How to Adjust Your Lip Cream Formula to Reduce Stickiness

Based on your formula and the product descriptions, the stickiness you're experiencing between your lips is likely due to the film-forming ingredient, Silicone Film (Comfort-Wear, Hard, Isododecane Base). While this ingredient is excellent for providing long wear and ensuring color stays put, higher concentrations can sometimes result in a tacky feel, especially on areas like the lips that touch and flex.

You've already correctly identified that reducing the percentage of the Silicone Film helps, as seen in your adjusted formula. To further reduce the stickiness, you can try the following adjustments:

• Further Reduce Silicone Film: The Silicone Film (Comfort-Wear, Hard, Isododecane Base) is the primary contributor to the sticky feel. While the recommended usage is up to 30%, for lip products where comfort and minimal tack are crucial, a lower percentage is often preferred. Try reducing this component further, perhaps to the 8-12% range.
• Increase Volatile Solvents: Cyclomethicone and Isododecane are volatile emollients that evaporate quickly, helping the film dry down faster and reducing the tacky feel. Since you are reducing the film former (which is in an Isododecane base), you can increase the percentage of both Cyclomethicone and Isododecane to compensate and improve the drying speed and feel.

Here is a suggested approach for adjusting your formula:

1. Warp Cream Maker: Keep this around your current percentage (25-28%) as it forms the base of your cream.
2. Polyethylene Wax: Keep this around your current percentage (2.5-3.5%) as it provides structure and helps with color payoff.
3. Silicone Film (Comfort-Wear, Hard, Isododecane Base): Reduce this significantly, for example, to 8-10%.
4. Cyclomethicone and Isododecane: Increase these to make up the remaining percentage of the formula. You can adjust the ratio between them based on your preference for the initial feel (both are light and non-sticky). For example, if the total of the first three ingredients is 28% + 3% + 9% = 40%, then Cyclomethicone and Isododecane would total 60%. You could split this as 30% Cyclomethicone and 30% Isododecane, or adjust slightly as needed.

Example Adjusted Formula (Illustrative):

• Warp Cream Maker: 28%
• Cyclomethicone: 30%
• Isododecane: 30%
• Polyethylene Wax: 3%
• Silicone Film (Comfort-Wear, Hard, Isododecane Base): 9%
  • Total: 100%

This adjustment significantly reduces the film former while increasing the volatile components, which should help minimize the lip-to-lip stickiness.

Finding the perfect balance for your desired feel may require a few more small adjustments and tests.