Breaking down deodorant

[Gaisy59]

Well as above i tried breaking down my daughter’s favourite deodorant. Needless to say i don’t think i got the percentages correct. It doesn’t have that nice glistening look to it. More like a mudpie lol. Theirs looks like green glass…ish.

 

[AliOop]

It looks like you might have used solid (72º) coconut oil instead of fractionated (always liquid) coconut oil. I get fractionated CO at Costco; it's sold there as MCT oil and usually stocked in the coffee section.

 

[Gaisy59]

Oh sorry@AliOop no i used babassu.

Babassu 10%
Mg. 30%
Capryli/capric. 28%
Arrowroot. 11%
Cetyl Alcohol. 6%
Candellila wax. 14%
Vit E. 1%

 

[AliOop]

Gotcha. No shea butter or cocoa butter, either?

 

[Gaisy59]

Noooo? Oh shoot i didn’t see that

Would it have made that much of a difference in glide or visual?

 

[curlycoat2]

The only green in there that they are confessing to is the Lime Oil. If it was dark colored it would give a tinge of green. Your top is not smooth so that makes it look less glass ish. Shave a bit of the top off and hit it with heat to smooth it and see if you like it more. Yours looks like it cooled as you were pouring it so its not going to be as smooth as if it was a more liquid state whilst pouring. As long as the deodorant works it doesnt matter if it looks good unless you are selling it.

 

[Gaisy59]

God no! I hate selling anything. I don’t have the ambition to make tons of product to sell and then do it all over again. This is just for my daughter and perhaps myself if i like it.

And yes it was cooling quickly. My other recipe stayed more fluid for quite a while. I am thinking i have too much arrowroot and/or too much Candelilla wax. I will try the shave/heat thing and see what happens but it still looks like clay to me. I haven’t tried it yet.

 

[AliOop]

Hmmm, I believe the main reason for yours not being as translucent as the original, is that you replaced a good portion of the FCO with babassu. It's not to say that this won't work for a deo recipe, but you won't get the same look. Unlike FCO, babassu will solidify in colder temps, so there will be a texture difference, as well. However, babassu makes a very nice oil for deodorants because it doesn't stain like CO tends to do.

The more important issue I see is you didn't use magnesium hydroxide. That is the major odor fighting ingredient in the original recipe. Without that, your creation is unlikely to fight much odor, if at all, except in very temperate conditions by people who don't have much body odor to begin with. Ask me how I know.

Going back to the original ingredient list, we see, in descending order:

Fractionated coconut oil
Magnesium hydroxide
Corn starch
Behenyl alcohol (has good thermal stability which keeps the deo from becoming too hard or too soft when the temp changes).
Candelilla wax
Shea butter
Cocoa butter
Essential oil/constituent blend - probably 3.5% or less of the entire recipe.
Vitamin E/mixed tocopherols

Using that list, here is what I'd suggest as a starting point (EDITED PER DISCUSSIONS BELOW); you will have to test and tweak:

35% Fractionated coconut oil. If you use babassu instead, adjust other ingredients for the difference in hardness.
25% Magnesium hydroxide (don't leave this out because it is THE major odor fighter in this recipe)
10% Corn starch (or arrowroot starch)
10% Behenyl alcohol (cetyl alcohol is a reasonable alternative but behenyl is more temp-stable)
10% Candelilla wax
3% Shea butter
3% Cocoa butter
3.5% blend of the seven different EOs/constituents
.5% mixed tocopherols/Vit E

Those are just rough guesses on my part, based on lots of other recipes that I've made. You will have to play with percentages and keep really good notes to figure out what comes close to the one you are trying to dupe. I personally like to add zinc ricineolate to my recipe, around 3-5%. If you do that, reduce the candelilla wax, or the butters.

Good luck! Deo making can be frustrating but so rewarding when you do make one that you like.

 

[Gaisy59]

Hmmm, I believe the main reason for yours not being as translucent as the original, is that you replaced a good portion of the FCO with babassu. It's not to say that this won't work for a deo recipe, but you won't get the same look. Unlike FCO, babassu will solidify in colder temps, so there will be a texture difference, as well. However, babassu makes a very nice oil for deodorants because it doesn't stain like CO tends to do.

The more important issue I see is you didn't use magnesium hydroxide. That is the major odor fighting ingredient in the original recipe. Without that, your creation is unlikely to fight much odor, if at all, except in very temperate conditions by people who don't have much body odor to begin with. Ask me how I know.

Going back to the original ingredient list, we see, in descending order:

Fractionated coconut oil
Magnesium hydroxide
Corn starch
Behenyl alcohol (has good thermal stability which keeps the deo from becoming too hard or too soft when the temp changes).
Candelilla wax
Shea butter
Cocoa butter
Essential oil/constituent blend - probably 3.5% or less of the entire recipe.
Vitamin E/mixed tocopherols

Using that list, here is what I'd suggest as a starting point - you will have to test and tweak:

40% Fractionated coconut oil. If you use babassu instead, adjust other ingredients for the difference in hardness.
15% Magnesium hydroxide (don't leave this out because it is THE major odor fighter in this recipe)
15% Corn starch (or arrowroot starch)
10% Behenyl alcohol (cetyl alcohol is a reasonable alternative but behenyl is more temp-stable)
10% Candelilla wax
3% Shea butter
3% Cocoa butter
3.5% blend of the seven different EOs/constituents
.5% mixed tocopherols/Vit E

Those are just rough guesses on my part, based on lots of other recipes that I've made. You will have to play with percentages and keep really good notes to figure out what comes close to the one you are trying to dupe.

Good luck! Deo making can be frustrating but so rewarding when you do make one that you like.

Ok so what you are saying is that babassu oil is harder than coconut oil. But i only used less than the 40% (10%).

They have caprylic and you eliminated that. Does it not play into their formula?

You upped the arrowroot more as well as the cetyl and decreased the candellila (which makes sense as maybe too draggy) and added the two oils which i completely forgot.

As for the Mg you really decreased that as i had 30% and yes i used hydroxide just too lazy to spell it out .

Ok will give it another go. Good thing i have more tubes .

Thanks for pointing me in a better direction. I was close but no cigar.

 

[AliOop]

Ok so what you are saying is that babassu oil is harder than coconut oil. But i only used less than the 40% (10%).

They have caprylic and you eliminated that. Does it not play into their formula?

No, sorry for confusion. I am saying babassu is harder than fractionated coconut oil, which is the same as caprylic, and which is completely liquid. Since caprylic is the first ingredient, it needs to be the highest percentage. That’s assuming they listed theirs in descending order, of course.

I didn’t see that you did have mag hydroxide on your list; sorry for missing that. You could definitely try lowering the caprylic/FCO to 30% and upping the MH to 25%.

You can also just remelt what you made and add more FCO/caprylic to it. That might be the trick to reduce drag a bit. Cetyl really helps with that, as well.

 

[Gaisy59]

I thought the same thing as you…they listed their ingredients by highest to lowest amounts. Ok i can do the remelt and add caprylic and cetyl in higher amounts. Perfect. I am very excited to see how this turns out and hopefully works to keep the stink away.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I have never deconstructed an ingredient list before.

 

[AliOop]

You are so welcome! Keep good notes about what you added, so you can recreate it if it works well (or avoid it if it doesn't). Do let us know how it turns out!

 

[Gaisy59]

Ohhh this is not good. I remelted and added more caprylic and cetyl for glide. It took a few layers of skin off lol. No glide whatsoever. And the color is a dingy brown. Not even close to what it should look like.

This experiment has become dead in the water. I would try to work at it if it didn’t cost so much in product. And i will have to order more of a couple of items which means more shipping.

Thanks for your suggestions @AliOop .

 

[AliOop]

Aaahhh rats! Was it already draggy before remelting? I was thinking that the original that you made would be super hard, just based on my experiences. But it also depends a lot on your climate.

Rather than call this batch a loss, try remelting it with a fair amount of an inexpensive liquid oil. For me, that would be MCT (fractionated CO), grapeseed, sunflower, or safflower.

 

[Gaisy59]

Aaahhh rats! Was it already draggy before remelting? I was thinking that the original that you made would be super hard, just based on my experiences. But it also depends a lot on your climate.

Rather than call this batch a loss, try remelting it with a fair amount of an inexpensive liquid oil. For me, that would be MCT (fractionated CO), grapeseed, sunflower, or safflower.

Oh yes, it was very draggy. But the thing is once you start adding those oils in then i am worried about staining clothes. It’s all good. I would rather just toss this batch. I will wait until i have enough of an order to justify shipping costs and then get more product.

To be honest…i could make a batch of deodorant that works and my daughter would be happy so i might go that route. Too bad we are not in US then i would tell her to order cmzaha’s deo. Seems to be going over really well with people.

 

[AliOop]

For what it is worth, the recipe I make has a large amount of fractionated coconut oil in it, and it does not stain. But I understand if you are just done with it. I've tossed a few of my older batches before I found what worked for me. I'm sure you will get there!

My recipe is loosely based on one of the recipes from this e-book. While I do use the mag hydroxide and zinc ricineolate she suggests, I wasn't ready to purchase all the other fancy ingredients. Here are the items I substituted:

~ iota carageenan gum, cyclodextrin and modified tapioca starch (I used more arrowroot powder for all of these)

~ ozokerite wax (I used a combo of candelilla wax, stearyl alcohol and cetyl alcohol)

This works very well for me, but if it didn't, I'd probably purchase the additional items one at a time to see if they made any difference.

 

[Gaisy59]

See you use arrowroot and i was wondering if that stopped the glide, but i didn’t out much in. And i had the Candelilla wax and cetyl alcohol too. I was following their listed ingredients for amounts but I don’t know.

Like you said trial and error but with the cost of everything these days error becomes expensive . Don’t worry i will keep at it but just going to take me longer. Right now i jave way too many things in the go…sourdough, sewing, knitting and gardening to name a few (plus an elderly parent).

 

[cmzaha]

I personally prefer around 30% magnesium hydroxide in my deodorant bars. I also prefer Babassu oil because it has antibacterial properties and does not yellow clothes. I also like to use this in my deodorant sticks and found it really helps with odor control even in unscented bars Zinc ricinoleate at the rate of approximately 2.8%

ETA, I use 1.4% Kokum butter which helps with glide and not greasy, also 10.8% BTMS25 which gives a powdery feel. Of course percentages are tweaked to add up to 100%. I also find any fragrance or eo blend irritates me in deodorant sticks. Please note not all my ingredients are listed. I also use a wax, cetyl alcohol, zinc oxide.

 

[Gaisy59]

I do too. I have been using Mag hydrox and babassu since the original discussion waaay back. That stuff works great! I have had to reduce my magnesium though because i find my pits are burning. I went from 60 to 50 to 40 and now i am at 27%. And even at 27% it still works. I might have to reduce some more. I also switched from cera bellina wax to candelilla as it is supposed to be less draggy.

I could try adding the zinc ricinoleate but i would have to order it…so on hold for now.

 

[curlycoat2]

I use magnesium hydroxide, silica and zinc ricinoleate and mango butter, plus a wax, no eos for scent and some botanical oils for example oat and cucumber etc!

So interesting that there are so many combinations between us and also frustrating until you get it right!