OldPerry
Forum Replies Created
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What benefits are you hoping to get from doing that?
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We always tested for UV exposure, even in opaque bottles. It was more of a safety check but on a couple occasions the plastic reacted with the fragrance or the fragrance leached into to bottle. Mostly, there were only problems with UV when the package was a glass jar.
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I wouldn’t say it’s a good emulsifier for a leave-on product due to it’s allergenic potential. Stick with standard nonionic emulsifiers.
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If you’re asking whether those ingredients work as preservatives…no they don’t.
If you’re asking whether they’ll affect how the product changes over time…yes. These ingredients will add some odor which will change over time.
No, they won’t change the texture over time, but they could affect the texture initially.
It really depends on what the rest of your formula is.
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Sunscreens are OTCs so no, you can’t make an SPF claim without following the Sunscreen monograph.
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I’d say try #4 and #1 on your list. But you’ll have to keep your pH below 5.0
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Sure, it has been used for that purpose.
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It’s understandable when you first get into the industry that you would find this troubling. But the cosmetic industry is in a bit of a bind (at least here in the US).
Most impressive claims are illegal: First, cosmetics are only legally allowed to change the appearance of skin and hair. It is literally illegal for a cosmetic to impact the biochemistry of skin and hair. Getting rid of wrinkles, age spots, acne, cellulite, etc. are all illegal claims. So the really interesting things like epigenetics or biotechnology are illegal. “High performance” extracts that might boost collagen production, lighten skin, stimulate cell growth are all illegal. Cosmeceuticals are illegal unless they are just cosmetics which change the appearance without interfering with the biochemistry. So use of these extracts is illegal or at least you can’t make claims and have to remain ignorant about their effects. See this from the FDA.
Consumers can’t tell: Another issue is that consumers are not good judges of whether something works or not. It’s hard to notice subtle changes & that’s what most “active” ingredients will give you. Consumer perception is also highly swayed by things irrelevant to function such as fragrance, packaging, and the price paid for the product. You could make the greatest product in the world but if a consumer doesn’t like the odor, it won’t be successful (unless it literally has some undeniably amazing effect). If you used $1000 worth of an extract or $1 worth of an extract the vast majority of consumers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Using the more expensive ingredient makes no practical sense.
The effects you get aren’t impressive: Even if you could make claims legally top quality extracts have not been proven to have significant effects. I spent years searching for the most impressive effects I could find for skin and hair treatments. I didn’t care about price. Companies were happy to provide me samples since I worked at a big company. And the reality is that even using ingredients at the highest levels, I never saw any truly impressive results. Now, I only sent ingredients through screening tests in prototypes and may have missed long term effects, but if an ingredient doesn’t have a near immediate, obvious effect, no consumer will hope to be able to notice it. The data supporting “top quality extracts” is not impressive at all. Most of it is sponsored by raw material companies, not published in peer reviewed journals and not replicated. Sheds of crap data is still crap data.
Until products formulated with extracts can provide benefits that are obviously superior to ones formulated with colored brown water, companies will continue to use colored brown water prominently featuring the extract in their marketing materials.
On some level consumers want the story more than they want products with superior performance. This is why “natural” marketing positions are compelling even while these formulas provide inferior results to synthetic+natural formulations.
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@Bill_Toge - I wasn’t suggesting getting a degree in those subjects. Here in the US a class in general chemistry would be the first chemistry class you take in the first year of college, like Chemistry 101. I was saying an introduction course in chemistry and one in organic chemistry would be useful.
I agree getting a degree in chemistry does little more than qualify you to become a professor in teaching chemistry.
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@ngarayeva001 - I was just referring to the TEA ingredient by itself. If a chemical reaction happens and you get TEA-stearate then that can be an emulsifier.
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The easy answer is to how do you know the purity of extracts is “you can’t”
In fact, unless you run an IR spec getting an average mapping of the absorption profile, you probably couldn’t tell the difference between an extract and colored brown water/solvent.
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@ngarayeva001 - TEA is not an emulsifier, it’s a neutralizer.
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The main ones that will be most useful are…
1. General Chemistry
2. Organic Chemistry -
Indeed. This is why the simulator should only be used for estimations.
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Dimethicone doesn’t need to be added on the cool down phase. And you won’t notice any formulation difference if you add Panthenol hot either. But it all comes down to the quality of your mixer.
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@myatmyat - there is a button on the right column of this website to start a new discussion
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https://chemistscorner.com/salt-curve-analysis-how-to-control-cleansing-cosmetics/
Dish washing shampoo? hmm
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From a consumer standpoint, I’d say there is no difference between sulfates and sulfonates when substituting 5% SLS and 5% C14-16 olefin sulfonate.
You would need a secondary surfactant to use a sulfonate but you need that with SLS too. There is not much difference in terms of what consumers can tell. And a motivated chemist could make formulas using sulfates and sulfonates work exactly the same.
However, if the consumer is psychologically conditioned to think sulfates are terrible and sulfonates are terrible, that will affect their perception of how the product works.
Bottom line is that the differences consumers see are only psychological.
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And there is this list of formulators / consultants.
https://www.scconline.org/directory/cat/consultants/ -
@Zink - the Floratech technology certainly looks intriguing for all of the reasons you posted. I’m skeptical of claims that it outperforms Petrolatum since those come from a biased source. I’d need to see multiple replications by independent sources before I buy into it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Evidence from suppliers should be viewed as directionally interesting but not definitive. How many studies did they run to get those results? Having personally conducted some TEWL meter studies, I know how difficult it is to get any repeatable data.
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@Zink - Interesting study and I have no doubt that you can get some moisturizing effect from panthenol. I was also impressed that the authors did a proper Vehicle and Blank control.
However, I don’t find this study particularly compelling. Primarily because they didn’t compare the performance of the ingredient to the best technology for skin moisturization via humectancy, glycerin. They used glycerin in the control vehicle, but only at 2.5% (actives ~2.1%) If they used 5% glycerin which is common then it’s unlikely you’d see any statistical improvement.
So why use any panthenol if you can get the same or better results from glycerin?
But that’s not even where to stop. When evaluating the usefulness of an ingredient you shouldn’t just compare it to no treatment or a weak treatment. You should compare it to the best treatment. If a product / ingredient shows no more benefit than a blend of Petrolatum/Mineral Oil/Glycerin then it’s really not a consumer benefit.
There are three types of compounds used in moisturizers.
Occlusive agents to reduce TEWL - nothing is better than petrolatum / mineral oil
Humectants to attract water - nothing is better than glycerin
Emollients help to soften skin - the best is more a personal preference.
Here’s a good article on the subject.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4885180/#ref5It is easy to prove that an ingredient moisturizes. But for consumers if you can provide them the best benefit at the lowest cost, why wouldn’t you do that?
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What do you consider natural? Glucosides might be derived by chemically modifying materials from plants but they don’t exist out in nature.
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The answer really depends on what you mean by the word “strong.”
Is it an indication of how irritating it is to the skin?
Is it an indication of how well it removes dirt & oil from hair?
Is it an indication of how much protein it strips off the hair?The question is not easy to answer because there is no good answer without more information such as concentration.
20% SLS will have a vastly different effect than 2% SLS.
To say SLS or Sulfonates are “bad” makes no sense without knowing the concentration. You could have a “good” detergent like Glucoside that strips hair more than a low level of SLS.
Things are much more complicated than “is one stronger than the other”? To that, there is no good answer.
If you’re asking the question, does a shampoo made with SLS strip hair more than a shampoo made with sulfonates, my answer would be, I doubt you could tell a difference. In terms of foam and rinsing maybe you could but in terms of whether your hair is cleaned or damaged, you wouldn’t be able to tell a difference.
But I would say the same is true if you compared an SLS shampoo with a Decyl Glucoside shampoo.
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I believe you have way too many ingredients. You will have no idea what ingredients have any real effect. Start simple, then build from there.
I would get rid of all the ingredients except water, glycerin, & dimethicone and any others that need to stabilize the formula. Then you could start adding one ingredient at a time to see if it has any effect. Putting in 9 ingredients without knowing whether any of them have an effect is not advisable.
You also don’t have a proper preservative in the formula. Lauric acid is not suitable. x
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@Aziz - maybe. As long as you are not adding the fragrance to a hot batch, you could do it that way.