[OldPerry]

Was it grey before the acacia gum was added? 
Would it have gotten grey if you just left the acacia gum out? That’s what you would need to test. It sounds like there could be some reaction with some component of your flax seeds and the acacia gel.

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - I don’t think anyone has tried the “supernatural doesn’t exist so everything is natural” defense.

[OldPerry]

It seems rather ridiculous to ask someone to make a single 5g sample. You can’t even properly weigh that out in most cases. I’ve had to make samples for marketing but typically that would have been done in conjunction with a stability test batch.

but we are a marketing run industry. These types of things happen to chemists all the time. At my company about once a quarter someone in R&D had to make a special blend of an aftershave product that we didn’t sell but the company owner loved to use. It had to be made exactly the same way every time following a procedure developed in the 1960’s. I just remember having to cold filter the blend to remove some haziness. It took a lot of time & was not part of the regular job responsibilities. But when the owner wants something, you do it.

[OldPerry]

I just don’t think it’s a winnable fight. When one side is willing to exaggerate and lie (e.g saying some ingredient causes cancer or some other health issue), how do you fight that? 

How would you (or industry) respond to a question like this…

“Why are you putting baby poison in your products?”

You might try “we’re not doing that” and then they point to the FDA report that says a product with phenoxyethanol should be avoided because of safety reasons.

Then you try to explain that it’s true there can be some problems with some things at a specific route and level of exposure but your products are safe.

And your opponents just scream “baby killer!”

And your industry competitors come out with the “nipple cream without the baby killing ingredient.”

You can’t win. 

[OldPerry]

It’s asymmetric warfare anyway. Once it is suggested that a chemical might have some negative effects, no amount of testing, PR, advertising or marketing will change peoples minds about safety. 

Has there ever been a chemical that developed a bad reputation but was then rehabilitated? I can’t think of any examples.

Fear is just much more compelling. What article title would you click on?

“Do chemicals in baby shampoo cause cancer?”

or 

“Baby shampoos found to be safe to use”

its not surprising at all that fearmongering is winning.

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - One needs only to look at the organizational numbers & staff to answer that question. 

CIR - 11 (most of whom are subject experts who write reports)
Unknown annual funding level but sponsored by PCPC who generated $19 million in 2020 of which ~$10 million went to PCPC salaries. How much of the remaining amount funds CIR? Who knows, but I would guess ~$2 million?

EWG - 64 ( 8 people with “science” in their titles, the rest are web designers, communicators, lawyers, etc.) The generated $12 million in 2020. This would all go to running their organization.

So, it’s not surprising why CIR hasn’t made something like EWG. The organizations are built to do different things.
CIR reviews the science.
EWG uses the work of CIR, then tells the story they want to tell.

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - I agree, the EWG format is vastly more consumer friendly & slick. It also is much easier to search, it looks better, and has listings for pretty much any ingredient you might look up. 

But it’s also simplified to the point where it presents misinformation. As Einstein said, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Bisabolol has an LD50 of about 15.1 ml/Kg in mice
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/109158189901800305

If you take too much, it can definitely kill you. 

For comparison, DMDM Hydantoin has an LD50 of about 2g/kg
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10915818809023133#:~:text=The%20LD50%20dermal%20and,irritating%20to%20moderate%20skin%20irritation.  The EWG gives it a 6 safety rating.

By this toxicological measure, Bisabolol (ewg rated 2) should have a less safe rating than DMDM Hydantoin (ewg rated 6). 

Sure, if you make a pretend scale where you ignore complications (e.g. dose matters as does route of exposure) it’s easy to make something more easily read by consumers. The CIR cares about accuracy and nuance, not color coded fairy tales.  

[OldPerry]

https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/5339/where-to-find-free-formulas-for-cosmetics#latest

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - I think you are too easily dismissing the power of fear marketing. People don’t avoid parabens because of their values. They avoid parabens because they are afraid they will cause cancer. The EWG skin deep database doesn’t rank ingredients by how well they align to people’s values. They rank them by a fear based metric - toxicity.

I do agree with you that marketers ultimately have to make products that people want. 

I have a different perspective on why the natural/clean/green cosmetic sector is growing. It has little to do with people’s values and much more to do with the perceived functionality of products.

From a consumer perspective, the performance of personal care products has changed little since the 1950’s. Since I started in the industry in the early 1990’s, I dare say the peak performance of products hasn’t changed at all.

Despite all the patents filed every year & the new raw materials launched, from a consumer performance perspective the vast majority of cosmetic products are the same (or worse) than in decades passed. 

With the banning of animal testing & the lack of alternative testing, no truly innovative ingredients will be developed. This means the only innovation we are left with is marketing stories. 

This is why natural thrives. It’s a fear-based story that commands a premium profit & doesn’t even have to provide top-of-the-line performance. It can do that because consumers don’t really see much extra benefit in top-of-the-line performance products.

But if a company could make a product that performed so much better than anything else on the market, people would quickly drop their green values & use the product even if it were filled with non-sustainable synthetics. 

Natural thrives because performance innovation in cosmetics has stopped.

[OldPerry]

“Best is a single preservative or combination that is highly effective against all microbial contamination. ” and also is allowed by most natural standards - 

- There is no single preservative or blend because nothing within your parameters is “highly effective against all microbial contamination.”

If you’re not going to use formaldehyde, you’re pretty much SOL.

According to your criteria, here are all the available COSMOS allowed ingredients claimed to be anti-microbial. Most of these are boosters or ineffective except in the specific systems tested by the supplier of those materials.  

Benzoic acid
Sodium Benzoate

Benzyl alcohol

Sorbic acid 
Potassium Sorbate

Phenethyl alcohol

Dehydroacetic acid

Sodium Dehydroacetate

Salicylic acid

Pentylene Glycol

Polyglyceryl-3 Caprylate

Gluconolactone

Glyceryl Caprylate

Glyceryl Laurate
Sodium Levulinate

Sodium Anisate

Silver oxide

Silver Citrate

Colloidal Silver

Lactic Acid

Ethyl Lactate
Zinc Lactate
Sodium Usnate

Polyepsilon-lysine

Phenylpropanol

Zinc Undecylenate

Lactobacillus Ferment 

Leuconostoc/Radish Root ferment

Xylityl Sesquicaprylate

Populus Tremuloides Bark Extract

Ribes Nigrum (Black Currant) Fruit Extract

Sambucus Nigra Fruit Extract

Magnolia Officinalis Bark Extract

Humulus Lupulus (Hops) Extract

Bitter orange extract

Pistacia Lentiscus

Vitis Vinifera Seed Extract

Ganoderma Lucidum Extract

[OldPerry]

You didn’t really define “natural” only saying what it is not. 

So what is “natural”? Natural here is not defined by any regulation listing (though in a tie- could be the tie breaker). Natural here is not: parabens, formaldehyde releasers, MIT/CMIT, phenoxyethanol, or iodopropynyl butylcarbamate.

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - just so we’re clear, you do understand that methylparaben is also a food preservative, is also GRAS, is found in nature and is safe on skin? Only a misinformed consumer avoid parabens. 

That is the main problem with so-called “informed” consumers. They aren’t informed, they are misinformed or as some more cynical people might say…duped.

There is zero evidence that buying “clean” beauty is safer. There is no evidence that buying natural cosmetics is better for the environment.

Lots of smart people invested their money with Bernie Madoff or Enron, in Trump college or in crypto. Plenty of people recycle plastics that can’t actually be recycled. These consumers aren’t discerning so much as they are biased ideologues who are readily tricked into believing things that are demonstrably false. 

Hats off to the natural marketers who have successfully leveraged fear marketing to convince people to spend more money on products that are not safer & don’t work better. Indeed it is the prerogative of marketers to tell dubious marketing stories & consumers to believe them. Of course, if you’ve tricked someone into believing something that is false, are they really making a free choice?

But I will add that cosmetic chemists & formulators shouldn’t ignore or disparage natural formulating. At the end of the day you have to make the products people want to buy (even if that decision is based on  misinformation).

[OldPerry]

@Pharma - good points. To expand on your fourth paragraph point, it’s also useful to know that cosmetic ingredients derived from petroleum ensure that no part of the substance goes to waste. Since cosmetics represent a small portion of the total use of petroleum, it is usually the stuff that doesn’t work great for fuel that gets turned into ingredients for cosmetics (and other industries).

I used to think fermentation was a good, sustainable alternative but then was informed that they still need a lot of farmland to grow the food for those little chemical producing buggers. Fermentation does not really save on farmland.

[OldPerry]

The best place to find such information is doing a Google Scholar search.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=diabetes+hair+loss&btnG=

[OldPerry]

@Abdullah - Ultimately, if you want to know if something is more/less conditioning at a certain pH, you have to make the batch and test the product. These are complicated systems and simple heuristics like more deposition = more conditioning just do not always hold up. The paper talks about two mechanisms by which an ingredient sticks to hair (electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions). Which one is more important under which conditions is not easily predictable with any system.

And how deposition is related to conditioning is also not easily determined without actually conducting a test.  As @PhilGeis says, most major companies have landed on creating conditioners in the range of pH 3-4. This has worked historically so companies stick with it. They don’t spend a lot of resources trying to find out exactly why something works or the mechanisms behind them. Academic questions rarely get money spent on them when we’re talking about industrial chemistry.

[OldPerry]

It is funny to me that people complain about how minimally the US cosmetic industry is regulated, but in the two areas where there are significant, clear regulations (color additives and sunscreens) those same people try to get around the regulations.

If your intent is to use an ingredient for the color it gives, it is a violation of regulations to use the ingredient, period.

“It is not enough to warrant exemption if conditions are such that the primary purpose of the material is other than to impart color.”

I encourage all commercial formulators to follow the regulations. You may not agree with them but the legal risk is real.

[OldPerry]

@Pharma - I’m not certain how it came to be but I do know that one of the primary reasons the FDA was created was because people were getting injured by using color cosmetics. (Blindness & lead poisoning among other problems). So, color additives were targeted and became the most regulated of any ingredient used in cosmetics in the US. Interestingly, they followed the “precautionary principle” starting with the idea that all color additives are unsafe unless proven otherwise.

How is this enforced or proven? I’m not really sure. Ultimately, the FDA (or a consumer/competitor) can sue you in court & you’d have to prove that you weren’t breaking the law. Good luck! 

People could likely get away with violating the regulations in the same way that people get away with speeding. You can do it for as long as you don’t get caught. Doesn’t seem like a good idea if you are trying to build a brand. For this reason, it is just easier to stick with color additives that are listed on the FDA’s approved list.

@Anca_Formulator - you stick with using color additives that are on the FDA approved list. Specifically, the ones here.

As far as Campo Research natural pigments go, I don’t know. There are some approved natural ingredients that can be used as color additives as per the FDA. But you have to remember, Campo is not on the hook for legal problems if you use their ingredients illegally. The cosmetic producer is the one who will get in trouble, not their suppliers.

[OldPerry]

Just as a caution, it is not legal in the US to use most plant extracts as color additives. And saying you add an extract for some other benefit & the color is just a happy side-effect is also not legal according to the CFR.

“For a material otherwise meeting the definition of color additive to be exempt from section 721 of the act, on the basis that it is used (or intended to be used) solely for a purpose or purposes other than coloring, the material must be used in a way that any color imparted is clearly unimportant insofar as the appearance, value, marketability, or consumer acceptability is concerned. (It is not enough to warrant exemption if conditions are such that the primary purpose of the material is other than to impart color.)“

[OldPerry]

It’s hard to say but some thoughts…

1. Did you try pre-mixing the oils and polysorbate? Yes you might need more. try 4:1 ration polysorbate:oils.

2. 7.5% Polyquat 7 is a very high amount! Typically it’s only used at 1% or less

3. At 54%, your humectants are incredibly high. That could be causing the problem too.

[OldPerry]

@natiyo123 - I agree. If you define natural as something that doesn’t actually occur in nature but uses synthetic chemistry to produce a new chemical from biomass, then you can definitely make a good performing “natural” product.

If however, you limit the definition to ingredients that exist in nature and are squeezed out of plants, I don’t think you can make many good performing cosmetics.

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - we just see it differently. When something is claimed to be natural, but it actually contains ingredients that are not found in nature or weren’t made by nature, that’s lying.

I know natural marketers don’t want to see it that way for practical reasons, but that’s what it is. I see most natural marketing as lying, no different than corporate greenwashing. These certification schemes just help codify the lie. 

These brands could be truthful with a claim like
“naturally derived synthetic ingredients”. 

Why not tell the truth? I suspect it’s because the truth would sell less product.

Perhaps a reasonable, educated consumer understands that things labeled as “natural” actually contain synthetic chemicals, but the vast majority of consumers buying products aren’t reasonable/educated.

But I do agree the consumers and industry could benefit from FDA or EU creating a legal definition of ‘natural’ for claims.

[OldPerry]

@drjayseesunish - I’m not sure that we share a philosophical outlook on the world so my advice should be taken with that in mind. I ascribe to a scientific outlook on questions of fact. Historical use of something for thousands of years does not make it true that the particular treatment is effective. Now, it does suggest that it might be effective and would be worth studying under controlled conditions. But if this testing is done and no results are found, then we can only conclude that the historical use was wrong. 

As far as I know, there is not good scientific evidence to prove oils in hair will help hair growth. But I’m open to being wrong. What is the best evidence you have found?

Hair length and whether it falls out has little to do with the treatments that are put on it. It is much more related to the specific genetics of an individual. The more likely explanation for your observation that your old generations have long, voluminous hair is that they were blessed with good genetics. No matter what treatment they put on their hair they were going to have good hair.

If you want to create something that really works, if you want to find out what is really true, you need to heed the words of the great Physicist Richard Feynman. 

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - but wouldn’t you agree the natural certifications are also deceptive marketing?

Here is the EWG certifying the “natural” Attitude shampoo. 

It’s a shampoo that contains -  sodium coco-sulfate, coco-glucoside & sodium cocoyl isethionate. Those are synthetic.

As you say consumer expect natural products to be “free of synthetic chemicals” and yet here is a certifying body, claiming that a shampoo that obviously has synthetic ingredients in it is natural.

Just because the EWG or COSMOS or whatever natural brand claims that natural also means naturally derived, consumers will still come to the false conclusion that things labeled as “natural” don’t contain synthetic ingredients. 

[OldPerry]

what natural brand on the market today would qualify as “natural” as in “doesn’t contain any synthetic ingredients”? 

[OldPerry]

@MarkBroussard - “ It is perfectly reasonable for a consumer to say “I want personal care products that do not contain any synthetic ingredients“”

I don’t really think it is a reasonable request from a consumer. Because you can’t make a good functioning personal care product without synthetic ingredients. You’ve even said yourself that synthetic preservatives are needed. 

I wonder, what natural brand on the market today would qualify as “natural” as in “doesn’t contain any synthetic ingredients”? 

Burts Bees makes a body wash they claim is 97.8% natural origin. And they have this ingredient list?

“water, lauryl glucoside, decyl glucoside, fragrance, sucrose laurate, coco-betaine, betaine, citric acid, coco-glucoside, glyceryl oleate, glycerin, sodium chloride, tocopherol, hydrogenated palm glycerides citrate, lecithin, xanthan gum, ascorbyl palmitate, potassium sorbate, phenoxyethanol, citral, limonene, linalool“

Without synthetic chemistry you aren’t going to create Lauryl Glucoside or Decyl Glucoside which are the main functioning ingredients. How does this jive with a consumer expectation the the product “doesn’t contain any synthetic ingredients”? 

As my UK colleagues would say, this is some jiggery pokery.