[Pharma]

Also, killing bacteria/fungi requires some water whereas killing viruses works better with pure alcohol.

Cleaning fat/oil or electronics (by dipping) is better with pure isopropanol. For labware, cell phones, screens etc. 70% has proven very practical & helpful.

[Pharma]

Once it’s dry, it’s dry, don’t worry .

[Pharma]

It’s different. Metabisulfite is a strong antioxidant and I doubt that it’s great for disinfection. Regarding cleaning, it all depends what you want to clean .

[Pharma]

Based on theory (not practical experience), phenolics and acids should be good partners, like for example anisic and levulinic acid.

Cosphatec has a blend with glyceryl caprylate and magnolia bark extract (Cosphaderm MultiMEG) which sounds nice and doesn’t have a low pH requirement.

[Pharma]

I wouldn’t use it alone but to boost other (natural) preservatives. According to Cosphatec, it’s broad spectrum but only of moderate activity. I don’t have personal experience other than some recent playing with it. Feels nice, though .

The prototype formulations you’re referring to, are they THIS and THAT one?

[Pharma]

And that’s why, in the wake of 2019-nCoV, alcohol is still the gold standard. PCMX and all other phenol derivatives don’t work against viruses. They’re okay as toilet cleaners and are used in several countries as household cleaners too. Me, I don’t like Dettol but my wife loves it.

[Pharma]

Isopropanol, n-propanol, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, iodine solutions, and blends thereof… plant extracts and essential oils might help against bacteria but won’t be good enough against viruses.

[Pharma]

Such things can happen if you add poorly soluble stuff too quickly to the water. Add slowly while mixing vigorously, wait until fully dissolved every now and then before adding more.

I experienced the same issue with adding paraben concentrate in propylene glycol to cold water… just without the snowball .

[Pharma]

CCT usually refers to capric and caprylic triglycerides and MCT to medium chain triglycerides. Depending on the manufacturer, they are synonymous whereas others really produce pure CCT whereas their MCT contains more lauric acid which would explain why @mhart123 experiences turbidity with MCT but not CCT.

[Pharma]

I semi-avoid aluminium deodorants… can’t do it completely without ;( .

There are no long lasting studies, all we have are retrospective observations and indications (like people using aluminium deos get more often Alzheimer’s people not using them). Aluminium salts usually don’t work in enzymatic tests or cell cultures, they are too toxic therein and cause nobody volunteers as a guinea pig for 20 or even 50 years, there are no clinical trials either (last I checked and that was already 5 or 6 years ago, there might be newer publications by now).

Aluminium as chloride is a Lewis acid; in water, it has 1 negative charge which is due to the nearly covalency not even a real -1, it’s hence somewhat lipophilic and can penetrate trough skin. Aluminium sulfate on the other hand has two positive charges (and it’s buddy, the sulfate, has two negative ones), it’s a real salt with several charges and zero fat-solubility and therefore can’t really penetrate skin.

[Pharma]

Isoleucine is an essential amino acid, the palmitoyl ester is likely as artificial as dipalmitoyl hydroxyproline. BTW hydroxyproline is also a natural amino acid, just not a proteinogenic one, and makes up a good part of collagen.

Personally, I’d go with the former because I like proline… There is, honestly, no experience nor science involved in that decision.

What’s with the capryloyl glycine in brackets?

[Pharma]

Is that ball (by the way :p you made my day, that’s the first snowball of the season for me! Sorry… :blush: ) ALL of your product (preservative and water) or did it form in the water and is mostly composed of Optiphen Plus?

[Pharma]

It’s likely a matter of concentration. What you need is a micellar emulsion: Use less oil, a loooot less oil.

[Pharma]

Kriss68 said:

Grazie 1000 ????

Prego! Mi italiano sucks… but I manage to understand a good part when reading it.

I wonder how they got that HLB 5. Using HLB calculation blindfolded, cetyl alcohol would have a HLB value of 1.5. In reality it’s different because the hydrophilic part is too small to be effective and has to be ignored (easily proven: cetyl alcohol dissolves only in oil, not water) resulting in a hydrophilic value of virtually 0 or a calculated HLB of 0.08 which is equal to 0 or no emulsifier at all.

It might however, and that’s why I’m asking, shift the apparent HLB of a mixture like it were of HLB 5??? Like mixing it 1:1 with something of HLB 15 resulting in a HLB 10… never heard of that but who knows.

[Pharma]

Benzyl benzoate was actually used in Switzerland for inhalations but then withdrawn due to health concerns (allergies). Many of the topical products with balsam of Peru and cough syrups with tolu balsam have vanished from the market although they work great… at least for those who don’t get allergic reactions to it 🙂 .

To answer your question: I also struggle with what’s allowed in candles and other ‘burning’ room fragrances. It’s probably assumed that part of the ingredients will burn to cinder…

[Pharma]

Nestlé and Unilever (don’t laugh, they’re not just bad guys) have grants for such projects. Maybe get in touch with one of those companies .

[Pharma]

Boric acid and borax are probably carcinogenic and quite certainly teratogenic = dangerous for embryos. Nowadays cleaning products contain safer and more environment-friendly antiscalants/water softeners such as polycarboxylates, EDDG, EDDM, EDDS, EDG, GLDA, IDS, MGDA, NTA, or polyaspartic acid. ‘Older’ ones contain phosphates or phosphonates, of which mostly the former are responsible for eutrophication. Newer but ‘environment-ignorant’ products (they are poorly biodegradable) contain EDTA, DTPA, HEEDTA, or EDDHA, though these are fortunately increasingly less often used.

I know that in many less developed/regulated countries such as Brazil, borax is still a very common additive used for household laundry and what not. The main issue in Europe/USA of borax which lead to its banning aren’t health concerns but it’s the excessive industrial use (which includes laundry detergents).

Borax and boric acid are equal in everything as soon as you adjust pH. Only concentrated boric acid is, obviously, an acid and hence caustic. They are still allowed in certain products usually at low levels for example as preservative in artificial eye-drops.

My personal and professional advice: Don’t use it.

[Pharma]

We simply don’t know it yet. Aluminium is a PITA to test in vitro and current in vivo data don’t reflect lifelong use. My knowledge says that it is likely to be of some health concern, especially the chloride forms (because they aren’t true salts but halfway covalent molecules). Alum is likely safer because it’s a real dissociated salt and therefore less likely to penetrate skin and eventually accumulate over the years.

[Pharma]

You don’t have an oil phase, you have a fragrance phase . Solubility of parabens in there is likely lower than in ‘real’ oil. Fair chance that it will work but you’d have to try it out.

[Pharma]

It’s not an emulsifier and has a HLB requirement of about 15. However, it is useful as ‘co-emulsifier’. Alone (and also in conjunction with emulsifiers), it forms liquid crystal networks which can stabilise emulsions giving cetyl alcohol the apparent ability to actually emulsify the two phases (though the effect is closer to that of a polymeric stabiliser).

[Pharma]

It is a stable molecule, short term heating won’t degrade it.

It’s melting point is at about 50°C and therefore, there is no need to heat it above that temp.

[Pharma]

Phase inversion in case of different Tweens is highly temperature but also HLB and oil-phase dependent. Some literature HERE as an example of PIT.

If I read Figure 8 right, Tween 60 in hexadecane has a PIT of slightly above 100°C. Once you change things, say by adding a Span, PIT changes. You sure that 60°C is the right temperature and why do you store your phases/emulsion (?) at 60°C?

Do you use some kind of measurement to determine the right amounts/proportions (of everything) as well as droplet size and size distribution?

On the other hand, you could also use the PIC approach (which is obviously suitable for non-PEG based surfactants which don’t have a PIT but also works with PEG based surfactants). Another version is D-phase emulsification, ultrasound, or very high speed/shear mixing.

You might get more hits searching for hexadecane . Octadecane should have a similar HLB requirement, probably a fraction of a unit higher?

Found a publication on hexadecane wherein they investigated different Tweens and Spans at HLB 11.8 and only mixtures containing either Tween 80 or Span 80 or both at a 7:3 ratio (to yield HLB 11. gave stable emulsions of about equal hexadecane and emulsifier %.

BTW a standard anionic surfactant would be sodium lauryl (but also laureth) sulfate at 1-10% relative to the total amount of surfactants used. Glyceryl stearate citrate or nearly any other could also be used.

[Pharma]

In Switzerland, health authorities provide everything online. It has a stupid name if you want to find it using Google: ElViS. EDIT: Forgot to mention, you have to create an account and that’s something usually reserved to registered health professionals such as physicians and pharmacists in order to avoid everyone from sending in panic hype stuff.

Since an unexpected adverse reaction to a drug or similar might also be a first of its kind, there is no flowchart or the like you could use. Simply fill in the online-form on ElViS should you suspect a known or new more or less adverse reaction and authorities take it from there.

I don’t know how it works in the US but if we get a friendly visit from the local FDA-pendant, they would also give us the required information . Maybe ask your  physician or pharmacist how they handle such affairs?

[Pharma]

Vitamin E oil is commonly tocopherol acetate, and that’s not natural .

You completely lack any preservation (tocopherol acetate ain’t an antioxidant). That thing will ‘rot’ like nothing.

@ngarayeva001 Seun is from Nigeria, his/her (?) hair probably ain’t your blond European hanks. It might actually doing great and getting detangled with oils and won’t get greasy like yours . Don’t forget, your perception of the world, your education, your expectations, your everything is completely different from that of people from third world countries. Show some empathy and understanding!

If at all, there aren’t too many organic (referring to certified organic according to European standards) emulsifiers you could use. Lysolecithin might be one but it will greatly accelerate microbial growth possibly to the point where ‘organic’ preservatives will utterly fail. Bentonite could be tried but again, great microbial food and a pain to preserve. Saponins like soap nut would be organic but are probably not working…

Gotta go, sorry.

[Pharma]

mswalsh said:

…currently a college chemistry student…

sodium laurel sulfate

…

Are there any concerns…I’m open to all feedback…

First, I hope that you’re really that open to all feedback since my concern with your formulation is just one: Hopefully, your chemistry professor doesn’t read your post! There is no such thing as sodium laurel sulfate. The product you’re referring to is likely either sodium lauryl sulfate (as a chemist, you might be more familiar with the term sodium dodecyl sulfate or simply SDS) or sodium laureth sulfate aka sodium lauryl ether sulfate. These two are similar but not identical (the latter one contains a short PEG chain making it ‘softer’).

I know, not the help you expected 🙂 .