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Hi Spadirect

This is obviously a personal question to each formulator. It is also dependent on the specific product and product requirements.

Having said that I would recommmend engaging the formulator first they can through experience obtain a rough guideline formula dependent on the product requirements. (Smell’s like this , this texture, this colour etc)

In my opinion due to cost and that you would not want to be doing multiple third party testings unless absolutely neccesary you would save these until your formula is mostly stabilised. Say you wanted rheology  testwork, preservative testing etc.

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A heat tunnel is a tunnel simply supplying heat around a conveyor. I believe he is suggesting applying heat when filling can slowen the cooling process and prevent the top skinning over with a different texture to the bulk

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I would guess what would stop you would be the cost of acquiring all of these ingredients. Only to potentially see it fail. Dirtnaps answer is right on the money.

That recipe you have looks top heavy with too much kaolin. I have made hair clays that are very hard with 40% Kaolin and circa 50% oils. Just an opinion though

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Thanks John, I need to do a lot more researching before ordering I think, lots of places to make mistakes.

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Mark Broussand how did you find out what the parfum was? Just incase I wanted to do the same for other products?

I have ordered Peg-40 and glyceryl monostearate  as they come in at reasonable prices. I also ordered a citrus blended scent (Hexyl Cinnamal, Linalool, d-Limonene, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Butyl Phenyl Methyl Propional) which sounds promising.

For preservatives since my potassium sorbate is not suitable (although I haven’t tried to see if it dissolves yet in the oil phase- (I will test today). I believe John stated I need to be very careful of mould and bacteria with clays, but Bill stated having no water in the product it is ok? Little bit confused with that, my test formulations are 3-4 months old now and have no visible issues however I would be tempted to use something as a precaution. I will update how it goes with the new emulsifiers and blended fragrance if anybody is interested. Edit didn’t manage to get glyceryl monostearate as it only comes in blends with potassium sorbate, water, PEG 100 etc at New Directions.

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Honestly cannot thank you all enough for that information. REALLY useful tips to go forwards with!

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John thankyou for that informative post. I will move away from the Soy Lecithin. The preservative I currently have and planning to use is Potassium Sorbate. I definitely had a misunderstanding with cetearyl alcohol and was thinking it was an emulsifier thankyou for spotting that. If I wanted to achieve a citrus scent would I not still go for those ingredients (Linalool and Limonene though?). That does make sense that the kaolin is absorbing the scent, however it must be achievable somehow as with on the shelf products? I guess the only solution is greater percentages of essential oils?
EDIT been reading the ‘levels of fragrance’ post and understand now how complex the ‘parfum’ ingredient can be, I suppose I am not trying to fully replicate these intricate scents at this stage just rather have a scent that is better than nothing. D-Limonene is quite cheap at New Directions where I purchase ingredients but it is advertised as a solvent? Does this mean not suitable?

Bill thankyou for that suggestion, I see you have some experience in this area. Looking at PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil it looks very suitable with a HLB of 15 so it will emulsify into oil in water and achieve the desired wash out effects. Can’t seem to find glyceryl monostearate HLB information on google, is it necessary to have both i.e. do they co-emulsify?.

Belassi, no problem hair clay I believe is the, or close to the most popular hair styling product for men at the moment. It differs from tradional pomades which give a shiny finish by giving a matte finish, so that you cannot see it is there. In the ingredients the main difference is the large kaolin (or sometimes Bentonite) clay percentage.

Sorry for so many questions, but really enjoying the process of formulating. I am a chemical engineer so it is somewhat outside of my area.

Thanks Tom