OldPerry
Forum Replies Created
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If you want a helpful answer, you’ll need to provide your whole formula.
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Great question! By generally healthy, I mean that you are not malnourished. You don’t have scurvy or you’re not vitamin A deficient or deficient in any other micronutrient. So, I’m pretty much referring to the vast majority of people who would think of taking a supplement that wasn’t prescribed by their doctor.
For example, if you do not have a biotin deficiency taking 16,000% of the recommended daily allowance of biotin will have no impact on your hair growth.
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@Abigail - Welcome to the forum!
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@Graillotion - Legitimate companies follow the IFRA guidelines for types of ingredients and levels used in cosmetic fragrances. I don’t think people would be particularly surprised by what is included as fragrance.
Using the term “fragrance” to refer to the blend of odor materials used is a convenient way for companies to keep their ingredient lists short enough to fit on a bottle. I don’t think it helps consumers much to have a list of dozens or even hundreds of ingredients.
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Do you have a question?
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To understand protein in hair treatments you first have to know a little bit about proteins.
1. Proteins aren’t all the same. You can think of the word ‘protein’ as similar to the word ‘animal.’ Things like elephants, mice, tigers, fish, lobsters, birds, and snakes are all animals. But there are significant differences. Just like there are significant differences between proteins like collagen, keratin, hemoglobin, albumin, and polymerase.
2. Proteins are made up of amino acids. There are 20 different types of amino acids. The amino acids are strung together and the order of those amino acids is what determines the structure and function of the protein. So different proteins will look, feel, and behave in vastly different ways. Think of amino acids like the alphabet & proteins are the different words you can make from that alphabet.
3. Different proteins have different structures. While proteins are all made from the same types of amino acids, the order in which these are put together affects the way the protein molecule folds. It twists back on itself, forms loops, and sheets, and physically looks different. We call this the secondary structures. Hair is protein but it is a thin fiber. Nails are protein but it is a flat sheet. They have different secondary structures.
4. Hydrolyzed proteins break down the structure. When you hydrolyze a protein essentially you chemically chop it up into shorter fragments and destroy the secondary structures. So, hydrolyzed proteins behave much more like each other than non-hydrolyzed proteins. It’s like if you take a frog and a mouse and put them each in separate blenders. Before blending they are very different. After blending, they are pretty much the same type of liquidy, mass of goo. This is essentially what happens when you hydrolyze a protein.
5. Effect of hydrolyzed protein in hair - Other formulators may disagree with me, but I’m not convinced proteins have much effect in rinse-off products. Hydrolyzed proteins are water soluble so I think they mostly get rinsed down the drain. Leave-in products with protein may form a film which may protect hair from damage and make it a bit less brittle. I don’t think the type of hydrolyzed protein matters at all. Protein does not strengthen or repair hair.
6. Effect of non-hydrolyzed protein - Egg protein (albumin) put directly on hair will likely form a sticky film. Once you rinse hair though it just rinses away without doing much. No, it does not strengthen hair.
I don’t think protein in hair has any real beneficial effect that you couldn’t get with some other, better performing ingredient. But it does make for a nicer marketing story so you’ll continue to see it put in products.
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If the oil as listed is in the proper order then this shampoo wouldn’t work. Or at least it wouldn’t foam and clean very well.
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I would think it would feel heavy and cause more “drag” during combing. But it might leave some styling benefits. Another disadvantage is that it is an animal derived ingredient which some people object to.
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Cocamide DEA
Lauramide DEA -
@chemicalmatt - I love the old school tricks. Maybe we could do a Q&A webinar. I’ll collect some questions from here and then take a few live online. You up for it?
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“the more flowable it is, the better.” - Sounds like a reasonable conclusion.
As far as the original question, you’ll find that there are a lot of fundamental gaps in our knowledge about all kinds of materials & topics. This is for a few reasons.
1. Cosmetic science is a very broad subject (skin care, hair care, color, chemistry, biology, psychology, etc.) so there is a lot that can be studied. That also makes it difficult to develop a deep expertise in everything. Often experts won’t know the answer to what seems like a simple question.
2. Unless there is some financial incentive to conduct some research, it usually isn’t done. And when it is done, companies who paid for the research don’t want to publish the results. The cosmetic industry remains a competitive one & not everyone freely shares information. In truth, this forum is an anomaly.
3. Published research isn’t always reliable. This isn’t to say that companies are lying, but you shouldn’t look at things published about raw materials as settled science. When research is paid for by a company, they are only going to publish positive results. They’ll file away any negative results which skews the scientific record. Certainly, there is some settled science with materials that have been around for a long time. But for new materials, it’s best to remain skeptical.
Specifically to your question, the only companies that would pay for this research would be raw material suppliers. And the supplier of zea mays starch may have tested their compound against arrow root powder or hydrolyzed pea protein, but unless there is some marketing advantage they won’t be inclined to publish it.
That’s why many basic questions can only be answered with…you have to test it to find out.
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You didn’t put it in the wrong section. Maybe no one knows the answer. Or perhaps someone who does know the answer didn’t see your question. You only posted yesterday. Sometimes it takes time.
But with many formulation questions you have to experiment to find out the answer. It’s unlikely that these ingredients have been compared in the way that you’ve asked. Here’s an example study but it doesn’t look at exactly the materials you asked about. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909156/
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@EVchem - I don’t exactly agree with this position. The company I worked for took the position (and I agree) that if you know an ingredient is added to a raw material, it should be included in your list of ingredients.
Incidental ingredients are things that are not purposefully added to a raw material (e.g. 1,4 dioxane when making ethoxylated materials). You don’t have to list residual ingredients but you should list anything that is added on purpose.
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For vitamin E you need a solubilizer like Polysorbate 20.
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Thanks for your question. Where to begin?
Starting with your expectations. If you really want to get rid of scars & other facial issues, don’t rely on products you make yourself. Go to a dermatologist & get a professional opinion. If you don’t want to do that, at the very least buy professionally made products from large companies. These will have gone through the proper safety and efficacy testing so you can be sure they’ll give you the best chance of working.
If you are going to make your own products, lower your expectations. They may be unsafe and they probably won’t work, but they also might be fine.
Ok, on to your questions.
1. You don’t seem to know what an emulsifier is used for. With the exception of the Vitamin E, everything in the formula is water soluble. You don’t need an emulsifier.
2. The preservative you should use are parabens / phenoxyethanol. Of the ones you linked only Cosgard would have much chance of working & I wouldn’t rely on it.
3. Vodka would probably work as a solvent.
4. You could try it. But the formula might react with something in the plastic and become ineffective.
5. Sodium lactate isn’t in the formula?
6. No you can’t remove the water.
Hope that helps.
Again, my advice is don’t make something like this yourself.
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The problem is that you are trying to turn a shampoo into an emulsion.
The whole point of a shampoo is to remove oil. Including Castor Oil in your formula is contrary to the aim of a shampoo. Remove the oil. Then you can remove the emulsifying wax and the Cetearyl Alcohol. If you want a pearlized look, you can use Glycol Stearate.Of course, your level of Aloe is too high and it just gets rinsed down the drain and you don’t really need that much coconut milk since it just gets rinsed down the drain too. Finally, your surfactant system (Castile soap & Decyl Glucoside) are going to be very drying and will leave hair in terrible shape. Overall, you should rethink this and reformulate. Start simple. You don’t need 13 ingredients to make a shampoo. Start with 5 or 6.
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@Graillotion - Listing Aloe first in the way you describe is not in the spirit of the rules and, in my opinion, dubious and unethical business practices. Others might disagree.
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@Spadirect - yes, this is more of a consumer question.
I would suggest that even Ethanol and Isopropanol generally used are not drying to skin. Some disagree but I’ve not seen evidence that changes my mind.
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@EVchem - I suppose if you use the term “organic” in the way that chemists do (organic = contains hydrocarbons) then sure, it’s organic.
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It’s the same thing. INCI names (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) are compiled in a list in the ICID (International Cosmetic Ingredient Dictionary). All the chemical names in the ICID are INCI names.
https://cosmeticsinfo.org/Ingredient-dictionary -
You can try this company. https://microchemlab.com/
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It’s hard to beat SLS for foaming.
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@Graillotion - what are the additional things that propanediol brings to the table beyond humectancy? Also, what are the synergistic effects you are referring to?
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Including oils in a cleansing formula reduces foam. If you want better foam, get rid of Shea butter, Olive oil, and coconut oil. These things are not providing moisturization either. They simply interfere with foaming and rinse away. Also, Glucosides are not particularly good foamers. Panthenol is also water soluble so putting 1% in the formula is not efficient. It is simply getting rinsed down the drain and not providing any benefit.
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@Amira - I would not tell consumers, or even stylists, that they are wrong. Directly telling someone they are wrong about something is almost never appreciated or effective. What I would do is to find out what problems people have that they want addressed. Then formulate to fix those problems. If people believe they have protein sensitive hair, then don’t add protein. Or for other people who want protein, you can add it. Protein in hair products doesn’t actually do much in my experience. But at least a small part of cosmetic formulating is giving people what they want. (That’s why you see panthenol, which does pretty much nothing in my experience, in so many hair care products).