Perry44
Forum Replies Created
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When formulating, it’s always advisable to start out with as few ingredients as you can. If you’re looking for hold the key ingredient will be PVP. I’d start with 4% and look to reduce it if the hold is too stiff.
I don’t see a lot of reason to have both Glycerin and Propanediol. I’d just use the Propanediol.
I don’t like having Citric Acid in a Carbomer system as it can break your viscosity. You also likely don’t need it although you may to reduce the pH.
I’d start simple. Water, PVP, Cetearyl alcohol, Carbomer, Triethanolamine, preservative and see what you get. Then add the Propanediol, hydrolyzed protein, oil if you want.
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Potassium olivate is natural?
What plant produces potassium olivate? Don’t you have to chemically react olive oil in a lab to produce potassium olivate?
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1. Without an ingredient list, that could be a challenging project.
2. With an ingredient list, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
3. Determining whether there are unlisted ingredients, that could be a significant challenge.
As far as any suggestions, I’ll let people in the forum chime in. -
It doesn’t provide any benefit over glycerin & it costs more.
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You’re asking a difficult question because if anyone here knew what the game changer in the cosmetic industry was going to be, we’d already be working on it.
But also, there isn’t much space to innovate in our industry. The Big Problems like wrinkles & hair loss are not problems that can be solved using cosmetics. Those would require some type of drug to really work.
In my opinion, the cosmetic industry is a “mature industry” which means that the products have not changed significantly in the last 30 or 40 years. While there have been subtle, incremental improvements, there haven’t really been any consumer-perceptible differences. I dare say there have been no significant technological innovations in our industry since the 1990’s. People still use shampoos and lotions that look and feel the same as they did in the 1980’s.
The things that pass for innovation in our industry is really just clever marketing stories. If you want to create a game changing innovation, come up with a compelling marketing story.
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You’ll need to provide more information about the specific ingredients in the system. Typically, thickening should happen within a few minutes.
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Generally, there are 4 ingredients considered sulfate surfactants.
They include:
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate,
Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate,
Sodium Laureth Sulfate
Ammonium Laureth Sulfate.All other surfactants are considered “non-sulfates”. There are too many to list but things like Decyl Glucoside, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, or Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate.
If you are avoiding “sulfur” then you’d also want to avoid an ingredient like Sodium Olefin Sulfonate. Anywhere you see the letters “Sulf-“ that means there is sulfur in the molecule.
Of course, there are ingredients that are not surfactants that also include some sulfur like Sulfuric acid, Thioglycolic Acid, Allyl Isothiocyanate, Methionine (an amino acid), etc.
I will note that it is highly unlikely that sulfur is causing your problems. It is a component of every cell in your body and being allergic to it is not really possible. However, sensitivity to Sulfur derivatives is possible. That’s good news because it means that just because a product has some sulfur containing molecule doesn’t mean you will have a reaction.
Ultimately, yes you will have to try different cleansers until you find one that doesn’t cause your reaction.
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An extract will not cover an odor significantly. You need a fragrance specifically designed to do it. Or a strong smelling oil like tea tree oil might work.
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I see no reason consumers should avoid fragrance. The toxicologists at IFRA would agree.
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I’d suggest you read this post about cosmetic ingredient expiration dates.
Expiration dates on food products and ingredients make sense because they have a huge impact both on the taste and the safety of the food. When something goes rancid it has a consumer perceptible impact on taste. But for cosmetic ingredients, expiration dates don’t matter much.
In fact, there really is no formal “expiration date”. It is an arbitrary date that helps keep ingredient sales moving. I think it helps with ingredient marketing, but it doesn’t tell you much about the ingredient.
Here’s the difference. While food ingredient changes make big impacts on the final product, cosmetic ingredient changes often do not.
When you say the components of an oil “will (not) last more than 2.5 years” it’s hard to know exactly what you mean. The primary components of most oils (saturated fatty acids) aren’t going to change in a meaningful way. Palmitic acid & stearic acid are not prone to chemical degradation over time. So, they won’t change significantly even after 10 years.
However, unsaturated fatty acids are prone to oxidation and those can certainly change. But is it a change that will impact the formula? Not always.I’m looking at the fatty acid profile of cranberry seed oil and it looks like it has some Palmitic and Steric acid. In 3 years, this won’t change. But it does have Oleic, Linoleic, and Linolenic acid. These have double bonds which will change. They will oxidize and produce different types of organic molecules which can affect the Viscosity, Melting Point, but most importantly the Color and Odor.
Now, if you are only using 1 or 2% in the formula and other ingredients are having a more significant impact on color and odor, it might not matter if the cranberry seed oil has changed. That’s why you set specifications for things like color and odor and you can retest after some arbitrary point in time.
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Steinberg being feisty as ever! I do agree, preservative free is a bad claim.
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Oxidation is the answer. Hydrocarbons in Vaseline chemically change by reacting with air, UV light, introduced contaminants. Heating can also speed up oxidation. To slow it down, keeping it stored in a cool dark place might help.
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If you haven’t passed stability, it might be premature to go to HRIPT. Also, any formula changes you make should require a repeat of the micro testing too. You’ve got to have a stable product first.
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There is no requirement to do that as far as I know.
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Some consumers might care but the vast majority don’t. All you have to do is look at the sales of products that use traditional preservatives. The brands you mentioned are all best sellers. Clearly consumers that buy these products don’t care.
It’s not surprising to me that @mikethair has a different perspective because his consumer group is filtered & they are looking for more natural products. Most consumers aren’t. The natural/clean market makes up about 20% at most of sales. This means 80% of product sales is not clean/natural.
As a new brand I don’t think your preservative matters in terms of marketing. What matters is your brand story, your fragrance, your packaging & whether the product meets your claims. Wasting marketing attention by pointing out what preservative you do or do not use seems like a waste of effort to me. While some people may avoid buying your product because it has some ingredient in it they find objectionable, no one is going to buy your product because of what preservative you use. You need a better marketing story than that.
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There are limits. The two posts prompted a worthwhile discussion so I didn’t take them down. He is also a longtime contributor to the forum & I appreciate his different perspective. But yes too much self promotion without prompting discussion will get removed.
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We just disagree. From my perspective the synthetic detergent you use is not any more natural than Sodium Lauryl Sulfate which is derived from coconut oil. If you were truly natural you would only use saponins as your detergent. I think it’s disingenuous to call your products natural when they only exist due to human induced chemical synthesis.
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No, you couldn’t really get much out of using a mass spec or chromatography. There are just too many different chemicals in a cosmetic product. It’s not like an organic chemistry lab where you would be just looking at a simple solution for specific Hydrocarbon bonds and peaks and things. There could be hundreds of different chemicals in a cosmetic.
For example, when an ingredient is listed as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, it’s not just SLS. See this blog post on the subject. https://chemistscorner.com/what-is-in-a-cosmetic-ingredient/
Basically, every ingredient used in a cosmetic is a mixture of chemicals, not just a single chemical. So things like mass spec and chromatography are not very helpful in determining exactly what is in a formula.
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How is saponification any more natural than sulfation?
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Ah, well natural oils are all made up of mostly fatty acids. These are classified by the number of Carbons in the molecule and range in number from C8 to C24. Most natural oils have between 12 and 22 Carbon atoms.
Let’s look at Coconut oil.
It is composed of the following.
C8 = 0.23%
C10 = 4.5%
C12 = 55.3%
C14 = 21.8%
C16 = 7.3%
C18 = 3.1%
unsaturated C18 = 4.97%
double unsaturated C18 = 2.1%So, it is mostly C12 and C14 which are Lauric acid and Myristic acids.
Argan oil on the other hand is composed of the following.C16 = 16.5%
C18 = 4.2%
unsaturated C18 = 45%
double unsaturated C18 = 35%If you blended coconut oil and argan oil together in equal ratios you would have approximately the following fatty acid distribution.
C10 = 2.2%
C12 = 27.5%
C14 = 10.9%
C16 = 12.1%
C18 = 3.7%
unsaturated C18 = 25.5%
double unsaturated C18 = 18.5%So, you want to find an oil that has that fatty acid distribution. It will then work the same.
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They most likely use encapsulation for the retinol. Then just put it in the wax. Since consumers really can’t tell if it works or not, it’s just a claims ingredient.
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I agree. That’s a pretty good starting point.
Although you might want to look at the fatty acid distribution of all the oils and then pick one (maybe not even one currently in the formula) that overlaps better.
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Based on that logic, since you are (or were) a seller of fragrance free products, shouldn’t your opinion be similarly dismissed? Wouldn’t your salary be harmed if the opposite of what you claim is true?
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I don’t think this problem of misinformation and fearmongering will go away until consumers get smarter. People have to stop taking advertising seriously. If they assume that everyone in the industry is out to trick them, they will be better off financially.
Industry is in no position to do “consumer education.” The cosmetic industry is based on selling “hope in a bottle” and that is what consumers want to buy. Nobody really wins when consumers are better educated. Instead, the real winning comes when brands are able to miseducate consumers. Drunk Elephant convinced people they need to avoid 6 types of ingredients and in less than 10 years they built an $845 million company!
If consumers were educated and interested in buying products that worked at reasonable prices, they would be buying Suave or Equate or all the other store brands that work just as well as the super expensive products at a fraction of the price. But that is not what consumers want & that isn’t what industry wants either.
An honest, science-based approach to communication by brands might work for some niche brand, but you’re never going to grow a billion dollar brand telling people the truth.
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The choice of an “alternative” preservative is similar to the choice of which worldwide regulations you follow. The EU is generally more strict that the US. So, big companies who sell products in both the US and the EU will just follow the EU regulations because they figure it will cover both the US and EU. Whereas if they just followed the US regs, they might run afoul of the EU regs.
So, if you chose an alternative preservative, the vast number of people who don’t care will still buy your product. But the small number of people who do care will also buy your product. Ergo, if you want to appeal to the most number of consumers, then picking an alternative preservative makes some sense. That way you alienate no one.
However, the problem is that the alternative preservatives actually cause problems because they don’t work particularly well. And no one wants to buy a microbial contaminated product!