Feedback on Your Cleaning Water Formula

Thank you for sharing your cleaning water formula. It's great that you're experimenting with formulations!

Regarding your second question about posting new formulas, it's best to create a new thread for each new formula you'd like to discuss. This helps keep the forum organized and makes it easier for others to follow and contribute to specific discussions.

Now, let's look at your Cleaning Water formula:

1. Polox-Mix: Using Polox-Mix at 15% is a good starting point for a gentle cleansing water base, as indicated by the product information.
2. Butylene Glycol & Glycerin: These are excellent humectants and are commonly used in cleansing waters to provide hydration and prevent a dry feeling after use. Your percentages are within typical ranges.
3. Sodium PCA & Allantoin: These are good additions for skin conditioning and soothing properties.
4. Disodium EDTA: This is a chelating agent used to bind metal ions, which can help improve formula stability and enhance preservative efficacy.
5. Water: Using drinking water is possible, but using deionized or distilled water is generally recommended in cosmetic formulations. This avoids introducing minerals that could potentially interact with other ingredients or affect stability over time.
6. Eye Preserved: This is a suitable preservative for gentle formulations, especially around the eyes. Your usage rate of 1% is within the recommended range.

Potential Area for Improvement/Consideration:

• Ingredient Compatibility: The product information for Eye Preserved (Polyhexamethylene Biguanide, PHMB) indicates that it is cationic and incompatible with anionic ingredients. Disodium EDTA is an anionic chelating agent. Combining a cationic ingredient (Eye Preserved) with an anionic ingredient (Disodium EDTA) can potentially lead to reduced efficacy of both ingredients, precipitation, or instability in the formula. You might need to choose between using Eye Preserved or Disodium EDTA, or find alternative compatible ingredients (e.g., a non-ionic chelating agent or a different preservative system that is compatible with EDTA).

Additional Suggestions:

• pH Adjustment: The optimal pH range for Eye Preserved efficacy is 3-6.5. You should check the pH of your final formula and adjust it if necessary to fall within this range for optimal preservation.
• Enhance Skin Feel/Benefits: Depending on your desired product profile, you could consider adding small amounts of other ingredients like Panthenol (Pro-Vitamin B5) for hydration and soothing, or a very low concentration of a mild, non-ionic surfactant if you need slightly stronger cleansing power without compromising gentleness.

Overall, it's a solid base formula. The main point to address is the potential incompatibility between Eye Presodium and Disodium EDTA. Testing the stability and preservative efficacy of your final formula is crucial before widespread use.