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As I’m writing this series of posts on surfactants, there are a few things to consider when formulating… foaming lathering bubbling good skin or hair feel substantitive to skin or hair how it performs in hard water foamy resistance to soap and/or sebum how to thicken it These qualities will make it clear which one...
An anonymous commenter on this post asks…What is the difference between an EO, Extract or tea? (Besides how they are made) For example, if I was going to use Rosemary, which form would be the best to use in a shampoo or conditioner? Or is there not much of a difference between the effectiveness of...
One of the biggest disputes I see in lotion making is the debate over heating and holding our ingredients before mixing the oil and water phases together. I can give you several good reasons to join the heat and hold camp if you still think it unnecessary! Whenever I make a lotion, I weigh out...
What are micelles? They are defined as “an aggregate of surfactant molecules dispersed in a liquid colloid”. So what’s a colloid? It is a type of mixture in which one substance is evenly dispersed throughout another. There’s generally two phases – the dispersed or internal phase and the continuous phase. In the case of oil-in-water...
I wanted to write a few posts about creating cleansers for the different skin types, then I realized that I hadn’t done posts on surfactants for a while. I’ve got some basic stuff from last year, but I thought a more in depth series of posts on the various surfactants we use in our creations...