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Emulsifiers
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Does anyone have experience using emulsifiers when making their own cosmetics? Could anyone give me step-by-step instructions for using cetyl alcohol to mix oil into a water-based mixture? I'm trying to copy a store-bought leave-in conditioner. It's water based and it contains just a little oil. It also contains cetyl alcohol, which must be there partly as an emulsifier.
Also, to add cyclomethicone or dimethicone to a liquid, is it neccesary to use an emulsifier? If so, would emulsifiers that work for oil also work for silicones?
I found a good intro to emulsifiers here
www.makingcosmetics.com/articles/02-making-emulsions-for-cosmetics.pdf
but I still would like more how-to info. -
Sorry, i wrote a very detailed comment for this and then my laptop crashed. Least to say I'm not impressed.
In short, you need to used the HLB system (hydrophilic-lipophilic balance) to see how much of what type of emulsifier to use. see http://www.lotioncrafter.com/pdf/The_HLB_System.pdf for details.
Its all about whether they like water or oil. Things like silicone oils and cetyl alcohol prefer oil, whereas ionic surfactants mostly like water. Therefore when looking to add the two together, you first need to mix all ingredients each 'phase' (oil and water) until all is incorporated, heat them up to roughly the same temperature, and add one slowly to the other whilst blending. Then it needs to be continuously mixed at a slow rate until cool.
The best thing i could suggest is find as many ingredients on the list and measure the HLB number for the product. Then use what emulsifiers you can afford or obtain to reach the same number and then follow the process above.
Sorry if this is brief. I will elaborate more on any point if you wish. Hope this helps for now. -
Hey there! I'm searching for information about an emulsifier called peg-75 Shea butter. I'm not worried about safety since I know it's still Shea butter. It's in one of my favorite hair products Taliah Waajid curly curl cream which works great. I love this product but it smells way too strong so I'm considering trying to make it at home. What does peg stand for and why does it take 75 of those little guys to make shea butter mix with water? I mean, how is it made? Google is not being helpful in my search. Any ideas?
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PEG = polyethylene glyol. You can sort of think of these as units of water solubility. Shea butter is very oily so it takes a lot of PEG to make it water dispersible.
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