent that do not lead to a sale, even after introducing stricter set
of rules. 

[ngarayeva001]

I am not particularly experienced, but my observation is that outrageously expensive ingredients are not worth the money. Say, hyaluronic acid, around $40-50 for 25gr on lotioncrafter (depending on the molecular weight). You can get exactly the same result (if not better) by mixing glycerin, butylene glycol and 1,3 Propanediol for a fraction of the price. I was actually interested in folic acid, but sounds like it’s another “resveratrol” (crazy price no result).

[ngarayeva001]

Thank you @Microformulation and @Christopher. I am reading content on Personal Care Magazine. My main problem with most of these resources is that they do not allow registering with personal emails. I tried SpecialChem, Lubrizol and ULProspector. They start questioning about the company I am working for/work email etc. (ULProspector is the worse). Thank you for additional resources. 

[ngarayeva001]

Thank you @Doreen. Crossing it out of my “to buy” list. It is outrageously expensive, and substance over form, it’s just an emollient. I liked it, because it’s rather light, but there are light oils at a greater availability.

[ngarayeva001]

@Doreen, I think @David got it right. I assumed that Hydrogenated
Castor Oil and PEG-40 HCO is the same ingredient, and it’s not. But in most
places I found it, it’s actually called
“castor wax”. I guess that is what is
used in the benchmark product. It is a pity though, PEG-40 HCO gave it a
nice glide.

I agree with you on unrefined oils. I am not using any
unrefined oils/butters except for cocoa
butter. And the only reason why I use it is the smell. It is very hard to find
good fragrances for a home crafter. Most home crafters are using (and
overusing) EOs. I am avoiding EOs on my face the same way as folks from Pinterest avoid parabens

So, when I make products for friends I use unrefined cocoa
butter instead of fragrance. Don’t judge me @Microformulation, the first thing
“consumeris vulgaris” does with skincare…
yes they smell it 🙂

[ngarayeva001]

@carplgrower, you totally can make an emulsion with these ingredients. Just don’t call them “chemicals” :smiley:

A cream  (higher viscosity) would look like this:

INCI	% of material	HLB	Weighted av%	HLB weighted av
Castor Oil	10.0%	14	63%	8.75
Cetyl Alcohol	4.0%	15.5	25%	3.88
Cetearyl Alcohol	2.0%	15.5	13%	1.94
				14.56
Glyceryl Monostearate	0.5%	3.8	8%	0.29
Polysorbate 80	6.0%	15	92%	13.85
				14.14
Preservative	1.0%
EDTA	0.2%
Aqua	76.3%

A lotion (less viscous) would look like this:

INCI	% of material	HLB	Weighted av%	HLB weighted av
Castor Oil	10.0%	14	63%	8.75
Cetyl Alcohol	2.0%	15.5	13%	1.94
Cetearyl Alcohol	1.0%	15.5	6%	0.97
				11.66
Glyceryl Monostearate	1.5%	3.8	23%	0.88
Polysorbate 80	4.5%	15	69%	10.38
				11.26
Preservative	1.0%
EDTA	0.2%
Aqua	79.8%

You can use Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate instead of glyceryl monostearate (or combine all three but I don’t know why would you want to do it). Use the same logic and recalculate the value. It’s HLB is 8.3.
You don’t need a match to decimal points. Anything within 1- 1.5 is ok.

Good luck.

[ngarayeva001]

@em88 I am a hobbyist, and I learn by analyzing benchmark products and experimenting. The reason why I used squalane is pretty much because Chanel uses is in two moisturizers that I like. I did my research about it and it sounds like a good emollient. Please let me know if you think it doesn’t add anything because I am running out and it’s expensive in the UK where I live. 0.5% of sodium carboner in this particular formula causes peeling of the final product. I might try .5-.6% of ultrez when experiment next time. As I said sodium carbomer is great to fix mistakes. Ultrez 20 is better on its own (silkier feel). Btw sodium carbomer is very often used with aristoflex AVC but I have never seen it as the only rheology modifier.

[ngarayeva001]

Thank you @Microformulation. I am subscribed to a couple of resources with starting formulations. I agree some information there is useful (typical % of ingredients and combinations of ingredients). My typical way of learning is to analize 10-15 benchmark products, find what’s in common (maybe lookup some info through INCIdecoder) and then start experimenting. Depending on complexity might take 30 attempts or more. I managed to get access to Croda recently (with sample formulas) and it’s helpful. I would appreciate if you can share a couple of resources that you find helpful. Regarding this formula, I suspect that salt has something to do with improving separation of water and oil. My next experiment would be increasing amount of salt (or just mix salty oil with cyclomethicone shake them and see what happens).

[ngarayeva001]

To illustrate the issue.

[ngarayeva001]

Thank you @Microformulation. I will keep that in mind for future (if I ever get enough courage to start my skincare business). I currently operate with tiny amounts (200-500 gr for skincare and max 100 for lip balms), because I am still learning and try not to waste materials (shipment costs from the US +UK customs is nonsense). But I already noticed that everything changes when I try to scale up. I have a nice working formula for micellar water (peg-6 caprylic/capric glycerides, PEG-50 shea butter, Butylene glycol -nothing crazy). Usually, I make 150-200ml for myself and it comes out pretty well. I decided to scale up to 1.5 lt (Christmas gifts). I have no idea what happened but I messed up the entire batch. The final product was cloudy and I wasted hard to find materials. So, I will write down your point about tempering shea butter.

[ngarayeva001]

Thank you @David. Well, now I had PEG-40 HCO tastes like a shampoo, which is not surprising since it’s a surfactant. I guess google let me down. Every time I googled hydrogenated castor oil the only result I got was an ethoxylated form PEG-40 (or 60)HCO. I have just found something called castor wax. I guess this is what is used in the benchmark product.

[ngarayeva001]

Polysorbate 60 is an emulsifying agent consisting of sorbitol, ethylene oxide & stearic acid (so thickness). It is semi-solid at room temperature and acts as both emulsifier and thickener. There is no reason why you can’t mix it with Cetearyl alcohol yourself. You would actually get more flexibility this way (add more Cetearyl and the lotion is more viscous). But you will not get the same result by replacing it with polysorbate 80 or 20. In theory, all three are emulsifiers, and Cetearyl alcohol can work as co-emulsifier, but I have never seen polysorbate 80 as the only emulsifier. It is usually used as a solubilizer to incorporate a tiny amount of oil and keep the system transparent (0.5% of essential oils in a room spray). It’s not “strong enough” for high oil phase (lotions normally have at least a couple % of oil). You can try though. It’s all about trial and error. Keep in mind that HLB of this emulsification system will be very high and you can’t emulsify a lot of oil with it.

[ngarayeva001]

Preservative is required as the product is exposed to saliva. Regarding PEG-40 HCO, I it contributes to the texture. Without it it’s just a balm with beeswax and candelilla wax and feels like a DIY product. But.. it’s bitter. Which means I either added too much (which I doubt) or they have some special kind of HCO. 

[ngarayeva001]

Thank you @Belassi. I am familiar with this one, and Ulpospector search showed it as a flavoring agent. 

[ngarayeva001]

Hey there. I haven’t tried arrowroot, but if you are looking for an ingredient to formulate for oily skin, nothing works better than silica powder (and it’s cheap). 

[ngarayeva001]

By the way talking about silicones, makingcosmetics sells a product called wrinkeblurr. It’s dimethicone crosspolymer and silica. Great for primers and moisturiser for “oily skin” (absorbs sebum).
Lotioncrafter sells the same dimethicone separately as a paste (if you don’t want silica’s absorbing effect). Consider trying it, if you can order from these suppliers.
Also, I don’t know if you know this source already, but check out INCI decoder. You can type in an INCI, it will give you a description of what it does in products, as well as a list of commercial products where it is used. Then you click on a product and it shows detailed LOI with a description of what every individual ingredient does. It’s an amazing source for learning: https://incidecoder.com/search?query=dimethicone

[ngarayeva001]

I really wish I could find folic acid in homecrafter quantities. @Gunther, do you know by any chance who sells it?