Formulation Recommendations

1. Shampoo with Essential Oils and Water-Soluble Ingredients

To effectively combine essential oils with surfactants and water-soluble ingredients in a shampoo base without causing cloudiness, you can use a suitable solubilizer. Based on your goal of maintaining clarity, Flora Solve™ Clear or Flora Foam™ are good options.

• Flora Solve™ Clear is specifically designed to solubilize essential oils and fragrance oils in water-based systems, helping to create clear and stable formulas without the need for alcohol.
• Flora Foam™ also functions as a fragrance solubilizer and can help maintain clarity in formulas containing surfactants, particularly amphoteric surfactants, while also acting as a thickener and foam stabilizer.

Choose the one that best fits your overall formulation goals and test to ensure compatibility with your specific surfactant system and essential oils.

2. Conditioner with Essential Oils and Water-Soluble Ingredients

Similar to shampoo, incorporating essential oils into a conditioner base (which often contains emulsifiers and conditioning agents) requires a way to disperse the oil phase into the water phase. While conditioners are typically opaque emulsions, using a solubilizer like Flora Solve™ Clear or Flora Foam™ can still help ensure the essential oils are well-integrated into the formula.

• Flora Solve™ Clear can help disperse the essential oils into the water phase before combining with the main conditioner base.
• Flora Foam™ can also aid in incorporating fragrances/essential oils into surfactant-containing systems, which are often part of conditioner formulations.

Even in an opaque conditioner, proper solubilization or emulsification of the essential oil is important for stability and even distribution.

3. Hair Growth Product (12% Oil / 88% Water) for Spray or Serum

For a hair growth product with a composition of 12% oil and 88% water (including water-soluble natural extracts), combining these phases requires either an emulsifier (for an opaque product) or a solubilizer (for a clear/translucent product).

• For an Opaque Serum: If a serum texture that is not clear is acceptable, an emulsifier is the most suitable choice. Milk Lotion Maker is an emulsifier blend recommended for creating serum or lotion textures, capable of emulsifying up to 40% oil. A usage rate of 2-3% was suggested by staff for your oil/water ratio, typically requiring heat during the mixing process to form a stable emulsion.
• For a Clear or Translucent Spray/Serum: Achieving a stable, perfectly clear product with a 12% oil load is challenging and may not be possible with common solubilizers without using very high concentrations.
  • PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil is a solubilizer that can disperse oils in water. However, to keep 12% oil clear, you would likely need a high percentage of PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil relative to the oil amount (often a ratio of solubilizer to oil is used, e.g., 3:1 or higher). This high concentration might make the product feel sticky or thick and could still result in a translucent rather than perfectly clear liquid. Testing is essential to determine the minimum effective concentration for stability and desired appearance.
  • Laureth-7 is generally used as an emulsifier to create opaque emulsions (like creams or lotions) and is not suitable for making a clear spray or serum.

Given the high oil percentage for a spray, creating a stable spray might require it to be a "shake before use" type of product, as noted previously. For a stable serum, an opaque emulsion using an emulsifier like Milk Lotion Maker is a more straightforward approach. If you aim for a clear or translucent product, extensive testing with a solubilizer like PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil or Flora Solve™ Clear would be necessary to find the right balance for stability and clarity, and perfect clarity might not be achievable.