-
Hi,I do not understand much about chemistry and I am not an experienced cream maker. So please forgive me if my questions might be too dumb. Here's my problems. For a while now, I'm been having lumps in my lotions. My procedures are heat and hold for 20 mins, pour water in oils (i'm using polawax), cool in bath, let stand overnight before I bottle. Everything comes out thick, creamy and silky the first day. The second day, I notice lumps which are of a waxy nature and I have to beat for quite a long time before all the lumps disappear.At first, I thought that the lumps were caused by the butters that I used and that they were not cooling at the same temp as the rest of the oils. So I decided to experiment by removing all the butters. Same result. I also tried to mix oil in water instead of the other way around. Same result. I experimented by removing everything except using some oils, polawax, cetyl alcohol and water. Same result.I am at my wit's ends to understand what I am doing so wrong since my latest experiments are so basic. Could it be because I do my creams in an air-conditioned room? Shouldn't be I think.Can anybody help me?Thank you, Patricia
-
Try stirring them as they are cooling, as the edges of the container will cool quicker than the middle leaving it harder on the outside and runnier in the middle.
Depending on the size of the batch thats either stirring every few minutes with a pallet knife, or if its bigger a food mixer does a good job
-
Thank you Duncan. I'll try that. But does it mean that my cream is unstable?
-
Are you following these instructions .....Try what Duncan suggests and if it doesn't work then please could you post your recipe and exactly the method you are using ie including temperatures, whether you're using a stick blender etc.Have your lotions worked previously?
-
Itunu, thank you for the suggestion. I've read Swift's instructions and I am a big fan of hers.I try to always mix at 70C and I use a stick blender. My lotions work if I do small batches of say 200 grs. I get lumps if I do 400+; so Duncan's suggestion might make sense.Like I said in my original post, I experimented by using simply polawax, cetyl alcohol, oils (total of 15%) and water (85%) for a batch of 500 grs to see the results. I still get lumps.
-
www.thedishforum.com is another useful forum with good info.Try cooling once you see the emulsion has formed and begins to thicken. Place the beaker in
another container of tepid/cool water, not so cold the lower melting point oils
solidify first, but just enough to have an even cool down of the entire
emulsion. Mix continuously throughout all this process and also hand
mix in between stick mixing with a spatula.My usual batch is 700grams and I've not had any issues with lumps.Let us know how you get on. -
@Bushsurvivor, provided both your oil phase and water phase are hot enough (around 70 Deg C) and the oil phase is nicely melted with no waxy lumps in it there isn't any up front reason why it isn't stable. You may find the need to use some polysorbate as a co-emulsifier when using polawax, but this would be more if the product started separating.
How much cetyl Alcohol and Polawax are you using? If you're using a large quantity of cetyl alcohol the product can get a little coarse and paste-like.
-
Duncan, I use 5.5% polawax and 2% cetyl alcohol.Thank you Itunu. I'll have to try your suggestion and let you all know how I'm doing.
-
That should be fine, you may even find that you can back down the polawax a bit if you need to save costs.
(Downside is that it may thin down a bit, therefore needing more cetyl alcohol!)
1-2% Cetyl Alcohol is typical for lotions, It will give a bit of body but not excessive viscosity.
3-4 % if you need a thick butter. Anything more that 4% will start to get claggy and unpleasant, so I wouldn't use more than that unless you have no other option.
For now concentrate on testing out the processing, and worry about any formulation changes later on
-
Thank you to Duncan and to Itunu. I've tried your suggestions and now I'm ok. Thanks again.
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!