How to jazz up a KISS formulation

Can you remember the KISS shea cream we made a few months ago?

This cream was a feast for the skin on its own and as KISS as it is but today we are going to show you how to use that KISS emulsion as a base and jazz it up with a few hydrophilic and lipophilic active ingredients.

The process is exactly the same:

• dispersing and hydrating the gum
• heating oil and water phase
• emulsifying the oil phase in the water phase
• adding the active ingredients as the emulsion is cooling down
• measuring and adjusting the pH
• adding the preservative
• Remeasuring the pH and readjusting if necessary

we have one additional step here and that is adding the heat sensitive active ingredients after the emulsification and when the emulsion is cooling down.

When and how and how much active/heat sensitive ingredients you add to the emulsion depends on 1001 factors such as:

• the emulsifier
• the blending technique
• the active ingredients and their concentration
• the stabilizers you have used
• the temperature of the emulsification and the heat sensitivity of the ingredients

just to name a few factors. Some emulsifiers can tolerate a good percentage of ingredients being post-added, some emulsifiers don't like this. Sometimes even the order of addition of ingredients makes a difference. As a rule of thumb stay by 10% when you start working with a new emulsifier/new formulation and test the stability, texture and skin feel of the emulsion and move on according to the results you get.

For this emulsion, I am post-adding rosehip CO2 extract and Rosemary CO2 extract as lipophilic ingredients and aquaxyl and cross-linked hyaluron as hydrophilic ingredients. The total concentration of these ingredients is 5,1%.

Formulation

Procedure:

1- Blend phase A and C in heat proof beakers

2- Disperse and hydrate the gum in phase A @RT

3- heat both phase A+B and C in a water bath between 78- 82 ^oC.

4- When both phases have reached the temperature and phase C  is completely melted, emulsify the oil phase C in the water phase

5- Start cooling down and stirring

6- At a temperature <50 ^oC add phase D and E and continue cooling and stirring

7- When the emulsion reaches the room temperature add the essential oils

8- prepare a 10% dilution of the emulsion and measure the pH. By experience I know that the preservative will reduce the pH and this is why I have added Arginin to increase the pH at the beginning. In our case the pH is 6,43.

8- Add the preservative. Prepare another 10% dilution and remeasure the pH. In our case it was 5,43 which is perfectly in range (5,2-5,5)

9- Take your stability and micro kit samples and fill the rest in a suitable container

Watch the video here

Stay safe and creative