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 I’m avoiding using silicones, and have tried every “silicone alternative”

Just my 5 cents, but from a marketing POV there’s very little to gain by not using them (since it’s so common now to be “free of” everything it’s not a strong differentiator) and 99.9% of consumers just care about performance. I’d be more skeptical of adding something like Gransense from a long-term safety POV as its constituents are less well studied.

The moisturisation is where I want it, but there is still room for improvement on the look and feel. It’s close but not yet ready. It’s become a bit of an obsession.

Maybe an idea to invest in a TEWL meter to get some quantitative data from yourself and others, your skin could be abnormal. Also it’s hard to blind test different formulas and control all variables on yourself.

There’s a study that supports combining glycerin with diglycerin btw: 2016 Moisturizing effects of diglycerol combined with glycerol on human stratum corneum

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I can’t really add any more fatty alcohols (from the DuraQuench) into my current formulation (they make the whitening effect go from being manageable to being annoying). 

Aka soaping effect? You could add 1% dimethicone to get rid of that.

I also have dry skin that feels minor differences in formulations very quickly - it’s been the bane of my adult life but is quite useful in testing tiny tweaks.

Kudos for doing elaborate experiments. Are you making products for yourself or for others btw?

I think you would like diglycerin - it does the job of what I thought K20W was going to do, without the sheen or loss in moisturisation.

Why aren’t you using it then?

Re: Jojoba oil, if I read the below study right it’s around 50:50 oils and wax esters, so approx 35% C20 eicosenoic acid and 24% C42 wax ester as its two largest constituents. Wonder if this implies you could use 4% jojoba oil and get similar moisturization efficacy to 1% floraester 20 which presumably is pure ester?

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1057.4104&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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Duraquench should feel different than ISIS again, might be worth trying.

I think it’s meant to be used to enhance the humectancy of glycerin, but it wasn’t as effective as pure glycerin in the end

Floratech propose the hydrolyzed (basically Floraester 20 C42:2 split in half) K20W ester blend traps glycerin on the surface of the skin increasing its humectant potential. How can you tell it’s not as effective? Why not add it in a 1:3 ratio with glycerin or are you saying you think just adding more glycerin does a better job rendering K20W unnecessary? 

I could understand how K20W would make a product feel a bit more sticky if it keeps more glycerin on the skin surface.

I like Floraesters 20 though - I find it helps to create a light barrier in the same way as cetyl alcohol does, but without the heaviness of cetyl alcohol when applying. It doesn’t moisturise by itself though - 

Well a barrier helps retain moisture, humectants only indirectly draw moisture too. Floratech has a couple datasheets on it, since it’s a long chain wax ester I’d be a bit concerned with skin feel and potentially comedogenicity, did you try it at 2%?

https://www.floratech.com/PDFs/ClaimSheets/CS10-021.pdf
https://www.floratech.com/PDFs/ClaimSheets/CS10-030.pdf

How much C42:2 wax esters does jojoba oil contain btw?

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 I tried out Crodamol ISIS but I didn’t love it. It is a little draggy and doesn’t seem to be as moisturising as Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride in my formulation. It feels ok going on but skin seems drier the next time it is rinsed with water (than with the 2% CCT it replaced). I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to source it.

Why not try both? How much did you use? I’ve seen one study that supports 8%? CCT reducing TEWL 33% for up to 6 hours https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19296892/ but there also also studies showing ISIS reducing TEWL more than the equivalent dose petrolatum https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20642769/ 

I’m thinking of combining 5% CCT with 3% Duraquench in a BTMS based emulsion, but I’m also concerned by dragginess. Perhaps 1-2% Jojobaesters KW20 is a more elegant alternative here, but I’m concerned it creates a film that makes makeup application difficult?

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Very interesting, we do sell some to the EU at least but not from the EU (yet), what is the reasoning?

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According to ingredientstodiefor sclerotium gum works well with cationic ingredients

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Cerave used BTMS-25 is all its moisturizers at around 3% - seems to work fairly well for them (so around 0.75% Behentrimonium Methosulfate) - not a lof of research on the methosulfate form, the chloride form does have ocular irritation potential..

I wonder if methyl glucose could cause some bacterial growth issues?

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Right, Lotionrpo 165 is tried and true, just wondering if there are any potential pro’s and con’s about it compared to BTMS.

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I don’t see why the other ingredients would hurt, it could even make formulation a bit simpler by e.g. removing need for separate addition of cetyl alcohol - a nice not too waxy thickener/stabilizer.

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Stability og BTMS + cetyl alcohol generally seems good enough, and sensorials are even better than 165 IMO!

And what about adding something like 3% DuraQuench IQ SA, Croda  “Cetyl alcohol, Isostearyl Isostearate, Potassium Cetyl Phosphate,

Cetyl stearate, Stearic Acid” - isostearyl isostearate has some interesting papers showing TEWL reduction.

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Thanks! Haven’t had luck with Xanthan, Perry, have you used them to make clear low pH formulas?

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USA, sales $100-500k range

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Are you using emollients/oils/esters with a high spreading rate that are allowing the cream to migrate into the eye.”

Using capric/caprylic triglycerides. Experienced it personally!

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How about Saccharide Isomerate? 

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Acne is too broad, you’d have to make a product that appeals to women of a certain age group with fungal acne specifically. 

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Perry said:

@Zink - you make some great points.

I’d suggest that you do not need as much money however if you work on email marketing. You can build a relationship with people via email marketing in a way that SEO and even social media don’t. You just need to rank for a lot of long tail keywords and that means creating a website with lots of content and a free something to give away to get email addresses. Then you need to have a good story to tell through email which might eventually lead to a sale.  For someone starting out with limited funds, this is the strategy I’d suggest.

Thanks Perry,

Albeit email marketing to works great, the problem is scaling to get the emails in the first place. 

You could try to rank for long tail stuff if you go for option b and have a niche product, SEO is however its own can of worms you need to hire an expert on it to have a chance to rank for anything. Creating the content alone does nothing.

For someone just starting out I’d recommend focusing on one or a few stand-out products, then reaching out to relevant small to mid size influencers and press channels for reviews - hopefully your product is different enough to elicit interest. I’d also start selling on Amazon with a strategy in place to get customers over to your site, first and foremost pricing your product lower on it, as Amazon marketing is 10x cheaper than Facebook and Google (this is also why most Amazon pseudo brands aren’t able to break out from Amazon).

Lastly I’d reach out to small shops or salons that are a match for your product, many are happy to buy a few units to try them out. Sales is a form of marketing too and relatively cheap.

You can forget about facebook and google ads until you can afford hiring someone who can run them and have a real marketing budget to work with.

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The market is completely flooded with brands, it’s extremely hard to stand out, even if you’re venture backed most still fail. 

There’s huge survivorship bias, Perry mentions “Drunk Elephant”, a brand being sued by L’Oreal for patent infringement that also got $8.3 million in VC funding.

Amazon is flooded with no-name brands that game the system to get top spots, even huge brands like L’Oreal struggle to rank for keywords.

Facebook marketing costs on average >$10 pr sale or so in skincare.

So to succeed (big time) you either need:

a) Millions in VC capital to start a relatively general brand such as drunk elephant. To get said funding you’ll likely need some very solid industry experience/track record/connections. Recommend it if you can hack it, you need to have strong reasons why people should invest in your brand in a sea of thousands.

b) Find a hyper targeted niche audience that’s not price sensitive  (I saw a brand succeed selling concealer sticks to women over 60), you need to “overprice” your product to be able to pay for marketing. This is probably what I’d recommend and you can alternatively focus on creating viral products, making a viral “brand” is a lot more work - think making the new Snickers instead of starting the new Mars company.

c) Bring a genuinely new technology to the market (e.g. if you made a cream that stimulated melanin production - better hurry though, plus you easily run into problems with the FDA). Don’t recommend unless you’re a hardcore scientist and can raise money, and even then, it’s very high risk.

d) Do something grey area, e.g. skin bleaching or some such product - do not recommend.

e) Find a way to sell products for super cheap and partake in the price race to the bottom that is amazon - also don’t recommend.

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Natrosol 250 HHR was also rec, any experiences?

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In my experience as long as you use a low percentage of acid, low pH is not a problem, like Pharma says, it’s buffered away by the skin.

Even though the acid is a solution easily loses protons, there isn’t that many of them.

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Sepimax seems like a good suggestion, had some issues with xanthan in low pHs before.

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bump

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bump

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Thanks a lot, seems like I’ll be fine heating it to 40C in water to help dissolve salicylic acid, then adding it to a cooling emulsion at 70C or so..

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Why not, 5 - 10% ethanol shouldn’t be drying? Propylene Glycol is a poor sollubilizer no, you’d need 15% or so?

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Lol, hmm who’s repackaging it then