The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.
If you read anything about cocamidopropyl betaine, it is usually listed as an amphoteric, meaning it has a positive functional group – the quaternized nitrogen – and a negative functional group – a carboxylate, phosphate, or a sulfate functional group able to carry a negative charge in neutral or alkaline conditions. Believe it or not,...
We generally find the sulfoacetates as sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (SLSa), which is found in powder or flake form. It is created by the esterification of sulfoacetic acid. It is milder than than the ethoxylated alcohol sulfates (like SLeS) and stable in hard water. The flakes or white powder have about 65% active SLSa with a...
There are three categories of acyl amino acids and salts, which are anionic surfactants. Acyl glutamates Acyl peptides Acyl sarcosides Acyl glutamates are created by the acylation of glutamic acid, a naturally occurring amino acid. They are poor foamers but very gentle cleansers that are mild to the skin and eyes, and are generally used...
Phosphate esters are a category of anionic surfactants that include alkyl phosphates and alkyl ether phosphates. We don’t use phosphate esters in our bath & body products much as they are generally used in household cleaning products due to their low pH. They are very mild to the skin and might show up in facial...
Taurates (or taurides) are anionic acylamino alkane surfactants with a chemical structure very close to that of the isethionates. They are gentle cleansers used to increase the viscosity in a surfactant mix, and are generally used as co-surfactants. They were used a lot in commercial shampoos and body washes, but have now been replaced by...