Addressing Cloudiness and Achieving Shine

You mentioned your current lip balm using Natural White Beeswax and Water Balm™ is cloudy. Natural beeswax often contributes to the opacity of a balm. To achieve a clear and shiny look, you generally need to use ingredients that form a transparent matrix.

• Natural White Beeswax: This ingredient is likely the primary cause of the cloudiness in your balm. While it's an excellent natural wax for structure and emollience, its natural properties prevent a completely clear finish.

To make your balm clear and shiny, you would need to replace or significantly reduce the Natural White Beeswax content and use alternative gelling agents or waxes that are transparent.

Alternatives for Clear, Shiny Balm or Oil Gel with Water

You are looking for either ingredients to make your current balm clear and shiny, or an oil gelling agent that can incorporate 10-20% water and give a gel-like texture.

Here are a couple of options based on the product information:

1. Using Oil Gelling Agents for a Clear Oil Gel Base:

   • Oil Thick™ Transparent: This is a Dextrin Palmitate based gelling agent specifically designed to create a clear and solid oil gel texture. However, its description does not indicate that it can incorporate water. It's excellent for clear oil-only gels or balms.
   • Sugar Gel: This ingredient is a sugar ester powder that creates a clear, soft oil gel texture. Importantly, its description states it can combine water with oil in small quantities, and an example formula shows 4% water. It might be able to incorporate up to 10% water as mentioned in the description's comparison section, but achieving 20% might be challenging with this ingredient alone. It is edible and suitable for lip products. The mixing method is specific, requiring heating the Sugar Gel with glycerin and water first before slowly adding the heated oil phase.

2. Using a Gelling Agent for Oil and Water:

   • Oil-Fix™ Eco: This is a Silica-based gelling agent that works in oils, silicones, and water. It is suitable for water-in-oil or water-in-silicone formulations and can help thicken the oil phase and suspend particles. While its primary function is gelling and suspending, the example provided is a "Clear oil texture sunscreen gel," suggesting it can contribute to clarity in oil-based formulas containing water. This might be a viable option for incorporating 10-20% water into an oil base while aiming for clarity.

Recommendations:

• If you want to maintain a balm-like texture but make it clear and shiny, you would likely need to replace the beeswax with a transparent wax or a blend of transparent gelling agents suitable for balms. However, achieving a perfectly clear balm with a significant water phase (using Water Balm™) can be difficult, as the emulsified water droplets can contribute to opacity.
• If you are open to an oil gel texture that incorporates water, Sugar Gel or Oil-Fix™ Eco are promising options.
  • Sugar Gel is specifically noted for creating a clear oil gel and can incorporate some water (likely up to 10%). You would need to follow its specific mixing instructions.
  • Oil-Fix™ Eco is designed to gel oil and water and is used in clear oil-based formulas with a water phase. This might be more suitable if you are aiming for the higher end of your desired water content (10-20%).

You could experiment with replacing the beeswax in your current formula with a transparent gelling agent like Oil Thick™ Transparent (if you reduce or remove the water phase) or try building a new formula around Sugar Gel or Oil-Fix™ Eco to create a clear oil gel that incorporates your desired water content.