Having trouble with Montanov™ & Olivem 1000 emulsifiers? Let’s look at making our formulas less soaping by using solid or simple esters, like Lauryl Laurate or cetyl esters (part five, modifying the formula)

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Today, in part five of this series, we’ll be looking at the hand & body base formula and modifying them to include esters as our structuring agents. These can have a lower melting point than the fatty alcohols and acids, plus they have lower surface tension, which we know can reduce soaping. This post also...

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Shampoo bars: Video link and questions from the Zoom workshop in March 2026! (Formulation & Innovation subscribers) – part two

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A photo of three shampoo bars on the metal top of a digital scale. From right to left, the largest one is pink; the middle one is pink and smaller because it's been used; the final one is white and it's very small because it's been used a lot.

Thanks for joining me for part two of this short series of posts post-Zoom workshop on shampoo bars! I’m going through the chat from the workshop to answer questions we discussed in the workshop and questions I didn’t get to as there was so much going on, and I want to make sure I addressed...

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Zoom workshop on shampoo bars! Link to the replay video! Questions about substituting surfactants, my equipment, using starches, and loads of links to great information! (Formulation and Innovation subscribers)

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Woo hoo! That Zoom workshop was fun, eh? I’ve been going through the chat and I’ll be answering some of those questions here. I did answer a lot in the workshop, but let’s go through and make sure they’re answered properly with links and such. This post consists mostly of short answers to the questions...

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Having trouble with Montanov™ & Olivem 1000 emulsifiers? Let’s look at making our formulas less soaping by altering the structuring agents (part four, includes base hand & body lotion formula and modified formula)

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A photo of a bottle of lotion with "body butter" sitting on a white plate with a blue line. You can see the body butter is thick, rich, creamy, and off-white.

Today, in part four of this series, we’ll be looking at two formulas – one that soaps quite a bit and one that doesn’t – then we’ll compare and contrast them (because I know how much we loved doing that when we were in school, eh?) This post also applies to Olivem 1000 as they...

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Having trouble with Montanov™ & Olivem 1000 emulsifiers? What we know about the soaping effect and what we can do and some information on liquid crystal emulsions (part three)

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A pile of white, waxy Montanov™ 202 pellets. This is an emulsifier.

Welcome to part three of this series on working with Montanov™ emulsifiers! This post also applies to Olivem 1000 as they use similar emulsifiers as the Montanov™ series. In part one, we looked at the proper process to make one of these emulsions with example formulas. We learned the key is to follow the formula...

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