[Onur]

Esters of fatty acids and alcohols are also triggering malassezia, which are all true emulsifiers are made of. But that depends on the formula. If you use strong anti-fungal agents like climbazole or piroctone olamine, it’s OK to have them in the formula. Use a non-ionic one as suggested above and use the lower concentration of BTMS as the co-emulsifier if you like its texture. (I do!)

[Onur]

Tocopherol is a weak antioxidant. Use BHT and increase the concentration of chelators.

[Onur]

How could the pH be 4 with all those acids? Are you testing the pH of the product or the 10% solution in distilled water? Try the latter. And make a buffer with sodium citrate to prevent pH fluctuations.

Oil droplets could be the contaminants in your plastic bottle or in your materials, if they’re ever oil-droplets in the first place. I assume they are the recrystalized SA or Piroctone olamine because these two have poor solubility in water. Use solubilizers like glycols, Peg-8 and polysorbates.

[Onur]

You’re using various gellants that work at different environments. Pick one, I’d suggest cationic gellants like Guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride in hair products. Or a non-ionic one if you need to use a quaternium resin.

That’s too much Aloe Vera, it’s a claims ingredient, so is Panthenol, lower them to 0.10%. No benefit of sorbitol here, either. It will only make the product sticky.

I’d use pqt-7 instead of pqt-10 in leave-in products but that’s a personal choice.

Preservation could be better. Try Phenoxyethanol & EHG duo.

[Onur]

It depends on the fragrant material (aroma chemicals) you’re using. To be on the safe side, avoid formulating with essential oils and IFRA allergens, which are the ingredients you’d have to specify in the INCI list on your product like Citral, Limonene, Linalool, Cinnamic Alcohol etc.

As I’ve also been making perfumes for cosmetics and as EDT/EDP fragrances for over a decade now, I can help you with that if you request. Already made a few hypoallergenic ones for baby products.

[Onur]

I’m curious about which raw materials they demonize and which ones they glorify when evaluating those products. I’ve had enough of these fear-mongering companies. In the bigger picture, the so-called ‘angel’ ingredients they promote as alternatives to the ‘evil’ ones often have a similar environmental footprint.

Mother Nature might sound poetic but the idea that natural ingredients are inherently harmless is misleading. Pouring vegetable oil down the drain, for example, will harm the environment for sure. ‘Natural’ and ‘organic’ may feel like a warm hug, yet snake venom is 100% natural, too. Natural substances are still made up of chemicals.

It’s a bit absurd to pin the blame on individual waste when most marine mucilage is caused by agricultural runoff and industrial waste.

[Onur]

Gluconolactone is PHA, a mild acid, not really likely the culprit here. What’s the concentration?

Niacinamide, maybe but it depends on the concentration again.

It could be your sensitivity to Phenoxyethanol, it’s common.

What’s the final pH? Is it perfumed?

[Onur]

Glycols all help with penetration and also add some humectancy. You can go with propylene glycol or butylene glycol at around 3–5%. Other good options are dimethyl isosorbide or oleic acid. PG + oleic acid is the most potent combo but they need to be emulsified, which probably doesn’t work for your serum.

A 5% lactic acid solution at pH 4 gives you about 2% active (free) acid. The rest is in its salt form.

Niacinamide stays most stable around pH 6.

Phenoxyethanol alone is not very strong against fungi, and gram+ bacteria.

The formula doesn’t have a rheology modifier, so it won’t glide very well. I’d throw in at least some xanthan gum or HEC.

Also, what’s citric acid doing here? Why use sodium hydroxide instead of TEA or something else? No chelators, either?

[Onur]

PEG-20 Glyceryl Triisostearate is lovely to use but it’s not a must.

Use Isododecane or IPM as the main ingredient, add Stearic acid till you get the viscosity you like with a little Ceteareth-20 and/or Polysorbate 80 (at around 3%). All are cheap and safe, they feel great and give you a good rinsability.

[Onur]

Consumers seek functional, working products with a good rheology. Only 0.1% of the market cares about what’s inside the products.

[Onur]

You were told to avoid synthetic fragrances because no one knows what they’re talking about. A “natural” fragrant oil is made of… guess what… chemicals! Most of them are common allergens and some isolates from them or fully lab-created aroma chemicals are better for this purpose. They also allow you to create non-medicinal smelling, beautiful fragrances.

Fragrances that are used in cosmetics are mostly made of Hedione + Iso E Super + Galaxolide combo because those materials are the skeletons of modern fragrances. Then they might throw a floral, fruit, or an aromatic base in that skeleton. Apart from those three, the most preferred aroma chemicals are ionones (violet, iris), heliotropin (almond, sweet), vanillin/ethyl vanillin (vanilla), coumarin (tonka), phenyl ethyl alcohol (rose), linalool/linalyl acetate (lavender), limonene (orange) etc.

There’s no need to learn another artistry to scent your materials, though. You can just buy fragrances made for cosmetics or just hire a perfumer.

[Onur]

Glycols are what you need for that effect.

Try the trio of Butylene Glycol, 1,2-Hexanediol, Sodium Polyacrylate with Carbomer and/or some high molecular Sodium Hyaluronate. That combo is giving me forever moisturized feel and whenever I touch my face, it’s not dry.

[Onur]

Salicylic acid, of course. Many people think it’s water soluble but no, it’s only soluble in oil/ethanol/some glycols. I kind of like bisabolol, too.

Squalane and Squalene are different, the latter being cheaper and oxidized easily. Squalane is the superior one. It’s weird to say it’s oil soluble because it’s the oil itself, it’s a liquid.

Zinc oxide isn’t dissolved in oil, it’s dispersed only.

[Onur]

I love using Triethyl Citrate in body products as it also has deodorizing properties. Great to plasticize glycerin.

[Onur]

All I remember about Urea is that a sodium lactate/lactic acid buffer would help it remain stable and that sodium benzoate & potassium sorbate duo as the preservative system would be the best. These preservatives are most effective between pH 4 and 5.

I wouldn’t use Urea in a cleansing system, though. It’s very hard to work with. And there are more stable keratolytic agents like Allantoin, Salicylic acid and even Lactic acid itself is keratolytic. They all soothe/moisturize the scalp.

[Onur]

If you like the texture of the final product, use whatever you like. No strict rules. But a few things could be adjusted to make it shine.

If you think pqt-11 gives you enough holding and thickness, why use another gellant? Increase it until you like the viscosity. Not saying you can’t use two or more rheology agents but they often compete with each other and gets easily out of control. Never been a fan of Xanthan gum, I like HEC, though. You can even try PVP/PVA if you better holding strength.

There’s really no need of glycerin here. It’s a wonder product to hydrate the skin and the scalp but hair strands just don’t work the same way. You don’t need to attract water to hair, that’s what makes it frizzy and chalky. Remove glycerin and sorbitol, add HEC or Guar Hydroxy and inceease the pqt-11 (it doesn’t dissolve easily, does it?) and play with the numbers until you’re happy with it.

[Onur]

Polyglyceryl esters are also soaping much, aren’t they? Hence their use in oil-to-milk cleansing oils/balms.

I’d avoid mango butter altogether. All the oil-based formulas with it have that recrystalization issue, as is the case with Shea butter. Plus they oxidize in the blink of an eye! I’d only use them below 0.10% if I ever had to.

[Onur]

Until the the desired thickness. Start with 5% to 10% to see how it works?

[Onur]

Thanks—I didn’t mean to offend anyone. Aroma chemicals used in perfumery are actually very well-tolerated and safe. They aren’t inherently riskier than natural essential oils just because they’re labeled “synthetic.” In fact, it’s often the opposite. Essential oils, absolutes, and extracts contain dozens of aromatic compounds, many of which are known allergens. They don’t offer any particular benefit in skincare, either. Modern perfumery uses both synthetics (primarily) and natural ingredients when appropriate. Synthetics are exceptionally useful for creating an infinite range of scent profiles—floral, fruity, fougère, gourmand, etc.—without the medicinal or terpenic notes often associated with natural materials. They offer a broader palette and are well studied by toxicologists.

[Onur]

It depends on the formula. SLS/SLES is very well tolerable in eczama-prone skin if formulated well. The formula is mostly fatty alcohols and PG, so the chances of it being harsh on the skin is very low.

What surprised me more is that they didn’t use any buffer or a chelating agent for a bath product.

[Onur]

I’m an organic chemist with 12 years of experience in perfume making.

[Onur]

Peptides, proteins, botanical extracts, and oils do NOT repair hair. They’re marketing ingredients—there’s no solid science behind them. The studies that do exist are limited and often biased. Hair damage is not reversible. What we can do is use cationic emulsifiers, polymers, and silicones to mask the damage, improving the hair’s appearance by adding shine, softness, and elasticity.

The term “bond-builder” is just marketing hype—those products work in a similar fashion to a basic conditioner. Products like Olaplex and K18 are selling dreams. If they truly repaired hair, you wouldn’t need to keep using them weekly or monthly; one application would be enough—at least until the hair was damaged again. Botanical extracts are useless, very few of them actually do something with a ridiculous price point. They’re used to give the product the illusion of being safer and better and often used at 0.01% - 0.1%.

[Onur]

I think I’ll go with 15% nano (transparent) ZnO combined with 10% non-nano version. This caught my attention: https://enteknomaterials.com/en/micno-powder

And it’s available in where I live. What do you think?

[Onur]

Again, how?

Personally I can’t be 100% with those claims. INCI names are not accurate with this product, either. Cacao powder in a sunscreen formula? Why?!

[Onur]

It says “NON-nano, ultra-sheer” on their website: https://www.mustelausa.com/products/spf-50-mineral-sunscreen-stick

What does “chiefly - but not entirely” mean? Doesn’t it have to be at least SPF 50 to get this label?

I just realized that the product contains <b style=”background-color: var(-bb-content-background-color); font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; color: var(-bb-body-text-color);”>Octyldodecyl Olivate, it sounds like an ester. Just googled it and it says it also acts as a disperser besides being an emollient, probably an alternative to more-available Butyloctyl Salicylate.

My question was if it would be that easy to get enough protection with such basic ingredients and if I could approach in a similar fashion. If so, I can reformulate this with non-oxidising oils such as CCT, Squalane, a synthetic wax (and Butyloctyl Salicylate + anti-redness & soothing agents like bisabolol etc). What would be some good tips?

I’d even settle for SPF 30! Should I use more Zinc Oxide (like 25%) and mix the nano and non-nano versions at 1:1 ratio to make sure it adds more protection. What do you think?

Lab-SPF tests are very expensive in my country, that’s why I’m trying to make sure everything is right.