[Pharma]

Why does time matter? Chelation is also an equilibrium between binding and releasing. Once the chelate has dissolved in your product you can assume that you have achieved equilibrium.

[Pharma]

Someone here posted a sheet showing what it doesn’t contain and I think the two were on the list (like everything else). I have absolutely no clue and am wondering the same. Maybe a scam like the stuff from Active Micro Technologies?

[Pharma]

If it’s a good chelate under conditions which allow chelation, speed is determined by diffusion of the two molecules. Given high enough concentration so the two can actually meed, binding is very fast. If, on the other hand, the medium the two are dissolved in were a thick gel and the concentration low, chelation might take a while and were the two not fully dissolved… you get the picture, don’t you?

[Pharma]

Besides, the salts won’t dissolve in an anhydrous formulation and because it’s usually the free acids which are antimicrobial, you can’t even obtain these by lowering the pH.

Why do you have xanthan gum in an anhydrous formulation?

If ever, use benzoic and sorbic acid, not their salts. Phytate… well… that one requires water to become active. If it’s added for increased lather (binding calcium from tap water), then you’d be better off using a different chelate.

If you’re concerned with fungi, maybe add an undecylenic acid derivative. Perfectly fit into anhydrous products such as soaps and they won’t leach or behave hygroscopically.

[Pharma]

The main issue, from my point of view as someone directly concerned with it, is that plants can’t be patented or otherwise protected. Also, companies interested in plants and traditional herbal remedies tend to be small (big pharma pursues other, more lucrative avenues of drug discovery) and simply don’t have the funds to pay for large scale clinical trials.

[Pharma]

A fridge or even better a freezer would be great .

[Pharma]

Perry said:

…Only by doing controlled studies can you demonstrate that something that people have been doing forever actually works.

Sorry Perry, that’s not entirely true, poorly formulated, or even plain wrong.

A more precise formulation would be rather something like: only with controlled studies (by preference double-blind and placebo controlled) and identification of the active principle and it’s molecular target can one be scientifically fairly certain that it does or does not work better than no (or placebo, respectively) treatment. Whether or not said ‘better’ is actually good enough is not even answered and has to be defined beforehand. Alas, with plant preparations (especially multi-component mixtures found in TCM, Ayurveda, and TTM) at least one if not all of these thee criteria are impossible or at least not feasible. Our limited understanding of complex biochemical processes and other constraints simply prevent scientific proof for many herbal preparations. There are other studies such as observational studies which can give sufficient evidence especially if thousands of people have been doing it forever. Such studies may not hold up to the high demands and expectations of modern medicine and the pharmaceutical industry but they can give (and have done so many times) a sound lead and are what pharmacognosy is all about; it’s also what lead to the discovery of many of the modern drugs.

Ginger would be a good example (probably because I did my PhD on it): Observing the use for thousands of years and the indications for which it has been used lead (me :blush: ) to several working hypotheses (probable mode of action) of which all but one (which was messed up due to contaminations) proved right.

On the other hand, antidepressants and antipsychotics allegedly work as has been proven times and times again in state of the art clinical trials. Turns out, most of these trials have been wrong after all: Only ~1% of some of the effects (for example with depression) are cause by the drugs, ~1/3 by the disposition of the patient (positive expectation, changes in lifestyle) and ~2/3 by the doctor-patient relationship (how sympathetic the shrink was to the patient), and a negligible part was due to the skills of the psychiatrist. Even an open placebo (= the doctor tells the patient that he’s prescribing a placebo) does about as much as a pharmaceutical pill in said field… imagine that for a second! Another ‘fun’ fact is that one out of five people experiences at least one crisis in life which, from a scientifically proven point of view, could and should be treated with such drugs.

Another example is MSM: First, it was DMSO which got obsolete and forgotten, then MSM resurfaced in social media due to misinterpretation of a dusty dug-out publication, and became a hype. A tremendously lucrative nutrient supplement market profited from it and $$$ started flowing. About a dozen years later, science and research got funds and joined in… and could prove that the seemingly idiotic and negligent use of MSM for literally million-fold self-experimentations was actually working and was safe (though we still don’t know how MSM works).

Bottom line is: If thousands of people do something for a very long time, then chances are high that it actually works (how it works is a different story). Mind, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t harmful (alcohol, tobacco, FGM, and unprotected intercourse being just some examples)!

[Pharma]

Abdullah said:

@Pharma how about 20:1 ginger concentrate powder? The suppliers say one kg of this is extracted from 20 kg ginger

Do you know the extracting medium (water, glycerol, ethanol, CO2, other solvents…)?

[Pharma]

If you were to go with a pure ginger CO2 extract, then you wouldn’t introduce bug food but slight additional preservation instead . Water and glycerol extracts especially of fresh ginger are rich in starches and other bug food and very poor in actives (gingerols, shogaols… all the stuff which makes ginger hot).

Apart from that, your reasoning is so far correct.

Glycerol/glycol based extracts are usually self-preserving .

[Pharma]

From en environmental point of view, EDDS (well, only the S,S-enantiomer) is well biodegradable and probably the only strong chelate which can be produced solely by fermentation (except for phytic acid). However, standard EDDS, to the best of my knowledge, might be the synthetic racemate which isn’t that easily biodegradable (same goes for GLDA)… please let me know if you have more insights whether or not the main manufacturers produce pure enatiomers and especially if they do so by fermentation rather than synthesis.

In theory, EDDS is better suited than GLDA to complex iron at typical pH values of cosmetics (iron chelates commonly refer to Fe3+, however Fe2+ predominates in cosmetics which contain antioxidants) and maybe one of the best regarding copper. On the contrary, EDDS and GLDA are rather weak regarding manganese at a pH below 6. EDTA covers a broader pH range and often has a higher binding affinity. Regarding calcium ions (should you have issues with hard water or think that chelates boost preservation due to complexing calcium quod est demonstrandum): EDTA great, GLDA only at pH >6, EDDS useless. Again, that’s just the theory. Manufacturers booklets tell a different story and what the practical outcome in real life is… IDK.

[Pharma]

It all depends on how much of what and the purpose of your product.

Extracts are, if done properly, plant powders minus inactive material (such as cellulose and lignin) or, in other words, enriched active plant metabolites. From a pharmaceutical as well as a stability point of view, extracts are way better than plant powders though not always easier to work with.

The issue with cosmetic formulations is that cosmetic extracts are not pharmaceutical ones. They contain often just small amounts of an extract dissolved in a large amount of solvent (water, glycerol etc.). The composition of said extracts is too often unknown or deliberately adjusted to be ineffective from a pharmacological point of view. In the former case, it is driven by $$, disinterest, and irrelevance whilst in the latter case is a legal prerequisite.

I’ve been involved in a few collaborations with cosmetic industries during my postdoc in pharmacognosy & phytochemistry: The aim was to create scientific proof that the plant (not the sold extract) contains active ingredients aligning with intended marketing claims whilst the extract to be finally used had to be non-toxic and skin impermeable (else, it would have been a drug, not a cosmetic). I hated that kind of work but it’s been good $$ from which also our real research profited. This and the need to publish where money instead of need is killed my interest in further pursuing my academic career.

[Pharma]

Graillotion said:

…
What are you using to lock in your moisture?
If you don’t have a strong barrier function….it will evaporate as fast as your ingredients evaporate.

LuxGlide N350 might do exactly that. I wonder if theory does translate to reality here…

[Pharma]

pKa values will give some indications though, at pH above +/- neutral, metal hydroxide formation starts messing with theory and 1+1=2 logic.

Most acids only work well in their dissociated (basic) form. Unlike citric and edetic acid, gluconic acid does not just interact with their carboxylates but also with its pH independent hydroxy groups (‘good’ chelates also contain amine groups which react in an opposite way to pH). Interactions with hydroxyls are quite weak but may still work to a degree; whether or not this suffices remains questionable. I doubt that these metal complexes will be inaccessible to microbes and there’s indications (publications) which have me believe that those low pH complexes are even worse regarding fatty acid oxidation than free metals (unless the increased solubility draws them out of the oil phase).

Phytic acid on the other hand has such low pKa values that it’s essentially always deprotonated enough to complex metals even at very low pH whilst it simply precipitates at higher pH (which, from a ‘get the metals out of the way’ perspective, is the best outcome though might not be from a cosmetic point of view if there’s too much deposits).

Citric acid will not properly work below pH 5 whilst gluconic acid is maybe better than nothing. EDTA as an example has 100 to 1’000 times tighter binding to metal ions at pH 7 compared with pH 5. Unfortunately, there seems to be no useful investigations for poor chelates such as gluconic acid. It’s a PITA to find anything useful regarding gluconic acid metal complexes.

[Pharma]

Abdullah said:

Can i ask which silicone oils?

The product is made by Stratapharma. The label says ‘polysiloxane, siloxane resin’; the former is also known as dimethicone. Obviously, not even the sales rep knows which ones exactly.

I’ve tried it and it feels different than, say, pure 350 cp. My guess is that it also contains a volatile or very low viscosity one besides the liquid ‘base’ silicone alongside the high MW film forming derivative. Its a quite well spreading gel which dries quickly and leaves a film for many hours which is super hard to wash off even with soap.

I’m not saying silicones are the only thing which works (though they work great, especially if not used in emulsion form). The main thing is proper wound care.

[Pharma]

What do you mean by ‘water structuring’? That sounds like straight out of esoteric literature :smiley: .

Couldn’t you just use a different pH insensitive emulsifier? There are tons to choose from.

[Pharma]

Dreamer77 said:

You can talk to me about lighting now…thank you all

It was a serious question, no reason to go cocky.

BTW the latest trick available here around against scaring is simply a blend of three different cp silicone oils (10 g for > 40$). The best thing is still the base cream and proper care, not fancy ingredients .

[Pharma]

Nearly everything in that product except water can cause stickiness if used abundantly. Too much amino acids, moisturisers, plant extracts, gelling agents and so on will all render your product tacky and feeling ‘greasy’.

[Pharma]

Sorbate can too…

BTW glycine and arginine are listed twice.

[Pharma]

…In both your pictures and the ones highlighting the Olay product, the lighting is completely different in each picture…

So how comes that in all of your pictures, the right one looks like when I hit the ‘auto-adjust colors’ button in IrfanView? Everything seems altered: brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation…

[Pharma]

Please list entire LOI. That mystery ingredient based on water and maltodextrin, what is it?

Try a knock out experiment (know out several ingredients at once can be a fast track if you know what you’re doing).

[Pharma]

It’s a phenol and, like most small phenols, has a certain inherent antimicrobial effect.

Mode of action: unknown, likely multitarget

Mode of boosting: unknown, maybe absent

Comparison with others: unknown

Many preservatives work a lot better in mixtures, may it be ‘boosters’ or other preservatives.

[Pharma]

Some preservatives are neutralised by surfactants . However, if you add enough surfactant, then they get self-preserving to a degree (that’s, as usual, just a rule of thumbs, not a general law). Not that this will be enough on itself but a shampoo likely contains too much surfactants for any surfactant-sensitive preservative anyway. In your case, it might be less dramatic as you don’t use PEG-based ones which are said to be the worst inactivators.

And yes, reduce ‘powders’, starches, proteins and other bug food. But that only works if you have a working preservative system in the first place. The more food you add, the harder it gets to keep bugs at bay.

[Pharma]

As a rule of thumbs, cationic polymers are actually helping with preservation, so does a higher percentage of surfactants. Just saying…

[Pharma]

As said, I’m highly sceptical and fairly concerned .

I couldn’t find any scientific data regarding its antimicrobial potential. There seems to be virtually no publicly available data regarding its preservative action.

Overall, there is very little literature regarding CHA… However, it does seem to penetrate skin. For me, reasons enough not to use it (besides the fact that hydroxamates have, for a long time, been considered ‘don’t touch, don’t even think about it’ by pharma companies). Only recently, SAHA and the like became popular but they affect, simply explained, how genes are read. Doesn’t seem very healthy if you’re not fighting a disease with it.

[Pharma]

PhilGeis said:

…
Capryl hydroxamate is an iron chelator  - (like ZPT - another hydroxamate)- competes with hydroxamic acid siderophores such as those fungi use to solubilize/transport iron…

Not just that, it also complexes zinc and copper very well. The trick isn’t just about making micronutrients unavailable for microbes but complexing these metals within enzymes to render the whole machinery useless. At least, that’s the hypothesis. It’s also a medium chain fatty acid derivative and many of these have a certain inherent antimicrobial potential. However, having worked with hydroxamic acid derivatives, I’m highly sceptical and fairly concerned about their safety.