OldPerry
Forum Replies Created
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No, I’m not aware of any other states looking at the issue. Since all the big corporations have moved away from DEAs, most politicians likely don’t see much reason to pursue the subject further.
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This isn’t really my area of expertise but the way I read the Lubrizol toxicology document is this…
Say, a consumer puts hair gel in their hair. This product has a certain amount of carbomer. When they wash their hair, the carbomer goes down the drain.
It then ends up in the wastewater treatment plant. There it is removed from the water (through flocculation or adsorption on some surface or something). It is not broken down by bacteria used in water treatment plants but it also doesn’t harm them either. Instead it is incinerated or otherwise disposed with all the other solids / chemicals that are removed from water in this way.
Basically, the ingredient doesn’t make it to water ways and into the ocean.
At least that’s what it seems like it is saying to me. Company is saying there is no concern because it gets removed from the wastewater stream.
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I’m not sure which polymer you are referring to but Carbomers are degradable according to the company. https://www.lubrizol.com/-/media/Lubrizol/Health/Literature/Bulletin-03—Polymer-Handling-and-Storage.pdf
Now, there is debate over whether they are bio-degradable. And the data was collected by the company but their reasoning is sound enough for ECHA.
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You could try mineral oil or petrolatum but nothing will work better than a silicone.
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Most of the things that NGOs call microplastics are more accurately referred to as degradable / biodegradable polymers.
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Yeah, Dimethicone will be a key ingredient.
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Greenish brown sounds like a microbial problem.
But you could try removing the lysate, ribose, inositol and arginine and see if the problem goes away. Those ingredients are not having any beneficial effect anyway. -
What formula are you using it for?
In truth, Carbomer is a good replacement for pretty much any application where you need a gellant. -
What questions about Vitamin C oxidation are you trying to find answers to?
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There are people who specifically don’t agree that most cosmetic polymers aren’t microplastics. They say they are. https://www.beatthemicrobead.org/get-to-know-microplastics-in-your-cosmetics-2/
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It’s also notable to me that if you compare the majority of products sold in the US vs EU, they really aren’t substantially different. So, what good is the extra layers of EU regulation really doing?
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Thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments.
I generally think new regulations should only be created to solve a problem. And there should be a measurable way to show whether the new rule solves the problem or not.For example, before the 1970s products were sold without any requirement to list ingredients. This was fine for most people, but there was a significant portion of the population that had allergies to one or another ingredient. Therefore requiring companies to list ingredients made sense. Presumably it warned consumers sensitive to specific ingredients & reduced negative reactions overall. It makes sense for both consumer & manufacturers.
Similarly, banning ingredients like mercury, known to harm a large segment of the population also makes sense.
But it seems to me there aren’t any measurable problems that more regulation of the cosmetic industry would solve.
For example Cosmetics haven’t been shown to cause an increase in cancer. So rules removing potential carcinogens don’t make sense.
I understand that allowing kitchen crafters to sell products made under non-GMP conditions is not ideal, but restricting this practice would be incredibly difficult & the problem it’s attempting to solve is not very large. How many people are significantly harmed by the microbial contaminated product they bought off Etsy or at a farmers market? I suspect not many. If this was a big, measurable problem then more restrictions make sense. But on some level consumers need to be smarter about who they buy from.
Overall, I’m not against new regulations. I just haven’t seen any new proposed rules that solve any problem caused by cosmetics.
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@Graillotion @PhilGeis - two years ago the producers of the documentary contacted me about it. I believe we had one phone call & we never connected again. Guess they didn’t find what I had to say helpful for the do documentary they wanted to make. Yes, the snippets I heard is just propagating the same old debunked BS. Even the old “EU bans 1500 ingredients but FDA only bans 11” nonsense argument.
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Interestingly, I did have an idea this morning after hearing about how people adapted to the lockdowns in Shanghai. Essentially, they set up a kind of Kickstarter system for food. They would take orders and then when enough orders were collected, then they would buy the food and distribute it.
So, maybe there could be a “kickstarter” type sample filling business.
You see, the main problem with filling small orders is that you need to put money up front to buy the bulk ingredient. Then, you have to store the ingredient in a warehouse and hope that it eventually sells through.
Well, the idea would be you pledge money to buy a portion of an ingredient. And then only when there were enough orders, the bulk ingredient would get purchased and sent to everyone who pledged money.
This way, it would cost almost Zero money to start, have minimal inventory requirements and only in-demand ingredients would be purchased after a profit was guaranteed.
If I wasn’t distracted with so many other ideas, I might work on this one. lol
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This all comes down to economics. Big raw material suppliers do not want to sell small quantities. So, they have high minimum order quantities. There are a number of “repackers” like https://makingcosmetics.com
The problem is that they have to buy a large quantity, then hope that they get enough small buyers to get their initial investment back. It can be done but it seems like it’s a tough business to be in.
Imagine, you have to put money upfront to buy your raw materials. The more diversity of your selection, the more money you’ll need to have tied up in inventory.
Then you have to split up the bulk raw material you bought (55 gallon drum or a 50 lb bag) into smaller units.
Then you have to sell each of those units. This involves packing up the containers, shipping to some address, including the proper paperwork, then having customer service to handle complaints/returns.
These businesses don’t really want to be in the commodities business selling popular ingredients because then it just becomes a price war to get to the lowest price/profit.
So, they want to be the exclusive seller of a hard-to-get material. That way they can maximize profit while minimizing competition.
But some ingredients big companies won’t even sell to small distributors. There is just too much hassle for not enough profit.
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@Graillotion - ironically, the new legislation looks to include a minimum sales barrier. This means if your sales are below that minimum, the new standards don’t apply to you. Pretty much the opposite of your completely reasonable suggestion.
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@natiyo123 - clean can mean anything that anyone wants it to mean.
Natural can also mean almost anything as long as you don’t claim 100% natural. -
When I did viscosity measurements, our company used a Brookfield.
We kept the speed and spindle constant. We took the reading after 1 minute.
Our goal was to have the middle of the specification come out in the middle of the scale.So, for our shampoos the viscosity spec called for a target of 7000, with a range between 6000 - 8000 cps. The dial on our viscometer went from 0 - 100. We chose a spindle and speed where when the reading was 50, that matched a viscosity of 7000.
But it was all relative. If you changed the spindle and speed, you might get a different viscosity value.
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@Abdullah - It wouldn’t be surprising that there was a recall even with a product that had a robust preservative system like you described. Cosmetics are not designed to be aseptic so even the best preservative system can fail. I would say most of the cause of recalls is due to inadequately clean manufacturing facilities.
I’d add that since a greater number of cosmetics that are produced use a good preservative system, you would expect more instances of recalls with good preservative systems than with bad.
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Cocamide DEA is great but the main players in industry moved away from DEA in formulas back in the late 1990s. It was largely replaced with Cocamidopropyl Betaine. So, you don’t need to use it and you would be opening your brand up to fearmongering marketing if it ever becomes successful.
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@Abdullah - you would have to search the info yourself. Look up the product, then find the ingredient list, then see what preservative they are using. The FDA doesn’t collect this info.
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@Soso - Understood. You see everyone wants the performance of a synthetic but with natural ingredients. The problem is, no one can do it. Synthetic formulations were developed because “natural” cosmetics are inferior.
So, your choice to be natural is a choice to create inferior products in terms of performance. This is ok and many consumers won’t even notice the difference. But you need to adjust your expectations.
Ingredients that are marketed as natural alternatives should not be looked at as materials that perform as well as the synthetics. They just don’t. Neossance Hemisqualane might be a fine emollient but it won’t ever be as good as Cyclomethicone.
You need to compare your performance to some other “natural” product that is on the market. What natural deodorant that is currently being sold has the performance that you want?
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The easiest way is to heat up a sample and observe it until it melts.
Trying to calculate a melting point is probably too complicated as it’s difficult to know how each ingredient impacts the crystalline structure of the balm.
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@Soso - Based on this formula and your comments, you seem to have conflicting interests. So, to help you, it would be useful to know your end goal.
The conflicting interests I see are that you want a natural formula but you want the performance of a synthetic formula.
What you have right now is a poorly functioning, synthetic formula. Cyclomethicone & Sepigel (C13-14 Isoparaffin, Laureth-7, Polyacrylamide) would not be natural by almost anyone’s definition.
What product on the market are you trying to emulate?
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Numerical claims are effective at getting people to buy products. They provide “anchoring” and (usually falsely) give people a way to compare products without testing them.
So, if you see a product that claims “50% less wrinkles” and one on the shelf next to it says “60% less wrinkles” you will automatically think that the 60% one is better. Now, if you think further you might be able to reject that but the initial thought is that more is better.
Pricing is the same way. People assume a higher price means a better product. That’s why some brands can thrive at $200 for 2 oz of product. Even people who can’t afford the product just assume they are better.
Bigger numbers = better products
There is the interesting case of the 1/3 lb burger. A&W started offering a 1/3 lb burger at the same price as everyone else’s 1/4 burger. They thought giving people more meat would be a win. It wasn’t doing well. In focus groups people wondered why they should spend the same amount for LESS meat. People erroneously believed that 1/4 was bigger than 1/3.
https://awrestaurants.com/blog/aw-third-pound-burger-fractions
People are just swayed by numbers.