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@Perry - You are right; I was mistaken. It’s been a long time since any of my clients has allowed any of these in their products, but it’s still important to remember that they’re legal. I was confused, and I’m grateful for the correction.

@ngarayeva001 - My understanding is that the luxury market is much more about the brand name than anything else. And as such Henkel does not have access to that market. To be clear, I did not mean to imply that there was no market for products with parabens, et al. In fact I’d guess most of the overall personal care market is not terribly interested in looking at the LOI.

There is a market for vegan and/or organic and/or “natural” products. These NAE products appear to be priced cheaply enough - from what I’ve seen they retail for around 6 € for 200-300 mL bottles - that they could do very well at capturing that market.

Assuming the product can stay on the shelves, of course! Having to recall lots from 40% of your new product line is a bad sign. But it could also be an unrelated issue and at any rate I don’t take it as a sign that everyone should ignore that market.

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There’s clearly an issue with the preservative system in these products, but parabens and formaldehyde donors are not an acceptable answer here. The latter are banned in the EU, and while a few of the former are allowed in restricted quantities the market by and large won’t accept them. 

It’s not just marketing; these products were attempting to reach a market segment. Many consumers in France and Scandinavia looking for vegan and organic products will go elsewhere if they see parabens listed on the label.

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Are you being asked to assess the stability of old product (previously tested fresh by someone else), or are you designing a process for testing stability from start to finish?

If the latter, you are of course far more limited in what you can do, other than try and figure out what whomever did for the initial tests you’re comparing your results to. That is: there should be a standardized test method that specifies how to take the viscosity reading. Maybe the reading is taken after 1 minute, or averaged from a 30 second period starting 1 minute in (as some newer viscometers can do). As DAS notes, there needs to be set parameters.

If you’re assessing the product from fresh to aged, I might try to assess if spindle/speed combination is appropriate for the product, or if the helipath is the right choice, even.

I personally would not plan to use any number from initial impact as I would expect a high level of variability. I might also ensure that the guides are set correctly and nothing more than the spindle is in the material during the test (if the weight (or chuck) was hitting the top layer of the product or if the spindle was hitting the bottom of the container either could account for a significantly higher reading).