Techniques

Q&A: What does palm- or coco- etc. mean in an ingredient name?

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When we’re looking at INCI names, you’ll see things like stearate, palmitate, cocoate, and more. What do these names mean? When an ingredient is derived from fatty acids, you’ll see a name like sodium stearate or ethylhexyl palmitate indicating which one they’ve used. If you see laur- in a name, it means it’s derived from lauric...

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Tips & techniques: How to add new ingredients into a formula that contains water

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In my formulas, you might see me say something like – use 10% hydrosol in place of 10% distilled water – or – use 0.5% powdered extract in the cool down phase, remove 0.5% distilled water – and I thought maybe I should explain that a bit? Our formulas should always total 100%. There are...

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Testing the shelf life of your products: Observing a naturally compliant lotion for rancidity

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I realized I haven’t shared much about testing our products – a great question that came up in the live Zoom meeting about oils yesterday – so I thought I’d share my experiences with one of my favourite lotions for shelf life. Whenever I make a product, I like to observe it for 6 months...

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Using powdered surfactants, like SCI, SCS, or SLSa in liquid products and why they fail

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I’m seeing a lot of people trying to use powdered surfactants in liquid products – like shower gels, body washes, bubble baths – and although I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this isn’t a stable or easy way to use them. These will start to solidify, leaving you with a bottle of...

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Q&A quickies: Why do we have to allow the product to cool before packaging?

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Why do we always say to package your product when it’s reached room temperature? Because we don’t want all that condensation in the bottle or the cap, which can happen when the product is even slightly warm. Before you know it, you have mold and other nasty things growing in the cap that’ll end up...

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