Better crafting through chemistry: Esters – thickeners (part 2, Crothix)

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Yes, Crothix is an ester – in fact, it’s a complex ester! The INCI is PEG-150 pentaerythrityl tetrastearate (and) PEG-6 caprylic/capric trigylcerides (and) water. It’s derived from and composed mostly of stearic acid. It’s non-ionic and it will create clear thickened surfactant systems, as opposed to the pearlized systems created with the EZ Pearl (yesterday’s...

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Better crafting through chemistry: Esters – thickeners (part 1) (updated)

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Esters are well known to be efficient thickeners. You’ll have encountered a few on your bath and body adventures – glycol stearate, glycol distearate (or EZ Pearl), Crothix – when making surfactant systems or looking for options for emulsifiers. (Crothix isn’t an emulsifier, the others are!) These are all PEG esters or polyethylene glycol based...

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Gels: Hair styling products

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In my excitement about esters, I totally forgot about hair styling gels! I don’t use them much myself – my hair doesn’t really do “style” that well – but I do like to make them for my mom, who has really spiky hair. Gels are a perfect vehicle for conditioning agents. Sure, you can make...

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Sushi soap!

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The Soap Queen has done it again – SUSHI SOAP! (Yes, I am obsessed with sushi. I like to eat it and craft various things either looking like it or using sushi fabric! This is a picture from my new sunglasses case. The tutorial will be posted in a couple of weeks…) Click on the...

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Better crafting through chemistry: Esters

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So what the heck is an ester and how or why would I want to use them in our bath and body creations? An ester is a molecule that has undergone esterification. (Wow, that was clear, eh?) Esterification is a chemical reaction – for our purposes between a carboxylic acid (like a fatty acid from...

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