[Pharma]

@ngarayeva001 Unfortunately, I don’t. The recommended usage level is “quantum satis” = as much as needed. Gluconolactone as well as gluconic acid and it’s salts have GRAS status, you can literally eat it by the spoonful.

Being used as sequestrant, I’d go with what’s used for others like EDTA or phytic acid.

Gluconolactone slowly releases gluconic acid and thereby lowers pH if no buffer is used. This is not just bad because adding too much might drop your pH considerably but also because gluconic acid works best at a high pH (and I mean really high, like laundry detergent high).

@Doreen Ah, okay. Well, I assume that you don’t have THAT MUCH iron in your product as to cause noticeable salicylic acid loss or a colour change. The job of a common sequestrant/chelate is to catch trace amounts of iron in order to slow down fatty acid peroxidation and microbial growth. We’re talking minute quantities of iron here, that is, unless you were to use iron oxide pigments… though, I don’t see (prolly I’m blind?) why one would add salicylic acid to makeup and then add gluconolactone to dissolve said pigments :smiley: .

What’s wrong with phytic acid? Seriously asking because I have it here, bought out of curiosity and waiting to be used the first time in my life.

Citric acid works too but the complexes are fairly weak.

Something to consider with sequestrants/chelates is a point usually ignored completely: Once antioxidants (especially ascorbic acid) are added, iron(III) aka ferric iron, is reduced to iron(II) aka ferrous iron. The former is what builds all sorts of usually fairly stable complexes and what oxidises fatty acids whereas the latter is the form assimilated by microbes (and humans too) because it’s a rather poor complex builder. Although adding antioxidants prevents rancidity, it annihilates most of the action of sequestrants and even enhances bioavailability of iron. Not adding antioxidants but good sequestrants instead can theoretically reduce free iron down to the point where fatty acid peroxidation and microbial growth are both inhibit nearly 100%. Iron is one of the limiting elements for microbial growth (except lactobacilli, which do not require iron but are killed by it) and
depriving the environment/product is an efficient “preservation hurdle” and a strategy used by plants and microbes alike.

[Pharma]

Natamycin is an antibiotic. For the sake of not creating even more resistances against antibiotics, I advocate Swiss law: Only use it as prescription drug and not on/for anything else. In the EU, it’s used on a few cheeses, basically those where there’s a note on the package probably translated as “Rind unfit for consumption”.

[Pharma]

Do I understand you right: You can add other pigments at 20% and it’s fine, you can add octyldodecanol and it’s fine, you add that mysterious blend and it’s not fine, correct?

Is it possible that they add something else to those pigments?

Did you calculate HLB and HLB requirement (with and without octyldodecanol)?

[Pharma]

Depends on pH and other factors. GDL is not an iron ligand, gluconic acid is. Hence, it might be advisable to add the latter instead of the former if you have severe issues with salicylic acid-iron complexes.

I wonder why you have an issue with that anyway???

[Pharma]

Thanks for sharing, sounds really interesting!

Any idea of their MOQs?

[Pharma]

Here in CH, there are others which contain also 2% and all these are prescription drugs whilst the 1% Terzolin is an OTC shampoo (click HERE).

Ketoconazole is, compared to other topical azole-antimycotics the least lipophilic one i.e. easiest to work into a shampoo whilst all others are used in creams or nail varnish.

[Pharma]

Take silicon oil, that’s already used to treat lice by A: suffocating them by filling their trachaea and B: making the survivors dry out by perforating the chitin exosceleton.

Silicon oil products (Hedrin, contains dimethicone and either cyclomethicone or nerolidol) are as effective as chemical insecticides containing for example permethrin.

[Pharma]

Dry at 80-90°C. Glycerol is hygroscopic and won’t let go of water that easily.

Correct, you seem to have 45% glycerol plus gellants.

Why filter now?

[Pharma]

chemicalmatt said:

…also  lecithin and its phosphoester kin are the ONLY means of forming liposomes as stated in the thread…

Not quite: ever heard of niosomes?

[Pharma]

You’ve got your answer right under your eyes .

The first document you posted, page 35 (XXXV), paragraph 31: The common name of the plant is only used in the States and if it has been historically used as INCI name. In all other cases (new cosmetic plants or in EU -> fifth line from the bottom!), only the botanical name is used.

[Pharma]

Fractionated means that there is as good as no free fatty acid left, hence a very well tolerated product!

Correct, especially starches show high variability by themselves and from batch to batch. They do have advantages but starting simple is really the better and safer option and it doesn’t mean that you will be stuck with simple, adding and experimenting can be done any time.

[Pharma]

Unrefined cold pressed coconut oil (mostly lower grade non-food quality or uncontrolled manufacturing where the nuts lay around for several days before processing) may sometimes contain too much free fatty acids which can cause skin irritation.

The aforementioned kaolin poses the same issues as bentonite.

Arrowroot flour or any other starch may help absorbing moisture (pee, rash exudate) but the effect is greatly reduced when starch is incorporated into oil -> oil does repel water and hence, greasy starch grains won’t do much apart from increasing surface and turning oil into a paste. That’s exactly what zinc oxide does too. Assuming that you don’t “crush” the zinc oxide crumbs enough, replacing some with starch will have the advantage of change consistency, resulting in a somewhat softer, smoother and lighter balm. Personally, I wouldn’t start using it during early learning curve but you can give it a try and see whether you like the result. BTW wheat starch has traditionally been used to replace ~50% zinc oxide in pharmaceutical preparations (probably for economic reasons more than anything else): EXAMPLE 1, EXAMPLE 2, EXAMPLE 3 (only in German and French, though).

[Pharma]

GMCY is fairly stable, no need to do anything special (unless you’re planning to keep it for years to come ).

[Pharma]

IMHO, the effort of really sterilising a dispenser (if it can even be done without melting it) outweighs using disposable tubes on an economical and ecological level. If it were for shampoo for healthy adults, that’ll be fine but with baby butts, better not! We refill shampoo at the pharmacy and believe me, you don’t want to A: have to clean (on a rudimentary level, far on the opposite side of sterile) those bottles and B: give a discount after you went through all the trouble getting these things “clean”. Charge them twice, no better trice, for cleaning! What we do is simply closing our eyes, refill hopefully without getting all the grime on our hands, and don’t think too much about them getting sick from contaminated shampoo. Seriously, people are disgusting! The dirt we find on those breast pumps we rent… I’m not going to imagine what would be on a dispenser used during a diaper change!!!

[Pharma]

Lipoic acid, coenzyme q10 and the version of glutathione you’re likely going to use are not antioxidants. They come in a more stable oxidised form and have to be recycled by the body to become part of redox cycles. “Antioxidant” is basically a marketing term.

MSM is not an antioxidant and it does not form cysteine/methionine. Only oral administration over several days increases sulphur content of bodily fluids. What kind of sulphur isn’t known, it’s likely just sulphate and due to microbial mineralisation in the guts. However, skin application can have positive effects by completely unknown mechanisms and it might increase skin penetration of other ingredients.

You also risking pro-oxidative effects at such high concentrations of antioxidants especially if air is present.

Lipoic acid or its salt sodium lipoate (that’s the chemical name of you mysterious marketing term “sodium stabilised alpha-lipoic acid”) reeks of sulphur! Especially lipoic acid and that’s what will, at the chosen pH, be present in your serum. Since sodium lipoate is water soluble and lipoic acid will form micelles or the like with suga mulse, working with it shouldn’t be a problem. I really don’t see what it should finally achieve in your serum or on your skin, respectively… The same is true for glutathione which will not penetrate skin good enough to do anything other than boosting formula costs.

[Pharma]

It is unlikely that xanthan gum will get along with hypochlorite plus NaOH.

PVA might withstand such conditions; whether or not it still thickens it, I do not know.

[Pharma]

Several producers/suppliers don’t have “best before dates” on their stocked products but “retest dates”. That’s not just cosmetics but also pharmaceuticals; either you discard at that date or you retest for purity (e.g. decomposition) according to for example Pharmacopoeia Europea standards. This may involve melting point, IR spectrum, thin-layer chromatography/HPLC/GC, chemical reactions, just to name a few. Melting point, if known (i.e. done upon arrival), is a good measure. IR might not necessarily tell you something about impurities/degradation, chromatography can be a reliable tool for retesting, whereas chemical reactions are only useful in special cases if a precise degradation product is targeted. Microbial contamination can also be an issue which has to be addressed.

[Pharma]

Okay, thanks for sharing!

You don’t happen to have a link to a corresponding publication of his?

[Pharma]

I prefer distilled water of pharmaceutical quality (PhEur/PhH).

[Pharma]

I admit, from a formulator’s point of view BHT is likely the least error prone and most economic alternative.

[Pharma]

Since when is ethylhexyl olivate considered an emulsifier? Isn’t it a low viscosity, good spreadablity ester oil? Never used ethylhexyl olivate but ethylhexyl stearate and that one’s already very “spready”, olivate in theory should be even more liquid.

Does it give more stability: I don’t see why it would.

Does it feel like silicon? Probably not (simply guessing because naturals too often don’t).

[Pharma]

Just that we don’t misunderstand each other: You measured pH after the addition of EDTA when viscosity was fully gone?

The job of EDTA is to “catch” calcium ions which otherwise would gel alginate. Hence, if adding EDTA (without changing pH too much) results in loss of viscosity then it means that they most likely added sodium alginate and calcium salts (directly adding calcium alginate is not as practical because it is already gelled). Can’t be 100% sure but lets say 99.9%.

[Pharma]

Did you check pH? Too low a pH could also reduce viscosity of several gellants in there. Else, it’ll mean that most is likely calcium alginate.

[Pharma]

I have something like THAT one. Can’t complain at all except that the cap with the storage solution isn’t tight and dries out without putting parafilm around. But hey 30 bucks, whatcha expect, alien tech? :smiley:

Have heard hat the “neon marker like” meters aren’t worth it…

[Pharma]

You could add isopropanol or acetone to it. Xanthan gum will however tolerate 40-50% of these solvents. Depending on the degree of methylation, methylcellulose can even be fully soluble in pure iPrOH or acetone. Guar, alginate, and aloe should however precipitate at a certain amount of solvent. My failed attempt at making alginate jelly shots was due to precipitation already at 20-30% ethanol and I was aiming at 80 proof Cointreau shots.

You could also heat up the gel to ~50°C: If memory serves me right, only xanthan gum will remain >90% gellified, the others should lose most of their viscosity.

It might be easier to first dry it and than add acetone. Except for the methyl cellulose where you might not know the degree of methylation, all other gellants should precipitate as hopefully rather “dry” flocks and not gluey ones such as they likely would if done in the native product. Pass through a coffee filter you weighed before, wash with pure acetone, dry (not in the oven, because *BUMMM!*) and reweigh. That’s the total amount of gellants (including aloe gel but minus more or less MC). No need to bother with what passes the filter because: Everything - stuff on filter = glycerol plus dry weight of extracts and some MC (extracts = likely negligible).

Hope that helps!