The advantages of making anhydrous products

1. Easier to formulate and make
2. They appeal to people’s desire for preservative free, 100% natural or organic products
3. There are a wide range of anhydrous products that you can make and a huge number of luxurious ingredients you can use
4. You can create more potent products. No water means more room for nutrient rich ingredients
5. You don’t have to worry about microbial contamination or microbiological testing
6. They are much cheaper, easier and quicker to test, certify and sell

The only downside is, that if you like using water soluble actives (e.g. vitamin B3, Ectoin, betaine, certain extracts etc.) you can't really add those to anhydrous products as they won't dissolve in oils/fats.

But, there are a lot of actives that *are* oil soluble that you could experiment with (gamma oryzanol, co-q10...)


I don't agree with number 4 though. I know a lot of people see water as a filler, but I personally feel that water plays an important role in certain products.

For instance, I could make a cream that is made up of oils/butters, an emulsifier etc, and then use all liquid extracts/actives in place of the water part, so it's jampacked with nutrients, right? But the cream would be so concentrated with extracts/actives that my skin would probably get incredibly irritated.

Furthermore, you can't really stuff as many actives actives as you wish into a certain product and call it done, as there might not be enough room for each ingredient to solubilize properly (resulting in undissolved ingredients, making your product grainy/scratchy).

Another thing is that a lot of ingredients work well at a certain percentage and after that it either doesn't make a difference, or becomes irritating. So sometimes, less is more.

And replacing the water with more fats in the above example probably wouldn't work either...at least, so far I haven't come across emulsifiers that will emulsify over 35-45% oils/butters... I really wish there was because I'd love to make oil/butter heavy emulsions with just a few % aqueous extracts and no water (e.g. a nail and cuticle balm or a hair balm).


But, I do think you make some good points. It's a lot less intimidating since you don't have to be on your toes the entire time regarding keeping everything super clean/disinfected, *most* times you can leave out the preservatives, and there are a lot of products you could create (hair products, body butters, (massage) balms etc. )

As above, I don't think that anhydrous products are better per se, but are certainly a good place to start.

One consideration is that any product that is likely to be used with wet hands should have a preservative- the water that ends up in the pot will allow nasties to breed and feed on your oils.

I agree with TEG. I use preservative in my anhydrous product. Water or even nasty fingers going in can wreak havoc. Again, better safe than sorry. I find it irresponsible if you are going to sell to not preserve properly. I don't want to have to use my insurance for an infection.

shunt2011 said:

I agree with TEG. I use preservative in my anhydrous product. Water or even nasty fingers going in can wreak havoc. Again, better safe than sorry. I find it irresponsible if you are going to sell to not preserve properly. I don't want to have to use my insurance for an infection.

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Again, something I have not thought about. Thanks for this tip, to both you and TEG. What kind of preservative (and how much) would I add to the following body butter recipe?

75% mango butter
24% hazelnut oil or macadamia nut oil
1% fragrance oil

Thanks!

Scooter

I'd take an ecocert (I in fact DO take an ecocert!) at the lower range of the suggested usage.

The Efficacious Gentleman said:

I'd take an ecocert (I in fact DO take an ecocert!) at the lower range of the suggested usage.

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Thanks... that one word, ecocert, led me on a search that called up this thread: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=53854&highlight=ecocert&page=2
Looks like I will be finding someone named swift monkey and reading her blog.

Thanks again,

Scooter

Sorry, but you do have to worry about microbial contamination. Every time a container is opened it's a chance for microbes to be introduced as they are in the air. Also, every time a hand or tool is dipped in - microbes are introduced.

All my anhydrous products are preserved, you do not have to dip the fingers in to get it contaminated. Like ^^^

Scooter said:

Thanks... that one word, ecocert, led me on a search that called up this thread: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=53854&highlight=ecocert&page=2
Looks like I will be finding someone named swift monkey and reading her blog.

Thanks again,

Scooter

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Susan Barclay-Nichols is from BC in Canada and has recently lost her mother to lung cancer so is taking a break but I can strongly recommend reading her blogs. I have learned a great deal.

PerthMobility said:

Susan Barclay-Nichols is from BC in Canada and has recently lost her mother to lung cancer so is taking a break but I can strongly recommend reading her blogs. I have learned a great deal.

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Oh gosh. Thank you for this update. I just had a first cousin die of cancer last week, the first person in our family (of my generation) to die. His mother had to bury him.

I hate to hear this happened to her mom.

Scooter