So I have some oil based scents that don't mix readily with water or alcohol and I'm researching the best fix for the issue. For the moment I'm just relying on very dilute solutions of household soap until I pull the trigger on a better solution.

For some background;
The stuff that causes oil and water to mix is called a surfactant. An emulsifier does something similar, except it turns oil into many small spheres suspended in solution rather than actually causing it to properly dissolve.

Links included below. sodium lauryl sulfate is a common surfactant in many perfumes and all detergents contain some form of surfactant but I don't think I want that.

I was wondering if anyone had particular ideas on how particular surfactants might improve or hurt the diffusion of scents or mones and which chemicals they used themselves. How will they interact with, or possibly serve as, fixatives? I'll do some testing myself once

I'm looking for something that tells me its ingredients and is as safe as possible on skin.


sugars and alkyl polyglycosides, Eucarol AGE (alkyl glucose ester), alkyl polypentosides, decyl polyglucose

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/e...rom-sugars
http://books.google.com/books/about/Suga...DrHUQQtAkC

Quote:The sugar surfactants outperform traditional surfactants such as SLES and SLS in terms of mildness, solubility of essential oils and the ability to clean at lower concentrations, says Anderson. The surfactants also outperform APGs in terms of higher foam, lower irritation, better solubility and provide thickening viscosity when combined with betaines.

http://www.icis.com/Articles/2011/05/09/...n-the.html (lots of info)


... hmm... Apparently betaine is a surfactant. I have a jar of Betaine HCL somewhere. I guess I'll go with that for now if it works. But I may as well post, in case this is useful to anyone.

Ammonium lauryl sulfate. the molecules are larger than sodium laurel sulfate and not easily absorbed by the skin. That's the safest non natural I can think of. It will start smelling like ammonia some at pH higher than 7. You could readjust with some lemon juice

U mentioned betaine. cocoamidopropyl betaine might work. Thats the safest I can think of off top of head. Used in alot of baby products and doesn't smell

Would Polysorbate 80 or 20 work with mones? I think it's a wonderful emulsifier, not usually irritating the way Sulphates are.

Lecithin is also very natural.

(06-16-2012 2:36 PM)Lexy Wrote:  Would Polysorbate 80 or 20 work with mones? I think it's a wonderful emulsifier, not usually irritating the way Sulphates are.

Lecithin is also very natural.

Thanks guys! Great replies. Why cocoamidopropyl betaine as opposed to trimethylglycine (betaine) ? Larger molecules = slower diffusion, right? I suppose I'm wondering if slower diffusion is a good thing or a bad thing. Or what the ideal would be.

I've heard of people using polysorbate for mones. I might see if I could get a hold of that... Lecithin is interesting but it looks like a really big molecule. Maybe it would slow diffusion too much? I'm not sure.