OldPerry
Forum Replies Created
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That depends on the formula. It doesn’t have to be.
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@chemicalmatt - That’s excellent! Nice work!
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This is a good question. The quick answer is you should add claims ingredients if it will make your consumer more inclined to buy your products. If you don’t know what will make your consumer buy your products, you need to find that out.
Now, the longer answer.
The reality is that having “minimalist, science-based formulas” is not unique. Anyone can make formulas like this. The Ordinary makes products like this & they have storefronts & a big social media footprint. Also, lots of brands already claim they are “science-based” too. These are not unique selling points.
Lots of brands add claims ingredients as a unique selling point. Some brands like Pantene focus on one (Panthenol) while other brands like Aveeno focus on a special blend of ingredients. These companies have big enough advertising budgets that they can “own” the ingredients by becoming identified with them. You probably can’t. And while none of these ingredients affect the formula performance much, it helps them tell a story. And without a story, there’s no compelling reason beyond price to buy your products.
It’s pretty hard to stand out in the cosmetic marketplace. The most recent successes have been achieved by brands that are “personality” driven. People don’t buy Kylie cosmetics because of the ingredients in the products, they buy for the personality behind the product. Sunday Riley, Drunk Elephant, Tata Harper, are all brands that have fine enough working products but are really personality driven. They talk more about what isn’t in their products than what is in them.
In my opinion, you’ll be most successful if you first develop the personality behind your brand. Create a character who people admire & respect. That character should have an ethos & beliefs that consumers can buy into and adapt to their own worldview. Would that character put honey and aloe in the formulas?
You really can’t make your products stand out in terms of performance (unless they’re really bad). You can make them stand out with a unique ingredient or special ingredient blend, or you can make them stand out because they were invented by a personality that the consumer admires.
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Dimethicone does have an occlusive effect. For example, this study found one.
http://www.e-ajbc.org/m/journal/view.php?number=640 -
Probably no performance benefits. I’m skeptical of their results but even if it is equal at 5 times the use level, if it costs more than 5 times than petrolatum it still isn’t worth using.
Perhaps it has some aesthetic benefits. But I think you have figured out that there are less expensive ways to get those same benefits.
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What do you mean by codes? What are the codes supposed to represent?
Manufacturers put on Lot numbers which allows companies to be able to track products and when they were made, but this is company specific, not industry wide. -
EDTA perhaps
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It’s probably an electrolyte problem. Anionics (sodium benzoate, sodium phytate) and cationics (behentrimonium chloride, cetrimonium chloride) shouldn’t be used together. The problem is easily solved by using DMDM Hydantoin instead of sodium benzoate.
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You would think all raw materials would have to prove safety in a similar way. Colorants don’t seem significantly more or less dangerous than other ingredients in cosmetics. But that’s just how the regulations evolved.
Regulations rarely make sense when looked at as a whole. They make more sense when you consider how things got to be the way they are.
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@EVchem - it has to do with the history of the development of the FDA. The FDA was created specifically because people were being poisoned by food producers and the colorants were one of the main reasons. Manufacturers would artificially color spoiled food so as to continue to sell them. This lead to the strict regulation of colorants. Cosmetics were included because people were being blinded by colorants in their cosmetics (e.g. mercury). This lead to the development of the list of approved colorants. You can read more about it here. https://www.fda.gov/industry/color-additives/color-additives-history
It’s illegal to use extracts to provide color. Probably because there is no standard and nothing to stop an unscrupulous manufacturer from selling anything they like and calling it an extract.
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@MarkBroussard - Do you have any concerns about using those ingredients since they would be illegal to use as colorants in the US per the FDA regulations? https://www.fda.gov/industry/color-additives-specific-products/color-additives-and-cosmetics-fact-sheet
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Here’s a list of what’s approved.
https://chemistscorner.com/natural-colors-in-cosmetics/So, Guaiazulene
Then there are all these “illegal” ones
https://formulabotanica.com/38-natural-colourants-skincare/ -
@EVchem - indeed it was!
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Well, at a pH of 5.5 the liquid soap you put in your formula is no longer liquid soap but rather fatty acid emulsified by all the other surfactants in your system.
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Pricing for raw materials is typically kept secret until you make a purchase. At least for bigger order sizes. The companies also negotiate with manufacturers on a case-by-case basis so you can’t really compare pricing based on region. Pricing is based on volume and expected volume.
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You can find the safety information here. I don’t really see any mildness differences.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q9zdfp1l68z4zxr/glutamate-safety.pdf?dl=0 -
I see way too many ingredients in here. If you want to optimize, strip it down to just a few ingredients then build in other ingredients to see if you notice any improvements.
For example, you have Glycerin and Sodium PCA. I doubt you will notice any difference if you just used Glycerin alone.
And would you really be able to tell a difference in using both linoleic and palmitic acid? or Cholesterol? or even the ceramides?
Start with a 7 ingredient formula. Then build it up from there.
1. Water
2. Jojoba esters
3. Glycerin
4. Scloretieum gum
5. Caprylic triglycerides
6. Ceteryl alcohol emulsifier
7. Glyceryl stearate emulsifier(preservatives of course - and maybe the Glycolic acid for pH adjustment)
Then build from there.
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@maria - No need to apologize. It is my mistake and I’m sorry for implying you were being disingenuous. Please don’t think you did anything wrong. This was an interesting topic.
Running websites and being online for so many years and interacting with trolls has made me a little more cynical than I should be. Please don’t let me discourage your activity and continue to post whatever you think will be interesting and helpful. 🙂
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It’s also interesting that we’ve seen two posts from this same obscure website.
I thought they would prompt interesting enough discussions so I left them up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the originators of both discussions may not be completely independent from that website.
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@lewhitak - and when you get a degree in Chemistry, you take a lot of courses in biology.
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The person who wrote this provides a great example of the Dunning Kruger effect. They seem to have learned a tiny bit and wildly and incorrectly extrapolated on a subject for which they are quite clueless.
For example, EDTA is not a cosmetic preservative. It’s a chelating agent.
Ingredients are not chosen by marketers, advertisers, and salespeople sitting around meetings coming up with ideas.
Vitamin C doesn’t cause acne.I would encourage the marketer of Oumere products to spend more time focused on coming up with reasons why someone should buy their products, and less time disparaging other products that they don’t make. It’s just terrible marketing & bad form.
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Could you give an example of a cream (ingredient list) that does what you’re talking about? When I worked on the St. Ives brand nothing like what I imagine you are talking about happened.
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No, not all products with over 0.5% Sal Acid are considered drugs. It depends on the claims you make about the product. If you said anti-acne then it would be a drug. If you don’t, it remains a cosmetic.
@EVchem - I’d agree. The difference is all about what you claim. You still have to be able to prove your product is safe, so if you do use things that might otherwise be drug actives, you’ll have to be able to prove safety. And if you in any way imply that your product will have some drug effect, that could get you in trouble too.
In those claims examples however, I think Paula’s Choice actually pushes the envelop more than the Ordinary. It makes the specific claim “visibly reduces fine lines & wrinkles” while the Ordinary says “help fight…” What does it mean to help fight a blemish? It’s metaphorical and can mean almost anything.
It’s really up to the FDA and the FTC to decide whether they are going to go after a brand or not. Technically, all the spray sunscreens were breaking the OTC rules (it wasn’t an approved form) but the FDA just said they would let it slide. They recently put out an addendum to the Sunscreen monograph that now allows the spray form but before that, it was not allowed.
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I guess it depends on the amount but Lauryl Laurate is used on leave-on products safely up to 16%. I couldn’t find any data for sodium surfactin but the supplier recommends it for leave-on so you should be fine.
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@MarkBroussard - I see your 66 ingredients and Tata Harper raises you 72!
https://goop.com/beauty/skin/new-tata-harper-serum-elixir-vitae/