About preservatives

[Nao]

So, I’ve been sitting for two days now reading on swiftcraftymonkey and googling and looking up suppliers and I’m starting to give up. It seems most European suppliers only carry preservatives based on Phenoxyethanol and benzoic acid and such. And all that seem much inferior to Germal plus/Phenonip/Germaben both as to their preserving abilities and as to what you can and can’t combine them with. I have found Germall plus for a reasonable price on eBay but that’s about it. Although it isn’t impossible to buy from an american site but with shipping and import duties it gets rather expensive... but maybe I’m overthinking it and should be perfectly happy with what the European sites offer? Or have anybody found an European site that carries any of them?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Not sure what you're looking to do with it, but I have found geogard and opthiphen to be good for lotions, scrubs, body butter and so on. Not needed a preservative for a high pH application as yet though.

 

[lsg]

Have you tried New Directions UK?

 

[Nao]

I wanted to make emulsified shower lotion bars and that would require Phenonip since that is the only oil soluble preservative of the three.

I would also like to try milk lotions and other lotions with “foody” stuff in and apparently Germaben is the only preservative who can handle foody lotions... I don’t know if that is how it works, but if I was to use up my milk lotion in, say a month, would the other preservatives be sufficient? That would simplify things at least.

I don’t make high pH products either but swiftcraftymonkey keep stressing that more or less all preservatives except the three listed needs a pH a little on the lower side to work properly. Most lotions I assume would have a more or less neutral pH?

I have also checked new directions uk and they don’t carry any of them

 

[BattleGnome]

I think I was reading on swiftcraftymonkey about using a water based preservative in emulsified lotion bars because the preservative would be available when the water is present and immediately start its thing. I can’t say for sure where I found it but it is a thought so you can use what’s available without compromising what you want to make.

 

[Nao]

That makes complete sense, thank you!

I re-read her page on organic acids and what’s in different preservatives and maybe it would be easier to just take a preservative with Phenoxyethanol, for bacteria, and combine that with one of the organic acids, for fungi/yeast/mold, at 0,5% each to make a broad spectrum preservative system? Since non of the preservatives I found in Europe contains both or the shipping is ridiculous.