Perry44
Forum Replies Created
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Yeah, you’ll need to be more specific with your question.
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Your understanding is correct.
Also, sure the buffer can be used in both emulsions and water-based products like toners and serums.
As for the amount to add and the timing:
- Quantity: The specific amount of Solution C to add will depend on your overall formulation and desired pH. Typically, you should start with small increments and measure the pH until you reach your target.
- Stage in the process: It is usually best to add the buffer solution during the aqueous phase preparation, before combining with the oil phase in emulsions or before adding any active ingredients in water-based products. This ensures a stable pH throughout the formulation process.
In truth, I don’t really understand the focus on “buffer systems”. It’s not really a thing that is given much attention in professional formulating.
How did you get interested in it?
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To make it harder you would need to reduce the levels of Cocoa Butter and Shea butter. And increase the levels of the fatty acids. Of course, that might reduce the effectiveness on hair but that is the trade off you face. Now, if you incorporated a silicone…
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I started work with a CM who (without saying anything to me) swapped out my working preservative system with one of the “natural” ones they liked to work with. Of course, the stability test failed. They just didn’t want to work with parabens. I found a new CM.
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I agree with @ozgirl - 11% glycerin is way too much! You’re also getting more glycerin from your extracts and the Plantapon. You probably don’t need to add any glycerin but certainly reduce it to 1% or less.
You might try an acid different from citric acid. Try Lactic Acid maybe that might make a difference. If you don’t like Polysorbates, could you use something like Oleth-20? It’s not as well-known and it may help solubilize the essential oils.
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I agree with @ketchito - use less than 1.5% even. Try 0.1% The ingredients won’t make any difference any way and are simply claims ingredients.
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I would guess heating up the sample would accelerate degradation. Just put it in an oven for a while.
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They don’t use proper Drug Facts ingredient listing so I wouldn’t have any faith that they are following the rules and listing all the ingredients. They probably just don’t list ingredients that don’t fit their “organic” story.
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Typically, you would do stability testing to set a PAO.
In reality, there is no established method and companies are left to come up with their own methods. It is a bit of a ruse because if you don’t know when the consumer first opens the product, you couldn’t realistically set a PAO. For example, if the consumer opens the product 1 day after they purchased it, that will last a different amount of time than if a consumer opened a product 1 year after they purchased it.
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I’ll start by saying what you’ve learned about proteins is mostly right. Although, it’s not necessarily true that all proteins are too big to penetrate. Proteins represent a wide range of structures from collagen & elastin which are really big to an 11 amino acid TAL protein in the Drosophila.
But the stuff you might use in hair care is all going to be on the big side.
Yes, hydrolyzing a protein turns larger, folded up proteins into straight, polypeptide chains that don’t have much secondary structure. That’s why the protein source doesn’t really matter when you hydrolyze it. Wheat protein, Soy protein, Silk protein, when hydrolyzed all pretty much end up being the same stuff.
There is little to no evidence that hydrolyzed proteins fill in any gaps. I personally don’t think they do much. Especially in rinse-off products because they are water soluble and simply rinse down the drain. Same is true for amino acids.
Comparing Amino Acids to Hydrolyzed proteins, in a rinse-off product you won’t notice any difference.
Hydrogen bonds break all the time in your hair not just during the straightening process. If you comb your hair or just run your fingers through your hair it breaks hydrogen bonds.
During a chemical process of straightening, yes disulfide bonds are broken. If you’re just straightening using heat and a blow dryer than not many S-S bonds will be broken.
The theoretical notion of using Maleic acid (or any bond builder) is that it creates a bridge between Cysteine proteins that have free -SH groups on them. The bond builders supposedly react with the protein and create a bond like S-bond builder-S.
In truth, I think it is a bunch of marketing gobblygook. These products are not building bonds to any extent that you will notice any difference in the fibers. It is simply marketing hype.
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Some answers…
1. Heating phase is used when creating an emulsion. Typically, you want the emulsion to be created at a higher temperature as that will lead to smaller particles and a more stable emulsion. Also, you often use an “oily material” that is solid at room temperature (like Stearyl Alcohol) and you need to melt it to incorporate it into the emulsion. How fast you cool the system can also change the final viscosity. Without knowing more about the ingredients in your formula, there isn’t much more I can say about your system & why that happens.
2. That depends on what you mean by “large batches”. For a commercial enterprise making 100 gallon batch, no a stick blender/immersion blender is not appropriate. For a 1 kg batch, maybe. It’s not really ideal however because you want to be able to make a consistent batch. This requires you to get the same level of mixing each time. So, it’s better to have a mixing system in which you can control the speed / time of mixing without having to hold the thing yourself.
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Thanks for the question. In truth, there probably really isn’t any article/data that show the reality of how viscosity affects active ingredient performance. This is because it is already extremely difficult to show any performance benefit from an active ingredient. If a company has optimized the formula to maximize active ingredient effect, they wouldn’t publish that.
In your example, the answer is that it depends on the active and what it is supposed to do. If the active is a sunscreen then the thicker one will likely be better for keeping it on the surface of skin. However, you can make a thin one work too by including the appropriate film forming polymers.
The effectiveness for penetration will also depend on the nature of the thickening ingredient. If the formula is thick because of an oil based thickener, that could help increase penetration for oil based actives.
The bottom line is that active ingredients in cosmetics have such a difficult to measure effect that the thickness of the formula will have little to no measurable impact of the effectiveness of the active ingredient.
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If you want some useful replies you’ll need to give a list of your ingredients. Betaine generally only helps thicken in the presence of other anionic surfactants. And salt only works with certain surfactants.
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The FDA has guidance on their website about cosmetic labeling
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“Redness relief” is a vague enough claim that it would probably be ok in the US. They could just mean that when you use the product, you feel better about the redness. It doesn’t actually have to do anything to actually change the redness.
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Yep, it’s most likely a mixing issue. If you’re using purple you’re likely using a non-water soluble dye? If it is water soluble then you can first mix the colors in water and then add it to the main batch.
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I see a few problems with your formula.
1. You include too much essential oil. The whole purpose of a shower gel is to REMOVE oil. When you put oil in your formula you cause two problems. First, you reduce the amount of surfactant available to clean the surface. Second, the essential oil is already tied up in a micelle and will just rinse down the drain. It is a complete waste of resources to include an essential oil, especially since you already have a fragrance! There are only two reasons to include an essential oil in a cleansing product. You need it for the odor or you want to tell a marketing story. If it’s a marketing story, you only need to add like 0.1%.
2. If your home stability test did not involve a Preservative Efficacy test then you haven’t really done a stability test.
3. Determining the correct amount for a 2-year shelf life is done just how you’re doing it. Use the highest amount you can safely add. Then when you find that is effective you can try to optimize the formula by using less. Of course, for that preservative you also need to keep the pH near or below 5.0 since Sorbic acid is one of the ingredients.
4. Niacinamide is water soluble. It is simply rinsing down the drain and doing nothing in your formula. Using it at 1.5% is just a waste of money. In a rinse-off cleanser, it is what is known as a “claims” ingredient. You put a tiny amount in there to get consumers to buy the product. It doesn’t have any effect on the skin.
The separation is most likely caused by the essential oil separating. Reduce the level since it is a pointless ingredient anyway.
Finally, if you are going to sell the product you need to have it stability tested by an independent lab. Home stability testing is just not appropriate for a commercial product.
Hope that helps!
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With just a tiny amount of water, you likely don’t need a preservative. I’d add one just to be safe but I doubt it is ncecssary.
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Some battles are futile.
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There is no “natural” emulsifier that will work. You need something like a PEG but the exact ingredient you need depends on the oils you are using. Cosmetics are not natural or “organic” (as used in the world of marketing). They are synthetic creations that often require synthetic ingredients to make them work.
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See this discussion about Thickening Glucoside systems.
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Not typically. A shampoo and cream are both “Colloidal solutions”. But an emulsion is a colloidal solution that contains a large amount of oil suspended in the solution. A shampoo is simply a solution of water and surfactant. That is why you generally don’t need to heat up a shampoo (unless you have a pearling agent or silicone or something).
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Hello Chelsea & @paprik
You can see a replay here. https://vimeo.com/969701362?share=copy
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Yes, if you signed up you should get an email alerting you to the replay. If you don’t get it within a couple days let me know and I’ll post the link here. The replay is being edited at the moment.
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You’re right! I fixed it. Thanks