I.Consumption concepts drive the shift of formula development
In the early years of the care and skin care market, milky white, pearlescent, and colored materials were the mainstream.The milky white texture comes from the tiny oil droplets formed by emulsification and dispersion, the pearlescent effect is achieved by pearlescent raw materials, and the colorful colors come from the deployment of various pigments.With the continuous popularization of popular science of ingredients, consumers have begun to actively avoid non-essential coloring ingredients, and the requirements for the feeling of use have become more specific. The acceptance of products that are heavy and film-forming after application and remain sticky after rinsing is declining.
The transparent material body visually transmits a clean and simple feeling, which is just in line with the current psychological expectations of users.This consumption tendency is particularly prominent in the field of infant and child care.When parents choose cleansing and bathing products for infants and young children, they will habitually observe the state of the material. Most people will subjectively believe that transparent products do not have additional pigments added, which will be more friendly to delicate skin.
But the transparent appearance does not mean that the formula is simple.Transparency is only the physical state of the material body. Many transparent formulas also contain a variety of complex components such as flavors, emollient oils, and oil-soluble active substances.
Formulators often turn to Peg 80 sorbitan laurate and other auxiliary raw materials to alleviate compatibility risks during system construction. If you want oil-soluble substances to coexist stably in the water-based system, you must rely on solubilizing technology to complete the construction, which is also the core difficulty of transparent formula development.
II.Solubilization is not equivalent to ordinary emulsification
Many entry-level formula practitioners are prone to confusion between emulsification and solubilization. The principles of action of the two are completely different, and the appearance of the material body will be completely different in the end.
Conventional Oil in water emulsifier is mostly used to build a traditional emulsifying system, which breaks the oil into a large number of fine droplets and disperses them evenly in the aqueous phase.Countless tiny oil droplets will scatter light, and the material body will therefore appear milky white. If such emulsified raw materials are directly used to make water-based transparent cleaning products, it is difficult to get a clear and transparent finished product.
The true solubilizing system relies on the aggregation of surface active molecules to form micelles, wrapping the oil phase components into the micelle, so that the grease is almost dispersed and dissolved in the aqueous phase at the molecular level.The light can directly penetrate the material body, and no scattering will occur, so the finished product remains clear.However, there is an objective upper limit to the ability of micelles to carry oily substances, which is an innate shortcoming of the solubilizing system.
The higher the amount of flavors, emollient oils, and oil-soluble active substances added to the formula, the greater the pressure on the micelle.Once the load limit is exceeded, the oil phase cannot be completely wrapped, and the material body will appear turbid, precipitated, and layered. Even the samples that have passed the preliminary debugging will directly fail.The solubilizing system is very sensitive to external conditions. The addition ratio of polyols, the ratio of surface active complex, the feeding sequence, the production temperature, and the hot and cold fluctuations during storage, any one of which changes, may destroy the micelle balance.
III.The transparent appearance cannot sacrifice the low irritation attribute
Cleansing products are the products with the most transparent texture. Cleansing and bathing gels must not only have a transparent appearance, but also take into account the foam texture and rinsing skin feeling. Put in the baby care scene, gentle and low irritation is a hard standard that cannot be compromised.
Sulfate anions have strong surface active foaming ability, excellent cleaning efficiency, and obvious cost advantages. They have been used in the care industry for many years.However, the pure sulfate system is highly irritating, and frequent use can easily damage the sebum barrier on the surface of the skin, causing dryness and tightness.The skin barrier of infants and young children is not yet mature, and the stratum corneum is more fragile, so high-dose sulfate epigenesis is rarely used directly alone.The common solution is to combine non-ionic surfactants to buffer the irritation caused by anions, and reduce the irritation of the entire formula to the skin while retaining the basic foaming ability.
OILREE®MY 928 PEG-80 SORBITAN LAURATE is a non-ionic surface active in the form of a yellow transparent liquid. It is gentle and low-irritating, and it is very suitable for cleansing and bathing products for infants and young children.After compounding with sulfate anionic surfactants, the irritation caused by anionic surfactants can be significantly reduced. At the same time, it participates in the construction of the solubilizing system and assists in dissolving the flavors and a small amount of emollient components in the formula.
IV. Multiple variables restrain each other
The fault tolerance rate of the transparent solubilizing system is low, and many seemingly inconspicuous components in the formula may destroy the overall clarity.Flavor is a typical unstable variable. The flavor itself belongs to a complex oil phase mixture. Most care products need to solubilize the flavor.The components of different fragrances vary greatly. Even if it is a set of mature solubilizing ratios, after changing the flavor batch or fragrance type, the material may change from transparent to turbid.
Electrolytes will also interfere with the structure of the micelle, and the content of inorganic salts in the system will increase, which will compress the space for the micelle to dissolve, and many originally transparent materials will quickly become turbid after contacting the electrolyte.If the formula plans to add efficacy additives containing electrolytes, it is necessary to reconstruct the epigenetic compound formula as a whole, and in some cases it is even necessary to abandon some efficacy raw materials.
The addition of emollient conditioning raw materials also requires strict control of the addition threshold.
Bis diglyceryl polyacyladipate-2 is often added to cleansing formulas to improve dryness after washing and give the skin a soft and conditioning feeling.However, this raw material will have a certain impact on the solubilizing system. If the amount added exceeds the appropriate range, the micelle balance will be broken, and the material will directly lose its transparency. The dose used in the transparent system needs to be carefully controlled.
V. Development logic of transparent care formula for infants and children
Infant and child care formulas cannot rely on infinitely increasing the surface active concentration to complete the solubilization.Even if the high-surface living system is exchanged for a transparent appearance, it will still bring a burden to the delicate skin.The more mature development ideas in the industry are based on mild epitaxial recombination as the underlying framework. With the help of low-stimulation non-ionic epitaxial recombination such as OILREE®MY 928, the irritation of sulfate anionic epitaxial recombination is alleviated. The complete complex ligand system simultaneously assumes the multiple functions of foaming, cleaning, and solubilizing flavors.
Baby and children's products do not pursue strong cleansing power, the foam tends to be soft and fine, avoiding floating and large bubbles, and the skin retains a moderate sense of hydration after rinsing, eliminating strong tightness.To reduce the difficulty of debugging the solubilizing system, the key lies in actively controlling the total load of oil-soluble materials.Many mature transparent bathing formulas for infants and children on the market will not blindly pile up a large number of oil-soluble emollient raw materials, reasonably control the total amount of flavors and oils added, and reduce the carrying pressure of the micelle, so as to take into account transparency, gentleness, and high and low temperature storage stability.
Makeup moisturizer products focus on makeup moisturizing care. The logic of the entire formula is obviously different from that of water-based infant and child cleaning products, and its raw material ratio ideas cannot be directly applied to the solubilizing cleaning system.
VI. Sustainable development of transparent texture
The raw material side needs to continuously output surface active materials adapted to different scenarios, while the formula side must fully understand the technical boundaries of the solubilizing system and reasonably set the expectations of the formula.In the face of endless new needs in the market, only by understanding the limitations behind the solubilizing system can we truly develop transparent skin care products that are both outstanding in appearance and practical and easy to use.
Hubei Mingya New Material Technology Co., Ltd.
