OldPerry
Forum Replies Created
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Yes, it depends on the formula. 2% is definitely very high unless you’re making color cosmetics.
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Adding to what @justaerin said, the biggest problem with purchasing natural ingredients is that you never know what’s in the ingredient they are selling you. And there is almost no way to find out. Unless you have an IR Spectrometer to compare it to a previous sample, they could sell you brown water or fragranced glycerin and you wouldn’t know.
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Also…Don’t take formulating advice from mommy bloggers!
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My guess - One or more of Rose hydrosol, rose hip seed oil, licorice root extract, strawberry essential oils
There’s a reason most of the known skin allergens are found in natural ingredients. Plants evolved defenses against animals that might harm them.
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“One last thing - wouldn’t a company have to evidence their claims? If they’re selling it as a heat protection treatment, or that is ‘reduces damage caused by straightening/blow-drying’, they’d have to have tested it somehow?“
Yes, they would have to provide evidence for their claims. The testing that they do would depend on the specific claim that they are making.
The term “heat protectant” is pretty vague so any treatment composed of pretty much anything (even just water) could be called a heat protectant.
The term “damage” is also pretty vague. If you wanted to prove “reducing damage”, that’s simply shown by the following test.
1. Get tresses of hair wet, shampoo and rinse.
2. To one tress apply no treatment, to the other tress apply your heat protectant (which also happens to be a hair conditioner).
3. Blow dry both tresses.
4. Conduct a combing study measuring the amount of force required to comb hair.
5. Heat protectant (really a conditioner) reduces combing force thus protecting hair from *damage.In this case you claim ease of combing is an indirect measurement of hair damage since damaged hair is harder to comb than undamaged hair.
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I don’t really think they do work which is why they vary so much between manufacturers. However, there are two strategies. First, as you surmise you put a film on the surface of the hair fibers. Theoretically, the film insulates the hair from the heat thereby preventing damage. Some of the damage is the result of water from the interior of the fiber boiling off which creates bubbles in the cuticle which when combed lead to more damage. The film prevents the water from escaping thus inhibiting damage. Oils or silicone can both do this.
The second strategy is to include conditioning agents. So, you don’t really prevent damage but you cover it up such that consumers don’t notice it. This is really all that’s required.
In the scheme of things, heat damage is relatively minor compared to all the other damage that can be done to hair (combing, getting it wet, coloring, perming, relaxing, etc). But it seems intuitively important to consumers.
So, marketers exploited this minor problem. Their R&D departments invented science based “solutions” for the problem, and a new product category was born. Whether it works or not doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that consumers think it’s a big problem and they need products to solve it.
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The Cocotrimonium Chloride and the PEI were the most effective.
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Just looking at your formula, I will offer this advice.
You have too many ingredients. Start simple. Fewer ingredients are better to start with because that way you know what ingredients are providing what impact. Once you get the primary function of the formula working, you can go back and add the “fluff” ingredients.
So, start with…INGREDIENT %:
Distilled WaterGlycerineCoconut OilBTMS-50
Cetyl Alcohol
Liquid Germall Plus
You could put Polyquat 7 in if you like.Then test it to see where you are. See what property you want improved. There is no point in adding ingredients that overlap in function. Glycerin is a humectant. Coconut oil is an emollient. BTMS is a cationic surfactant. Polyquaternium-7 is a cationic polymer. Each of these will affect the hair in different ways. But there is no reason to include Babassu Oil if you are also including Coconut oil. The have almost the same fatty acid distribution.
When you are starting…keep it simple! Fewer ingredients are a better way to start.
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2.5% Polyquat 7!? That’s overkill. 0.5% is plenty.
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I have the same question as @Pharma. What benefit are you hoping to get by using maltodextrin in a shampoo?
Shampoo is meant to wash things out of the hair. Maltodextrin is water soluble or dispersible so is is simply going to be washed down the drain if you use it. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.
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This does point to the folly of natural standard formulating. The products are just going to be inferior in performance. The reason the ingredients we use are used is because they work the best. If there was some “natural” ingredient that worked better, that’s what the industry would be using.
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We tested most of our new hair products on hair tresses. We used standardized tresses though purchased through International Hair Importers or Demo Brothers (http://www.demeobrothers.com/)
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Yes, it will be recorded. To watch the replay you just need to sign up and will get a notice about when the replay is ready.
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Lack of humectants would be my guess too.
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@abierose - If a product isn’t being washed out, then it can have its full effect on the hair. The “competition” between molecules doesn’t matter as much. No, I don’t really think ingredients benefit the follicle. Ingredients are more important for affecting the hair fibers.
@MsBG - Pre-wash products can work. I know the VO5 Hot Oil product I worked on actually affected hair even though it was applied before shampooing. This was because the cationic ingredient in the VO5 would react with the anionic surfactants in shampoo and provide additional conditioning. But mostly, I don’t think pre-wash products will have much impact that isn’t washed away.
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You typically don’t need an emulsifying mixer to make a shampoo. What is your formula?
You can find some mixer suggestions here.
https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/641/laboratory-set-up-equipment-list#latest -
@ngarayeva001 - it won’t be banned. It is approved in the EU by the SCCS and the CIR also confirms its safety. Unilever made the mistake of settling a similar lawsuit with a Suave product and lawyers probably figured they could get a settlement out of the company for Tresemme.
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@abierose - Yes, I would say that. I haven’t done any work with those specific ingredients however, they are water soluble so very little will be left behind on the hair. You may get some electrostatic attraction between the amino acids and damaged sites on hair protein, but it won’t out-compete the other cationic materials in the conditioner.
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@Thota - I would just say check your premises. How do you really “know green tea works well for acne”? It is not a proven safe and effective acne treatment otherwise it would be listed on the FDA monograph for anti-acne actives. There are no scientifically controlled studies I could find that show green tea works for acne.
Anecdotal or personal evidence is not evidence of what is real. It is only evidence of what you perceive to be real. It may or may not be effective but remember for any condition the following three things can happen if you use a treatment.
1. The condition gets better
2. The condition gets worse
3. The condition stays the sameBut these are exactly the same three things that can happen if you apply No Treatment.
It’s only through scientifically controlled studies that we can conclude that a treatment or ingredient actually works for the condition you are treating.
If indeed a brown colored serum made them report their skin was better here is what you should do. Remove the green tea extract & replace it with brown food coloring to match color of the serum that made them think their skin was better. See if they still report improvements in skin. If they don’t then you will know that there may be some benefit from the green tea extract. If they still report improvements then you know the benefits are really just psychological.
It could be that you need a brown color to convince people your product works. -
step 1 - get rid of the glycerin
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Just a couple of comments…
1. It’s very common for people to approach chemists and tell them they don’t have any money but they want to launch a product line. That’s why it is important that when someone starts a brand, they have some money.
2. It’s not unreasonable to ask for improving on some aspect of a product. Just don’t expect that it is possible. Often it is not. It’s also often not possible to move technology from one industry to the cosmetic industry. For the most part, if there was an obvious transfer that could lead to a valuable patent, someone has already thought of it. That’s not to say that is always the case, it’s just almost always true. P&G, L’Oreal, and Unilever have scientists who’s main job is to find technologies in other industries & adapt them to the cosmetic industry if possible.
3. Claims are important because they are what is going to get your consumer to buy the product. If you are saying only things that everyone else is saying, people will be less interested in buying your product over someone else’s. Claims are nice though (at least in the US) because it’s up to you to figure out a way to support that what you are claiming is true. Your scientists can help with this but it is the product marketer who should know what claims they want to make that will entice their consumers to buy. Claims generation is not something you should expect your chemist to do. But it is reasonable to ask them to figure out how to support a claim you want to make (if that’s possible).
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Here are three crucial things…
1. Money - How much do you have to spend? How much do you want the final product to cost? Don’t tell a chemist that you want them to develop a product for you “on spec” and that you’ll make them a partner & give them part of the business. >90% of brands fail due to bad marketing & sales. A chemist is not going to count on you to be successful for them to get paid for the work they did.
2. Benchmark - Your idea and product are not unique. Someone has already had the idea. If you can’t find an example of someone who is already doing what you want to do that means one of two things…
a. Using current technology, it’s impossible to make
b. It’s a bad business idea that has proven to be unsuccessful in the marketplaceThat doesn’t mean you can’t be successful but it does mean that you can’t expect the chemist to come up with a formula that looks, feels, smells, and performs different than anything on the market. It won’t happen. So, it is CRITICAL that you find a product that is already for sale that has the characteristic you want to emulate. This could be more than one product (e.g. the fragrance of this product, the color of this one, the performance of something else). But if you want to streamline the development process you need specific targets for the development chemist to hit.
3. Claims - What do you want to say about your product? Specifically, what story do you want to tell. That will help the chemist know what ingredients to include.
That should get you started.
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Welcome to formulating in the 2020’s.
No, your formula is not cause hair to fall out.
No, Germall plus does not cause hair to fall out.This is a case where consumers post stuff on Tik Tok, Facebook or Instagram about products making their hair fall out. They find a lawyer who is willing to file a class action lawsuit, then they hope the company will settle.
Tresemme is going through this right now.
https://www.onderlaw.com/they-wanted-the-healthy-hair-this-shampoo-promised-instead-they-lost-their-hair/It’s a complete and utter sham of a lawsuit but lawyers have made a lot of money suing Wen and maybe Deva Curl for unsubstantiated hair loss claims. Look for more lawsuits like these in the future.
Good luck!
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@Graillotion - you are so right about fragrance!
@suswang8 - I agree you can question lots (most) actives. And what you find out is that most people don’t notice any difference with actives. However, I’m making no claims but rather asking a formulating question. If an active “works” there should be some way to measure it working. If you can’t measure something about the ingredient that makes it work or consumers can’t tell any difference whether an ingredient is in a formula or not, no amount of published medical literature matters.
I encourage people to put chemicals in their formulas that do something noticeable to consumers. If a consumer can’t see or feel a difference they shouldn’t be exposed to the chemical.
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Here is the question you have to ask yourself, what measurable effect is the green tea extract having? You say that you like it because it has an “anti inflammatory, soothing, anti oxidant, and sun damage reducing properties.”
How do you know it actually does this?
I’m not talking about what the raw material supplier tells you, or what you’ve read somewhere, I’m asking about your consumers (or you). What measurable thing happens to the skin the lets you know that the ingredient is doing anything?
If you reduce the level and you can’t tell any difference then you can reduce the level without any concern.
If you reduce the level and you can tell a difference, what is that difference? If you can identify what that is then I might be able to suggest some other alternative ingredients.
The reality is that most herbal extracts used in cosmetic products don’t actually have any noticeable or measurable effect.