[WarrenChemist]

Abdullah said:

as Paprik said HEC don’t work with high surfactant specially glucoside. 

Also if you dont have anionic surfactant it can not clean properly.

While anionics are certainly the most effective when it comes to removing oils, I wouldn’t necessarily say that other surfactants don’t clean properly. I think you can achieve cleansers with amphoterics and nonionics that will be sufficient for majority of the population when it comes to cleanliness.

[WarrenChemist]

I will start off by saying that adjusting for a torque of minimum 70% is an interesting method. My goal when setting a specification has always been to shoot for a torque range, between 35 and 70 usually. Obviously this would vary from product to product but I digress.
Viscometers measure viscosity, they don’t really give you much insight into different rheological properties of your samples. Unless you have a test for rheology in your lab, it can be difficult to marry these two ideas especially if you find yourself working with many non-Newtonian products.
I find it may be easier to not dig too much into this quandary if you are the type that can do that! It is standard industry practice to say that viscosity is a measurement of the “thickness” of your product but there are many instances where your product is going to have different viscosities being measured vs. being squeezed through a tube vs. pumped during filling/pumped through a component. 
Rheology is your measure of flow - when you swirl your product around in a beaker trying to gauge your viscosity your are actually looking at rheology! This is why products that behave differently during these visual “swirl” tests can have similar if not identical viscosity readings. 

Hope this helped and wasn’t just my old man ramblings!

[WarrenChemist]

An update for all! In terms of actual formulation I changed absolutely nothing. But I sent customer four different samples made with four different crystal infused waters. between you and me, they are the same product but my process i sent to them goes on to detail that the water was allowed to circulate among charged (yes! charged! for those of you who I think I am no spiritual!) crystals at room temperature. Packaging wise I found these wonderful frosted glass bottles in… oh how convenient! four colors!
Success! Obviously my serum had been giving off the wrong vibe due to my cosmically bland water. Thank you all so much for your help

[WarrenChemist]

@Karo_lina  Not sure what ingredients you have at your disposal but I find it always helps to think of a story first and then try to find actives that match this - even just for label claim.
Wake up toner? Caffeine and citrus extracts!
Sleepy time toner? Melatonin and lavender!
Customers love a good story and sometimes (more than… 90% of the time!) a good story will distract them from a product that isn’t actually doing anything 

[WarrenChemist]

my best advice to you is try to reverse engineer (*cough* copy *cough) from something on the market if you have no other starting point. use an existing product as your benchmark. collect all the information you can. all the ingredients you need are conveniently listed on the back of the product! if you are completely unfamiliar with what percentages to use, play around a little until you start seeing textures similar to this product. 
when you have something that is close to (or identical - maybe you will nail it!) see what your customer has to say about what you’ve made and go on from there

Hope this helps and happy formulating!

[WarrenChemist]

Hello!

If you can believe it, my name is Warren and I am a chemist.    I’ve been in the personal care industry for years. Some haircare but mostly skincare formulation experience. Worked for a contract manufacturer for the bulk of those years but did a stint of consulting as well. I’ve browsed this forum I can’t tell you how many times at work and finally decided to join in on the fun. 
(Also to all my lab techs who I know browse here because of me: hi! Please don’t make accounts to cyber bully me )

[WarrenChemist]

I understand this as sort of bell curve like distribution
10% to be less than or equal to 50 (insert your units here), 50% of your product around that 90 - 140 mark, and then 10% to be equal to or greater than 170 (your units here)
(To extrapolate that would leave 15% for both the 50-90 and 140-170 range)

[WarrenChemist]

I prefer Prospector when doing raw material research, Knowde seems to be helpful when I’ve already decided what material I want to use and I am now in the tracking down samples/documentation phase of my research

Agree with @Perry on the starter formulations. A lot of good bases to start with and I feel they really give you a good idea of what each ingredient is doing as they are usually so minimalist

Have also noticed that more and more suppliers seems to be on neither website and instead I must create a login for their specific website (which of course I can never remember what email/password I used so I end up just finding another ingredient to work with)

[WarrenChemist]

Pharma said:

Forgot to mention:

- Change viscoelasticity (the only ‘scientific’ advice which might acutaly help).

- Move lab. It’s probably located above a water vein, a crossing of Hartmann or Curry lines, or any other earth radiation. If you can’t move, buy an overpriced scam gadget or a quartz pyramid to shield your lab…..

This is all gold. Bringing it up to our CEO now. If he won’t go for any of this maybe I can sneakily sage my bench (the minimum) or the whole of R&D before the smoke detectors go off

[WarrenChemist]

@Pharma Fantastic! They are perfectly happy with the ingredients so maybe I can drum up some process to send over with these tweaks and see if that’s to their liking

The guys in production might kick my behind if I tell them it has to be mixed “widdershins” but the customer is always right! 

@MarkBroussard You’re absolutely right. I should’ve balanced my chakras too before even attempting to formulate!

[WarrenChemist]

@chemicalmatt

Customer supplied Akoshine powdered rose quartz! in the serum at a borderline troublesome amount, but in there!

consulted with my daughters as well and i’ve been informed I simply don’t pass the “vibe check” 

[WarrenChemist]

filiz said:

Hi, hope you’re fine @ketchito 
I’m having a hard time finding some silicone alternatives, frankly. 

What % do you think isopropyl myristate should be reduced to? and If you have any other suggestions that meet the condition, please let me know  

For silicone alternatives I’m fond of the lexfeel series if you can get your hands on them. INCI is diheptyl succinate AND caprylol glycerin/sebacic acid copolymer. 

I would say no more than 5% isopropyl myristate 

[WarrenChemist]

Dtdang said:

@WarrenChemist I used Hotact from Vantage for emulsified sugar scrubs. But, I failed to provide the warming effect. I also tried Coolact, I also faied to provide the cooling effect. I contacted Vantage through email. There was no reply. I put hotact during the cooling phase.
The ingredients: 

Shea Butter
Olive Oil
Grapeseed Oil
Castor Oil
Emulsified Wax
Stearic acid
Cooling down Germall Plus
Rosemary Oleoresin
HotAct
Sugar Thank you so much in advance

I recall having some issues with fats provided a “dampening” effect of sorts with this material. Possibly could be an issue here as well. 

[WarrenChemist]

depending on where specifically your products are meant to be used, capsaicin will provide a warming effect. There is also a material sold by Vantage “hotact” that I have found to be quite effective in a warming charcoal scrub I formulated years ago.