The focus of this feature is surfactants and emulsifiers with special relevance to personal care in the bathroom.
A popular theme at UK-based cosmetics ingredient trade event SCS Formulate 2016 was the creation of product textures. we offered a presentation called ‘Inspiring textures’ and introduced oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions that inverted into water-in-oil (w/o) emulsions during application on the skin, forming a lipophilic, water-resistant layer.

These emulsions are termed switch-oil-phase (SWOP) emulsions and are formed by a combination of polyglyceryl-2 dipolyhydroxystearate as a w/o emulsifier, a mixture of lauryl glucoside and sodium lauryl glucose carboxylate as anionic surfactants, and sodium polyacrylate as a polymeric stabiliser.

Textured concepts suggested by the company included a slimming gel-cream that changed to an oil; a gel-cream that transformed to a fresh velvety emulsion on application; and a soufflé-to-cream product. This combined the foaming properties of Plantapon LGC Sorb (INCI: Sodium lauryl glucose carboxylate, lauryl glucoside) with the suspending capabilities of the polymeric emulsifier Tinovis GTC-UP (INCI: Acrylates/ beheneth-25 methacrylate copolymer). The soufflé texture was stabilised with xanthan gum.