OldPerry
Forum Replies Created
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I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed on a few subjects.
Coconut oil is not astringent! It is an emollient. The FDA defines astringents as “…(products) applied to the skin or mucous membranes for a local and limited protein coagulant effect.” Coconut oil does not have this effect. Coconut oil does absorb into hair to some extent but this has nothing to do with astringency. I wonder where this myth originated. And hair doesn’t have a mucous membrane either but I digress.
To your specific questions…
1. Coconut oil is made up of triglycerides. They are chemically broken down into Fatty Acids prior to making them into surfactants. This makes them completely different molecules & materials. For example, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate can be made from coconut oil or palm kernel oil. It can also be made from Petroleum. There is chemically no difference.
2. What @Pharma said.
3. Micellar water will not work to clean hair. It really doesn’t even work to clean skin but some people like it.
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but their are numerous videos of women showing how to bring down the pH of castile soap, Google it
I have no doubt you can find lots of these. But most importantly…
Anyone can write anything (or make videos) about anything on the Internet
If you want to learn a subject, Google & YouTube are terrible places to find out what’s true. Certainly, there is some good stuff out there. I use it for research too. But the vast majority of things that are published is rubbish.
The first thing to check whenever you see something on the Internet is the qualifications of the people making the content. If someone doesn’t have a chemistry degree or years of formulating experience at a reputable company, you should not rely on what they are saying. Even this is not always reliable as there can be financial motivation to get you to believe certain things that aren’t true.
Bottom line…don’t use Google or YouTube as your only / primary source of information.
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Yes, it’s just a marketing story. Consumers have the (mistaken) belief that oil is good for their hair. They seem not to know how shampoos work. The whole point of using a shampoo is to remove oil.
Marketers just exploit misinformed consumers and add oils in shampoos for making claims.
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@Hewitt - I guess it comes down to the degree of benefit you can demonstrate with the ingredient. For example, if you had an ingredient that grew hair. You could easily find a raw material supplier who would pay for all the required safety testing to get exclusive rights for using the ingredient.
On the other hand, if you have a new material which will marginally improve the moisturization of a skin lotion, no one is going to be very interested even if you can show a statistically significant improvement.
It all comes down to whether the new benefit is monetarily significant or not.
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If you’re selling the product in the US, you have to be able to prove that your ingredient is safe. So, how would you prove your ingredient were safe? Imagine this real scenario. You make this product using your new ingredient. You start selling well and it’s popular. Then some consumer gets a rash (maybe not even related to your product) but they sue you or the FDA sends inspectors to your manufacturing facilities.
What evidence will you show them that the ingredient is safe?
If you use an ingredient that has already been reviewed via the CIR, you can show them the toxicology tests, the animal testing, the carcinogenicity testing, etc. that others have done on the ingredient. You can show that you are using the ingredient at reasonable levels and you are following safe manufacturing processes that others have been following.
But if you don’t use an ingredient that has a history of safe use you will be responsible for that. You will have to be able to prove…
1. It’s not a carcinogen
2. It’s not teratogenic
3. The level of skin irritation
4. Dermal toxicity
5. Oral toxicityetc.
Look at this report on Lactic Acid. You will need to provide this level of studies to support your claim that the use of this ingredient is safe.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dcw9n6jz1khdwvj/lactic-acid-safety.pdf?dl=0And if you want to use the product in the EU there is a whole bunch more stuff you’ll need to do in terms of testing and registering it with REACH. And you can’t do animal testing so you may not be able to prove safety at all.
The fastest and most cost effective way is to hire a consultant to get the ingredient throughly safety tested. I suspect it can’t be done for less than $1 million. But this isn’t my area of expertise.
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@Naren - I think you missed the point @ngarayeva001 was making.
It is impossible to create any personal care product “without chemicals.” Everything (even water) is a chemical.
If you want some helpful advice you will have to tell us what you mean by the phrase “without chemicals.”
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These are all marketing terms but basically.
1. No Poo, Loo Poo, Co-wash, and Cleansing conditioner can all be the same thing. They just involve washing your hair with a traditional conditioner that does not include silicones. The classic “Co-Wash” product is VO5 Conditioner. It’s only conditioning agent is Stearyalkonium Chloride or Cetrimonium Chloride. The idea is that those cationic surfactants can also help remove dirt and oil from hair. It doesn’t work very well but some consumers like the way it leaves their hair feeling.
2. 2 in 1 is an actual shampoo formula that also contains suspended silicone (Dimethicone) that is supposed to plate out on the hair during washing to provide post shampoo conditioning. The technology was patented in the mid 1980’s and is the basis for most successful P&G shampoos including Pantene, Herbalessences and Head & Shoulders.
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You can expect it to be mild to moderately irritating to skin even at pH of 7. See safety report. https://www.dropbox.com/s/dcw9n6jz1khdwvj/lactic-acid-safety.pdf?dl=0
Of course, if you know it’s not doing anything above pH 5, why would you add 10%?
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I wonder, what is the point of using 15% glycerin? It is water soluble and will simply be washed away during use without providing any noticeable benefit.
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The type of packaging might matter too. What type of container are you using?
I once worked on a VO5 Hairdressing problem where some lots of tubes (aluminum) were generating gas and bloating. The exact same formula put in a different tube didn’t have the problem. I never did figure out what was causing it but it had something to do with the coating of the tube. We changed tubes lots and the problem went away.
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Well, on the COAs there should be some values for tests to run. Just send out to another lab to run the tests. On the other hand, you can also get someone to run an IR or Mass Spec on the samples and see if they match up with the right raw material. Vitamin C will make sense but Aloe might be a bit harder as it is more than one material.
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What’s the beginning and ending pH?
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Yes
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PVP K90 will work alone. But it might be sticky in humid weather.
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I think I’m skeptical of their claims. While they may have created a specific system in which they can demonstrate suspending ability, I don’t believe it will generally work in most systems. I could be wrong, and would be eager to be shown that, but I don’t think I am.
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Not likely.
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You’ll need to post the whole formula or at least all the ingredients to get any useful replies.
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If you make a shampoo with SLS, SLES and Cocamidopropyl Betaine, you can use salt as your thickener. You don’t need a separate thickener.
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If you’re making lotions that are “very natural” then you are not making higher quality lotions. You are making lower quality lotions with a natural story.
The highest quality lotions (in terms of performance and aesthetic characteristics) use petrolatum, mineral oil and other synthetic ingredients to achieve the desired results. Things like butters are best at helping develop a marketing story, not at providing benefits.
In my opinion, one butter is just as good as any other. It shouldn’t be the primary functional ingredient in your formula.
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Perhaps Xanthan Gum would be a better choice and could help aid in stability. It has a suspending ability that other thickeners don’t have.
I’d also like to point out that if your product is separating on the market but it passed your stability tests, your stability testing protocol is bad. Stability testing is meant to challenge a formula so that you will know before you put it on the market whether it will fall apart or not. If it doesn’t predict that, then you’re doing something wrong.
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Yes, viscosity can affect bubble retention. Although that is only one factor.
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@czkld - that is a much more reasonable starting place. Try it out and see where the formula could be improved after using it.
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You’re making your formula way too complicated, especially for someone who is new to formulating.
Your first step should be to figure out why you are adding ingredients. Then simplify. Don’t include ingredients that are having the same effect.
For example, Glycerin is a humectant. Sodium PCA is a humectant. Pentavitin is a humectant. Why would you add all of those? What difference are you expecting to notice? Don’t add three ingredients when 1 will do.
Here’s what you should do, since you’re a new formulator.
Simplify your formula.
1. Water
2. Glycerin
3. PreservativeThat’s it. That’s all you need. Make this formula. Test it.
Then decide what you don’t like about.
Determine what characteristics you want improved.Then add ONE ingredient to the formula to see what difference it makes. If you want to try Sodium PCA then add it to the simple formula. Test to see if there are any differences. If there aren’t, then you know you don’t need Sodium PCA. If there are, then keep it in there and use this as your new base formula.
Formulating is not about putting every good ingredient you’ve ever read about into the mixture. It’s about slowly building a formula in a step-by-step, deliberative manner, testing and reworking until you get something that works the way you want it to.
Formulating is also learning about how to evaluate a product. Learn how things feel on or how they affect the skin. Learn how specific ingredients change the way formulas work. You can’t learn this by starting out with a dozen ingredients.
Keep it simple.
Learn.
And then, and only then, make it a little more complicated. -
See if they have a distributor in your area.
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In the US, there is no defined limit except to say that if you claim you add an ingredient, you have to be able to demonstrate that some of it is in there. You’ll need some kind of analytical test that can detect the ingredient you say you added.