Perry44
Forum Replies Created
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What formula are you asking about?
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Not that I’ve ever seen. What would you expect from such a calculator? What would the input/output be?
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You should list your ingredients if you want an answer
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To get answers to questions like these you’ll need to list all the ingredients in your formula. There are no single ingredients that can fix the problems you listed. It’s a formulation issue.
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This is more of a drug question than a cosmetic one.
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One thing that’s not mentioned is that there really isn’t any money in doing an expose like this.
Fearmongering is so prevalent because it is effective. Consumers are just more compelled by scary stories than they are by reassuring stories. Which story do you think the average consumer would read?
NGOs are lying to you, cosmetics really are safe
or
The cosmetics you’re using are filled with carcinogens & the government is doing nothing about it
Fear is motivating. Truth is not. Especially when the truth is mundane.
And we really can’t expect big companies to try to educate consumers. They are motivated to sell products! Selling products to an uneducated consumer base is just a much easier task.
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What type of “scrub” are you asking about?
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The term “active ingredients” when applied to cosmetics is just a marketing thing. It is used to trick consumers into thinking their cosmetic product will have some drug effect it is not legally allowed to have. The term “cosmeceutical” is used similarly.
Now, I’m a bit more skeptical than the average cosmetic chemist, but I am of the opinion that none of the vitamins you’ve listed will have any noticeable impact on skin. The things you’ve read about what they do are exaggerations of suggestive lab results. Evidence of a real, noticeable effect is lacking.
Even a prescription level of Retinoic Acid (vit A) is only noticed by less than 20% of users.
So, when you are making your hero product, use whatever actives support the story you want to tell. The only noticeable thing your product will do is moisturize skin.
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What do you want the serum to do for skin?
In truth, “actives” are typically just claims ingredients put in formulas to give the marketing people something to talk about. They don’t actually have much impact on performance so you can literally put in any ingredient that is compatible & makes a good story.
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Yeah, sales wise maybe $10 million worldwide? But it also depends on the company and what you consider “home crafter.” Someone could start in their kitchen, get some sales on Etsy, then ramp up production by hiring a contract manufacturer. This could then turn into a real brand like Drunk Elephant or Sunday Riley. I don’t think those would count as “home crafters” any more.
While I agree with @anokea that Dimes make dollars, when your company gets big enough, those dimes cost you more than they are worth. Which would you rather have,
10 customers who spend $10 million a year or
1 million customers who spend $100 a year?Almost any company would rather have the 10 customers.
As an aside, when I was working as a “cost savings chemist” we didn’t even bother working on a project if it was only going to save $100,000 a year. To a home crafter that’s a lot of money. To a corporation it’s not even worth spending any time on it.
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It depends on what’s in your formula, but increasing oil content can modify micelles which can change viscosity.
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If you want a helpful response, you should list all the ingredients in your formula.
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Unscented often means you added an ingredient to mask the odor of the formula. It could also mean you added a fragrance but the product has no specific odor.
Fragrance free means you didn’t add a fragrance
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I think we had a corneometer with a built in pH reading. I dong think it was particularly accurate however.
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You could try adding some emollients (cetyl palmitate or capryl glycerides)
Silicones, of course, will solve the problem.
When you let the marketing story restrict your formulating, you usually just have to accept inferior performance.
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Are you referring to this discussion? https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/natrosol-hec-not-working-well/
I’m not sure anyone suggested weird, expensive stuff. But of course whenever you have a thickening issue, “let it sit for awhile” is pretty standard advice. We assume here that you already tried that.
chemistscorner.com
Natrosol/HEC not working well - Chemists Corner
I am trying to thicken a body wash with HEC and it is not forming a gel. It goes from white powder to clear grainy…
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What software was it?
I personally think these AI formulators are a long ways from having a big impact on the job of a cosmetic chemist. For a few reasons
- There isn’t enough data for them to collect.
- Systems are too complicated for a tool like this to be really accurate.
- There is no simple way to determine if something is stable or not.
- You still need a chemist/technician to actually make & test the formula.
I don’t see how the AI really adds much to what a chemist with a book of starting formulas can already do.
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No specific tips except to use it you have to just use the search function to find what you want. They don’t have a great website layout.
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I think the biggest hurdle for something like Chat GPT when it comes to formulating is that much of the knowledge of the industry has not been written down in books or published online. We have traditionally been a secretive industry and most knowledge is locked up in companies or in the brains of veteran formulators who don’t write about it online. Thus GPT will mostly get trained on DIY / Hobbiest info which isn’t always exactly accurate.
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To be fair, cosmetic marketers are in a difficult position. They are trying to sell a product that everyone wants but all companies can produce products that work just as well as everyone else’s. You really can’t differentiate your product based on performance because the technology has barely improved in the last 30 - 40 years AND any improvements that have been made are not noticed by consumers.
This means that your product’s success or failure depends almost entirely on your marketing story. And there are only so many compelling marketing stories. You are competing with every other marketing storyteller out there. It’s like trying to predict the next video that will go viral. No one knows why one product is successful and another isn’t.
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It’s also possible that I used ChatGPT 3.5. When I ran the same query with ChatGPT 4.0, I got a better response. Although, they still didn’t mention formaldehyde donors as good options, but they did mention Parabens.
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Yeah, the problem with using it in formulating is that it has been trained on the Internet info which is heavily filled with DIY & ingredient marketing BS.
For example, I asked it for a suggestion for the best cosmetic preservative. It said phenoxyethanol & “natural” acceptable options. It didn’t suggest parabens or formaldehyde donors.
These are the most commonly used ones in industry but not the most common on the internet.
When asked further about parabens, ChatGPT propagated the same chemical fearmongering about them as any clean beauty inspired blogger.
If looking for starting formulas, places like ULProspector & Happi are still superior
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AI art can be done through Midjourney or Dall-E.
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I think the INCIs are fine. You didn’t name the brand & it helped shape the discussion
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Not all oils are the same and they can affect the micelle structure differently even if the ratio is the same.