Perry44
Forum Replies Created
-
Cosmetic formulating is very much trial-and-error. You mix stuff together and see what works or doesn’t. It just takes practice and a willingness to fail.
Now, it helps to know some chemistry and to keep water soluble stuff together and oil soluble stuff together (mostly). And then find the right emulsifiers / stabilizers to blend the different materials.
But there are very few general rules. Each system you work with will be a little bit different.
What specifically is the goal you want to achieve?
-
A formulator who won’t use mineral oil or petrolatum when the client says those are fine to use, isn’t much of a formulator. There’s a weird trend in our industry of formulators calling themselves “clean” or “green” formulators. Which is fine from a marketing standpoint. But if they can’t use standard ingredients to emulate benchmarks, that is a significant hole in their skill set. This is what happens when someone takes a class from an organic beauty school and thinks it qualifies them to be a formulator.
Anyway, see the list of chemists on this forum and just be upfront about what you want. If they say they won’t work with petrolatum don’t work with them.
-
Agreed that the question is too vague to answer. But considering cost, effectiveness and versatility, it’s hard to beat good ol’ SLS.
-
I’d add that without knowing the oil that you are trying to emulsify, it’s difficult to advise which emulsifier to use. A polymeric emulsifier like Pemulen could be useful.
-
I would add that there likely are negative results. It’s just that when that happens companies reformulate and test again until they get “good” results.
-
Have you ever looked through America’s Test Kitchen?
-
I do not think cocamide MEA is on Prop 65. Unless they added it this year
-
I suppose that depends on the claims you want to make. Let’s look at an example.
Suppose you have an in vitro experiment that shows active X at 2% gives some benefit. Well if you want to claim that benefit in your product you should use it at 2% in your formula. At least you could make an argument it really could deliver that benefit.
In truth, you should really test in vivo from your formula at the % actually used if you want to make the claim.
But if you word your claim in the right way, you can put a tiny fraction of the ingredient in the final formula and simply imply that it will deliver some claim.
But it would help if we had more information about the ingredient/benefit you are trying to deliver.
-
Yes, fragrance can certainly be a problem. You might need to solubilize it before putting it in your formula. Use something like Polysorbate 20 or Polysorbate 80
-
You’ll need to be a little more specific. What are you hoping the product will do? What claims do you want to make?
-
Companies that sell raw materials are marketers. Just like all marketers, you can’t completely rely on the validity of their claims. Do these compounds contain ceramides? Who knows? It’s possible they have some analytical instruments that are able to detect tiny amounts of some material that they call ceramides. Typically, these companies don’t blatantly lie (although some do).
More importantly does the presence of ceramides in these ingredients have any impact on the performance? The answer to that one is easy…No.
The only reason ceramides are even mentioned is so people who use the ingredients can claim their products have ceramides & consumers will then believe the product is somehow special because of it.
It’s really just a marketing ruse that has no impact on product performance.
-
Yes they can sometimes be mixed together but sometimes they can’t. It depends on your system & what you’re hoping to achieve by blending the ingredients.
-
You certainly can have PQ10 and Guar polymers in a formula together with an ionic surfactants. That is unlikely to be the problem.
More likely is your esters fell out of solution (those don’t belong in a shampoo) or you have a microbial issue. My first step would be to try again but remove those esters.
-
3% x 45% = 1.35% of ing Y
3% x 55% = 1.65% of ing Z
-
Another question is, why everytime i make formula that consist SLES (Texapon) and HEC, the final product always separate after 1-2 days?
Probably because the HEC is not properly hydrated.
-
A freeze/thaw test cycles between hot storage/RT/cold storage/RT. It is meant to mimic what might happen in shipping. So that’s why you may be able to reproduce the results.
-
When I was working on the VO5 shampoo brand you could get a bottle of 16 ounces of shampoo for $0.99. That price remained steady throughout the 1990’s and into the 2000’s. I just looked it up today. Here in the US at Walgreens you can get VO5 shampoo for $1.00 for 15 ounces. It doesn’t seem like the prices have changed that much. And if you adjust for inflation, the price has gone down!
walgreens.com
Alberto VO5 Revitalizing Shampoo
Shop Revitalizing Shampoo and read reviews at Walgreens. Pickup & Same Day Delivery available on most store items.
-
You didn’t identify any specific synthetic surfactants in your post. Which are you referring to and what do you mean by toxic impact?
-
He’s in the USA
-
The CIR and SCCS do use peer reviewed, scientifically published research. In fact, it’s a requirement of what they use to determine ingredient safety.
You’re being a bit vague on what you mean by toxic effects or “harmful effects”. So, it’s difficult to find any peer reviewed research as you’ve asked because it’s unclear. For example, I would say irritation is a “harmful effect” and a peer reviewed paper has already been posted here that demonstrates Potassium Cocoate is more toxic (harmful effect) than synthetic surfactants. So, challenge accepted and met, or do you mean something else by toxic effect?
-
Well, to be fair, saponification is man made, synthetic chemistry. There is no plant out there making soap that you would use in a cosmetic product.
-
This is why people should generally buy from Big Corporations rather than small, indy beauty brands. Big corporations do not skip tests and are the most safety tested products on the market. Some smaller companies are often underfunded and just assume their products are safe without testing.
-
yes
-
While ChatGPT can be helpful it can also be incredibly misleading. I wouldn’t put much faith in anything factual that it tells you. It has been trained on things written on the Internet which have a wide range of factual accuracy.
The problem with your question is that there is no simple answer. HLB is a helpful guide but the numbers make it seem more precise than it actually is. Just because a number is placed on a characteristic doesn’t mean it is accurate or predictive.
Also, your simple classification of “emulsifier” and “oil phase” is not accurate. For example Cetyl Alcohol will have an impact on your emulsion particles. So will Stearic acid. Carbomer will also impact emulsion stability which is what you’re really interested in. This is not taken into account when using the HLB system.
Bottom line…systems are complicated. HLB can help clear things up but only in the most simple systems. The one you posted is not simple & HLB will not be helpful.
-
And those people are wrong. The price of a bottle of shampoo has almost nothing to do with the quality. In fact, some companies may take exactly the same formula and sell it under a cheap brand and an expensive brand. Same formula, different branding, position & price.