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I’m not sure why it’s being used at all. Do you just need a topical antioxidant? A surfactant? A preservative? There’s about 500 trillion alternatives for each.

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Oh, and I wasn’t able to find a sample of Oleamide DEA for sale, so I’d have to wait for my suppliers to send it from abroad which is a huge pain.

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Since my product will be used on thin hair, creating a film can cause it to stick together and thus look even worse vs a more dry look. Keeping it light is important for my design philosophy

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I’m looking to minimize film.

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Hey, did you see my question?

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What cationic cellulose do you know of that I can experiment with?

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Hey, are you seeing this?

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What chemical(s) compose Synthalen W600?

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Thanks so much for the response man. I think I figured out the coacervation but with a different chemical. What I really want to know more about though is what you said about multivalent salts not working as thickeners, can you please explain why that’s the case? I’ve heard from others that Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate can be salt thickened, but it was anecdotal - though I believed it since it’s an anionic surfactant. But people have also said that Magnesium Chloride can effectively salt thicken anionic surfactants. So what’s the truth? Does salt thickening even work if your total surfactant concentration is <3.5%?

And on the topic of coacervation, which I’m assuming you’re knowledgeable of, if I have indeed created a coacervate, is its purpose limited to silicones or polyquats? I read that when excessive water falls upon the coacervate, it releases these agents to serve as conditioners, thus making a “2 in 1” shampoo possible. What if instead I added D-Panthenol, or Hydroxyethylcellulose - do other conditioning agents or polymers not count? Thanks.

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Do you have any recommendations for non-toxic, non-irritating preservatives?

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I just spoke with my suppliers and they informed me that Sodium Lauroamphoacetate is extremely impure <30% and in liquid form, meaning that even if I did make it work, it’s not viable unless I organize a custom synthesis - which I’m absolutely not going to do if I can avoid it. I’ve scheduled to return my purchase of the sample to Amazon. It’s truly a shame that no due diligence is done amongst cosmetic chemists. Actually, it’s annoying. It’s delaying this project. It seems like you’re damned to try and use more sophisticated materials when formulating. Any alternatives? I’m still drawn to some of the ideas you raised. Namely reducing concentration threshold using a zwitterionic surfactant, or cationic and how it may relate to salt thickening.

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Oof, yeah. Major separation. I’m guessing this is due to impurities.

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Some more questions and a revision of the rest of what you said:
β-Casein creates micelles, and I believe Sodium Caseinate is rumored to, so that is why I have placed order for a sample: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0268005X96800105, hence my interest in it. It seems to achieve this would possessing surfactant properties.

Now, I see you mentioned cationic polyelectrolytes, and polyampholytes. Do you have any you know of? Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, and Hydroxyethyl Cellulose are both non-ionic, whereas Carboxymethylcellulose is anionic. To be frank, I’m not sure of the significance of their charge and if it relates to surfactants in a similar capacity. I’m also not sure why Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose specifically had such a detrimental effect on foaming.

On the subject of Magnesium Chloride, do you have any experience using it over Sodium Chloride? Is there any reason a divalent salt would be comparatively worse than a monovalent salt typically used for thickening?

For PH balancing, are there any “healthy” alternatives to Citric Acid? And why do some formulas seemingly contradict themselves by using both Citric Acid and Sodium Citrate, is it just incompetence or is it for convenience?

Since Sodium Lauroamphoacetate is zwitterionic, would its cationic properties allow for coacervation, and therefore would it make sense to try to incorporate caprylic acid into this solution, and if so, at what concentration? Perhaps it won’t be necessary with this altered formula, but I am curious nonetheless.

I have constructed a sample with 0.4% Citric Acid, 3% SLSa, 1.5% Sodium Lauroamphoacetate, and [0.5%, 1%, 1.5%] Magnesium Chloride, and I am observing no benefit to viscosity. Additionally, there appears to be separation occurring which I suspect is from Sodium Lauroamphoacetate somehow.

sciencedirect.com

Page restricted | ScienceDirect

Page restricted | ScienceDirect

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I’ll order a sample of Sodium Lauroamphoacetate to test. At a glance it seems fine, is this what you’d personally recommend, or any caveats here? Before I get to work on it, any idea on how Sodium Lauroamphoacetate and Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate would interact besides the details you mentioned? Would Sodium Lauroamphoacetate and SLSa achieve thickness with mgcl2 or do I need to introduce polyelectrolytes like before to act as thickening agents? Any clue as to the ideal percentages?

I’ll be keeping SLSa at <3% still.

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I’m not in China seeing how the Lauric Acid is produced, I’m just instructing the highest purity chemicals on the market to be delivered to me, and then third party testing it to confirm. I was quoted 90% purity on SLSa, from my long time suppliers. I will see for myself. Lauryl Glucoside was so impure, both when ordered abroad and domestically, that I removed it from my formula. It was easily below 50% purity. Both Lauryl Glucoside, and Coco Glucoside were ‘practical’. I am not after practical, I’m after perfect and isolated.

I understand that it’s not standard practice to strictly regulate the purity on ingredients. However, it is the approach I think is best. Not only does it help with narrowing down specific enhancements to the quality during formulation, it drastically reduces contamination risk.

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1. I recognize that you can use a questionable mix of ingredients and still get practical results. But my approach is clinical precision: I want to know what chemicals are in my product, how much of them, and what is occurring during the process. I’m already a business owner in the chemical industry. And I have great connections, though it is kind of you to offer that advice regardless. It’s true that during the beginning I did get screwed, until I knew who to trust.

2. My product actually aims to deliver multiple topically-active drugs to the scalp. I am by no means aiming to discourage skin penetration. However, I am indeed concerned about the wide margin of error that may occur with impure products, and how that opens the floodgates to contamination of other dangerous ingredients. While the product is wash off, customers will be instructed to work it in and to leave it on for as long as they can until washing it out/ until their shower is over. My attempt to make it “gentle”, is by reducing the concentration of the surfactant, while increasing foaming with non-surfactants.

3. Xanthan, and Guar gum both give a snotty consistency that is bulbous and texturally incompatible. With cellulose-based polyelectrolytes I liked the syrupy-esque consistency they gave me. I recently started trying out hydroxyethylcellulose again, and that seems to be a pretty good fit “so far”. Though it too might have problems down the line.

It’s true that the premise of my post was to up-front reject certain forms of advice, due to the narrow and specific goal I am after. It’s disappointing that this is still the advice I received, however I will continue to research on my own time and check up on this post to see if anything else surfaces that could help my interests.

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Only QNMR? QNMR is pretty great for isolating singular molecules and constructing a purity analysis. Not to mention cost effective. It’s hard to say what Lauryl Glucoside does for either of us, because as far as I’m concerned you cannot buy actual Lauryl Glucoside, just “concoction”. And trust me, I am with you 100% on the impurities working in favor of Coco Glucoside, but here we run into a massive conundrum: what is doing what? How are you able to accurately improve a product when you are working with so many unknown variables? I’m guessing a small minority, if even 1% of cosmetics companies are performing third party analysis on their chemicals. I’ve never seen the data publicized by any company working commercial end.

Lauric acid as you use it is probably impure, that is correct. It’s an unfortunate consequence of the barrier to entry for cosmetics being set at ~70% to be considered “cosmetic grade”. I can get a lot higher, I believe (~90%), with SLSa - if QNMR confirms my imported batch.

Oleamide DEA I decided to abandon shortly after writing this post because my supplier informed me it was only available in liquid form which shouldn’t be the case.

I am aware of Sodium Caseinate straying from my initial premise, and made a point of that in the post. However, if it can form micelles with limited surfactant properties, it might be my ticket for a lower surfactant presence in the formula. And I’m not sure there’s any alternatives.

In regards to using a cationic surfactant with coacervation, I aim not to oversaturate the hair, only to provide a light cleanse (without causing damage) while delivering active ingredients. This is the primary reason I went with a low concentrate anionic surfactant. Though it does seem as though cationic, as you put it, would provide a straightforward solution to dry/ damaged hair phenotypes by allowing oil delivery.

If you’ve attempted this, do you know if a polyelectrolytes work synergistically with surfactants when salt thickening? And how crucial is PH balancing during salt thickening?

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I’m not trying to argue with you on this, but for educational purposes you should know that there are a plethora of fatty acids in coconut or palm, by merely reacting crude oil to form surfactants you aren’t forming a singular chemical, but multiple. Lauric acid is a singular fatty acid. By extension, Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate has a predictable chemical structure. This means it can achieve high levels of purity. Cocamidopropyl betaine cannot be tested with QNMR. Most surfactants, especially these “naturalist” ones, while practical, are highly contaminated or inherently mixed. A unique goal of my product is to narrow down on the absolute best singular chemicals, and allow no impurities. I will be purity testing each chemical to derive a percentage. This has never been done before, and it really shows the disparity between pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Just because you aren’t swallowing it, doesn’t mean it isn’t absorbing through your skin and into your bloodstream transdermally.

I’ve already purity tested multiple sources of Lauryl Glucoside and found they are highly contaminated. I’ve inquired on a variety of other surfactants and most score below 80% purity. The cleaning industry is quite dirty.