[ozgirl]

In shampoo bars, cetearyl alcohol is generally used as a bar hardener / filler. It is not an emulsifier.

Shampoo bars generally contain no or very little water and do not behave like emulsified products. The raw materials are just blended together with very little interaction.

The surfactants in shampoo bars are probably sufficient to emulsify any oils in the shampoo bar during use. I personally don’t use oils in shampoo bars because you are basically just washing them down the drain without any benefit. Cationic conditioners that can attach to the hair are a better choice (IMO).

BTMS-25 is generally a blend of BTMS and Cetearyl Alcohol. So swapping it out for cetearyl alcohol and adding a different cationic conditioner is a valid choice as in the context of shampoo bars because it is not acting as an emulsifier but is acting as a bar hardener and cationic conditioner.

Hope this helps. ????

[ozgirl]

Most manufacturers probably stopped making products like this when there was an outbreak of mad cow disease in the 90’s.

Depending on where you live there may even be import regulations around tallow. I am in Australia and we had one product that used a tallow based fabric softener and overnight the manufacturer stopped supplying it due to changes in the regulations for tallow based products.

[ozgirl]

Why are you using TEA (triethanolamine) and Sodium Metasilicate? Sodium metasilicate should give you enough alkalinity by itself.

Do you mean Dipropylene Glycol Methyl Ether (Dowanol DPM) rather than Dipropylene Glycol?

You also mention soap but I do not see any soap ingredient listed. Are you referring to CDEA?

You seem to missing an ingredient as Benzalkonium chloride is listed as 0.1% with “:2%” directly after it?

[ozgirl]

Glad to see some of initial issues being fixed. ????

@thejoggler Has any progress been made on identifying which topics I have already read? Or is this a setting I can change myself?

Thanks

[ozgirl]

I think the desire to add it bleeds over from the Goat’s Milk Soap crowd. There are some “amazing” (aka outrageous) claims about the benefits of goat’s milk in soap so I think people want to capture that in a lotion.

All I think of is the “ick” factor when it becomes contaminated due to poor preservation. ????

[ozgirl]

I haven’t worked with Deoplex but can confirm that a combination of TEC and Ethylhexylglycerin works well. ????

[ozgirl]

If you want to copy the commercial product then you will need to match the surfactants more closely.

Some suggestions

- Change the SLS to SLES.

- Increase the Cocamidopropyl betaine so that it has the highest concentration.

- Add Cocamide MEA instead of decyl glucoside (CMEA is reported to have a re-fatting effect)

- The oils are not doing anything (except reducing foam) remove them.

Hope this helps ????

[ozgirl]

DHA discolors over time to a yellow /brown color so this is probably what is causing the color in your sample.

[ozgirl]

Hi Perry,

Thanks for getting the forum back up quickly.

Just a few comments / questions

- I too am having some lagging issues when typing and it just misses several letters if I type too quickly (Windows 10 / Desktop).

- Is there a way to distinguish which discussions I have already read. They just all seem to be the same color in the list of discussions. I liked in the old forum that they changed color when read.

- Although having the topics up the top looks good I personally don’t find it that useful as I prefer to read all the discussions from the list. Often people put their post in the wrong topic anyway so if I only wanted to read formulating posts I would probably miss some because they might be under hair etc.

- Does the subscribe button send you the responses via email? If yes I do like this function.

- In the list of topics there is a Private category but it just seems to have old random topics. Not sure what that is about.

- Do we still have the capacity to send private messages to others on the forum? I am still exploring so I might have missed it.

Thanks again. ????

[ozgirl]

I don’t use HEC so I can’t offer any help there but did you consider that CAPB generally contains a significant amount of salt (NaCl). The extra salt could be pushing you to the other side of the salt curve and thus reducing viscosity in the process.

If you post your formula you may get extra help.

Hope this helps????

[ozgirl]

This forum is not for providing formulas it is about helping with formulating issues once you have a formula.

https://chemistscorner.com/where-to-find-free-cosmetic-formulas/

[ozgirl]

Bar 1 would have a much higher pH than the other 2 due to the presence of sodium carbonate.

[ozgirl]

Your level of Cocamide MEA seems to be on the high side. If removing the Cetrimonium Chloride doesn’t fix the problem you could try lowering the amount of Cocamide MEA.

[ozgirl]

Have you tried searching UL Prospector and similar sites?

Here are a couple of starting formulations that I have come across but I haven’t tried them

https://colonialchem.com/formulations/detox-soothe-powder-shampoo/

https://www.personalcaremagazine.com/formulation-details/2544/powder-to-foam-transforming-shampoo

[ozgirl]

Where in the filling machine is it “jamming”? It could be that your product is drying out (losing water or solvent) during filling and gradually depositing inside the filling machine?

[ozgirl]

I make my own face wash, solid shampoo and solid conditioner but everything else I just buy. I prefer a face cream with SPF so leave that to companies with the money and facilities to test it. I can’t take the risk of sunburn living in a country with extremely high rates of melanoma.

[ozgirl]

This article explains it

https://www.chemicals.co.uk/blog/ph-of-distilled-water

[ozgirl]

It sounds like they have just looked at ‘No’ lists of other “Clean” products and copied them in without regard to whether these ingredients are actually used in fragrances.

With a few exceptions most fragrances would be vegan.

I think that phthalates are the only commonly used ingredient in fragrances and even then many companies are voluntarily moving away from phthalate solvents.

[ozgirl]

Bases are really only designed for adding a small amount of fragrance and possibly a very small amount of an extract but not much else. If you add more than this you run the risk of destabilizing the emulsion and overwhelming the preservative system. Do not add more water as you will just dilute the preservative rendering it ineffective and cause the lotion to become contaminated with bacteria etc.

If you are unhappy with the base you can either look for another base or you can formulate your own product.

[ozgirl]

In the EU you cannot use Salicylic acid in products for children under 3 (except for shampoo).

I think this is due to the potential for salicylate poisoning in small children through dermal exposure.

In Australia the most popular teething gels for babies contain choline salicylate.

[ozgirl]

Zinc Pyrithione turns blue in the presence of ferric ions.

The background section of this patent has more information. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5883154A/en

[ozgirl]

Have a search for Ernest W Flick’s Advanced Cleaning Product Formulations books as they contains lots of basic cleaning product formulations from lots of suppliers. You can usually find a free pdf copy if you can’t access the original books. It can give you guidance of concentrations of standard ingredients by looking at other formulations.

[ozgirl]

What would be the be benefit of adding more than required to increase viscosity as you run the risk of hitting the other side of the salt curve.

The best way to increase viscosity would be to increase the surfactant actives.

Too much salt might also cause corrosion of metals in the washing machine.

[ozgirl]

Not sure where the information about the flash point came from but on the  SDS I have it is listed as having a flash point of greater than 93 C. This is the cutoff value for flammable liquids so it just means it is not a flammable liquid.

I usually just melt it around 70 to 80 C with the CAPB which works well.

[ozgirl]

Thanks for the update! For now I will just have to remember how long it has been since I last logged in. ????