OldPerry
Forum Replies Created
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I’ve always been skeptical of encapsulation technology in cosmetics. If the encapsulate is strong enough to withstand the forces of manufacture, then it is too strong to break when used on the skin. But if it’s weak enough to break when on the skin, it’s too weak to not break open during manufacture.
Unfortunately, you’ll have no way to determine whether your encapsulated material is still encapsulated in your final product.
Consider that it will also reduce irritation if the retinol never gets released from the encapsulate. How would you ever be able to prove that it got released?
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If it actually did half the things it claimed
Performance Claims- Reduces wrinkles
- Brightening
- Fades dark spots
- Softening
- Moisturizing
That would make it a drug. (e.g. reduce wrinkles, brighten skin, fade dark spots)
I’ve seen no evidence that this is any more than a claims ingredient. Interesting story but short on scientific evidence.
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You might try Valerie over at https://simply-ingredients.com
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CIR-safety.org
or https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2009/1223/annex/V - Preservatives
Ingredients in general for the EU - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2009/1223/contents
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I agree with @Pattsi - The size probably doesn’t matter unless you’re way out of line with what the rest of the market is doing. You could ask your customers what they want but this is the kind of unhelpful consumer research that tricks you into thinking you know something. No one really knows what motivates them to make a purchase. They may create a story they tell themselves when asked afterward but I don’t have much faith in these answers.
The best thing you can do is to do a test with your consumer group. Sell one product in 50mL and the other in 100mL. Then see which one results in more sales.
Also, I’m a big fan of You Are Not So Smart podcast!
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It would be also helpful if you better defined “eco preservative”. By some definitions Phenoxyethanol is not an “eco preservative”.
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Please put the INCI names of these ingredients.
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To get any useful responses, you should ask a specific question. What specifically do you want to know about the formula? I agree with @CedarS that it will likely be very heavy and greasy for a leave in formula. A leave in conditioner shouldn’t be more than say 5 - 10% solids. The rest should be water.
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Total volume
No, you shouldn’t warm the alcohol as it will evaporate off thereby reducing the percentage in your formula.
Yes, on cool down. Yes, it breaks emulsions. Just one of the reasons it’s not used very often.
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@PhilGeis , @MurtazaHakim - It seems, life finds a way!
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This company sells it. SpecPure® GBE001 http://www.specchemind.com/
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@chemicalmatt - Satiny Cushion was my overnight DJ name on a smooth jazz station. 😉
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There is no one single thing causing the problem but lack of critical thinking is a significant contributor. I agree that some people (many people?) don’t trust big companies. But why would anyone trust a small company? You go to a farmer’s market and see someone selling lotion that they made in their kitchen and trust that they used GMP and safety tested their products? That’s being gullible in my opinion.
@grapefruit22 - While I won’t claim that big companies always behave properly, the examples of big companies behaving badly you’ve listed seem dubious.
A big company would not conduct “no test” on the effectiveness of sunscreens. That would be illegal and they would be easily fined. The story of sunscreens not meeting SPF values claimed is more a reflection of the variance and inconsistency of the test method. It’s not proof that a company didn’t run a test. And this problem is true for small sunscreen manufacturers too. Purito which got in trouble is one small company example.Yes, it’s possible to determine product safety, at least professional toxicologists think so.
And big companies DO perform basic safety testing. It’s small companies that don’t do safety testing and are the ones people have to worry about. The biggest difference is that consumers can take big companies to court and possibly get a settlement if they are harmed by products. If you try to take a small company to court they simply declare bankruptcy, close up shop and start a new company.The mistrust of big companies is misplaced and gullibly handed to small companies for no good reason.I agree it would be great if regulations were consistent around the world. And for the most part, they aren’t that different. If you followed the EU regulations that would pretty much overlap with everywhere else in the world.But the reasons for different regulations are political, they are not scientific. It’s a bit like asking why one teenager’s parents give them a curfew of 10 pm while another teenager gets a curfew of 10:30pm. Different people in power will develop different rules. -
You don’t need a high concentration of HCl to adjust the pH. But phosphoric acid or acetic acid could work too
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I don’t really have any great answers to the problem of online BS. And I agree with you, it’s certainly a hard problem.I will say, I think people likely overestimate the importance of social media and consumer feedback from social media when it comes to product sales.What convinced you that you wouldn’t have any customers if you didn’t change your preservative? Huge brands like Pantene, Suave, Neutrogena, Olay, etc. still use parabens and even formaldehyde donors and they continue to sell well. In truth, the majority of consumers don’t even look at ingredients or care what they are. If your brand marketing position depends on consumers that scrutinize ingredient lists, you’ve got bigger problems.In my opinion, clean beauty or claims about what your products “don’t contain” is a losing marketing position. Chasing clean beauty is not a game anyone can win for very long because EVERYONE can claim it. We even see big companies making the claim & being sulfate free, etc. So, then you have to compete on price and big companies will kill small companies in a price war.Fear mongering is used because it is effective in the short term. But if you build your brand on it, you will eventually lose, unless you are like Drunk Elephant and get big enough, fast enough to be bought out by a big corporation.Ultimately, consumers do not primarily care about the ingredients in their products. They care about results, how the product makes them feel, and how well they identify with the brand.The cosmetic industry is hard because there is no easy way to set your products apart in terms of technology. With very few exceptions anyone can make a product that works as well as anyone else’s product. So the only place you can really compete is in your branding and storytelling. If you can make your consumers like you, then you can build a brand that appeals to them. Don’t go chasing after the people that don’t like you.I wholeheartedly agree, don’t get into online fights. It’s a complete waste of time & energy.
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A solution of HCl could probably be used to adjust the pH.What is the purpose of using the CHG in a skin cleanser?
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Of course Cetaphil is perfectly fine and so is using products that contain SLS & parabens.I don’t think there are any easy fixes to the problems of social media, but there are two potential ways to combat the problem of the spread of misinformation.1. Regulation of commercial speech. We already do this to some extent on TV, radio, etc. And there are regulations related to websites and influencers. They are just not enforced very well.But the more important approach…2. Make consumers better thinkers. The only reason morons can get on social media and say moronic, false things is because there is an audience ready, willing and able to believe them. In what world should a consumer be taking seriously the advice of an aesthetician about ingredient toxicology? Are people going to start taking medical advice from hot dog stand vendors?Some thinking tips…1. If someone is trying to sell you something, be highly skeptical of the claims they make. This isn’t to say they are lying. It’s just that you shouldn’t automatically believe what is claimed.2. If someone is bashing a competitor’s product & offering their own product instead, assume they are lying. Maybe they are not but it’s highly likely they aren’t telling you the whole truth.3. If someone doesn’t have the appropriate background in a subject, you can disregard what they say. This doesn’t mean everything they say is wrong but you should find other sources.4. Start with the assumption that everything on social media is wrong. This is especially true if it is something that you want to be true.
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@Abdullah - I would switch it 7:3 SLS:SLES
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This is really the problem with any plant extract.
How can anyone know they are getting Grapefruit extract in Glycerin?What QA tests are you going to run that would help you identify a solution of Grapefruit extract in glycerin vs a solution of Lemon extract or Orange extract or Watermelon extract or even just a sample of Glycerin with a yellowish dye?There are very good reasons to be skeptical of raw material suppliers. That’s why you have specifications and Certificate of Analysis tests that you conduct. Don’t rely on your supplier to do it either. They have a motivation to sell you a product that is as inexpensive for them to make.For ingredients like plant extracts where there is no good way to easily identify what the ingredient is, it’s simple to trick people. -
Marketing hype.What is it about the concept of stem cells makes you find it compelling?
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I’ll chime in with my experience. It seems contradictory but HEC added to COLD water actually dissolves better. Our procedure was to start with room temperature or colder water, add the HEC, let it hydrate for 15 to 20 min, then add the rest of the ingredients.
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More SLS
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If your formula doesn’t have a properly working preservation system, then it isn’t a good working formula.
You either need a different preservative system or a formula that works at a lower pH.
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Fragrances are complicated mixtures of mostly ingredients that occur in nature. For the most part, I would think a fragrance is more “natural” than an olefin sulfonate. I guess I see Tetra Sodium EDTA as a mineral since it’s a salt.
When it comes down to it, almost every molecule made was originally discovered somewhere in nature be it plant, animal or mineral. Many of the more complicated molecules were started as isolated materials from nature that were modified to produce some new synthetic material.
Olefin Sulfonate requires a multiple step, non-natural synthetic chemical process (sulfonation, neutralization, and hydrolysis) to create it even though one of the starting materials is coconut oil. Is it still natural? Perhaps. But Sodium Lauryl Sulfate can be made from coconuts too.
I don’t really think integrity comes into play in the field of natural cosmetics. Cosmetics are not natural. There is no skin moisturizer bush or shampoo tree. You can’t pick lipstick off a plant and start using it. When people claim “natural” they are inherently being disingenuous. And that’s because consumers have a lot of mistaken beliefs about natural products.
Consumers believe natural products are better for the environment. They aren’t.
Consumers believe natural products are safer to use. They aren’t.
Consumers believe natural products work better. They don’t.It’s hard to have integrity & sell products based on inherent lies. Unfortunately, it’s also hard to sell cosmetic products without leveraging these lies. Especially when the competition is doing it.
This is why I leave it to the marketers to do this stuff.
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What’s your preservative system? For performance and skin safety 7.5 seems like it would be fine. Although most products are formulated at lower pHs like 5.0 or so.