PERSONAL CARE & COSMETICS

Cosmetics and Personal care products represent a diverse set of materials and formulations. The SpeedMixer is ideal for the cosmetic and personal care industry, allowing users to quickly and repeatedly mix and simultaneously de-air hair products, lotions, lipsticks, cosmetic powders, toothpaste, nail polish, liquid soaps, and more. SpeedMixing permits rapid development of production quality materials in the lab, and is often used as a manufacturing aid to increase efficiency and throughput.

Lipsticks

Problem: Dispersing pigments into wax lipstick base is a messy and time consuming process traditionally requiring a roller mill with a heating mechanism to melt the waxes. The roller mill must be cleaned between each batch to avoid cross contamination.

Solution: The SpeedMixer is the cleanest and fastest process for mixing lipstick formulations. Melt the waxes and disperse the colorants using the SpeedMixer before pouring into a mold. Mixing times are on the order of seconds and the entire process from start to finish can be completed in minutes! Since there is no cleanup required, formulations can be mixed consecutively with no downtime.

Hair Styling Products

Problem: Hair styling product formulations are frequently based around tough to mix polymers like carbomer or CMC. Traditionally, these polymers require hours or even days to fully wet using a homogenizer or heated stir plate to mix. Homogenizers require extensive clean up between batches and introduce significant quantities of air into formulations.

Solution: SpeedMixing can wet and disperse formulations such as carbomer, CMC, cellulose, and xanthan gum in a fraction of the time required by traditional technologies. Primary polymer hydration steps can often be eliminated by incorporating the polymer directly, saving significant time in the wetting-out process. By pulling vacuum while mixing, chemists can create clear final formulations, and operator’s time is not consumed by cleaning equipment between batches.

Nail Polishes

Problem: Pigment and additive homogenization into gel-based and solvent-based nail polishes is labor intensive and messy, traditionally requiring a roller mill or special bladed dispersers. These devices introduce air into formulations and must be cleaned between each batch to prevent cross contamination.

Solution:The SpeedMixer will quickly disperse dry pigments into butyl acetate and other solvent based nail polish formulations. Hegman gauge measurements of 7 and greater are easily and repeatably producible. Photosensitive and UV curable nail polishes, commonly known as gel nails, require vacuum degassing to achieve clarity, a process shortened to minutes in a Vacuum SpeedMixer.

Fragrances

Problem: Traditional methods of mixing of fragrances, flavors, and surfactants require a unique piece of equipment for each base material. For example, most traditional technologies can’t mix toothpaste AND hard soap stock. Traditional invasive mixing technologies introduce air during the mixing process, which can create issues when testing samples or packaging final products.

Solution: The SpeedMixer is a highly versatile device capable of quickly mixing pre-dispersed surfactants into water for liquid hand soap, foaming hand soap, and other liquid detergent formulations. Easily disperse additives like SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) into personal and fragrances.

Toothpaste

Problem: Traditional toothpaste mixing processes are time consuming and cumbersome. It can take hours to mix a 1kg batch of Toothpaste in a double planetary bladed mixer. The process is labor intensive; ingredients are added sequentially and the bladed mixer requires significant effort to clean after each batch.

Solution: Using the Vacuum SpeedMixer, chemists can mix and de-air a toothpaste formulations from scratch in a fraction of the time a double planetary bladed mixer would take. Since all ingredients can be added at the same time, the SpeedMixing process is simple. SpeedMixing simultaneously disperses silica filler, calcium carbonate xanthan gum, CMC, SLS, flavors and fragrances and other toothpaste components with ease.