I’ve been reading a bit about preservatives for sugar scrubs and I’m a bit confused about the type of preservative I should use. I’m torn between using either an oil soluble or water soluble preservative. It’s an anhydrous product so my first thought was to use an oil soluble preservative, and it’s what others recommend but then I read this:
“If water may be introduced to the product or the product used in a humid bathroom then a preservative is advisable. An expert microbiologist advises that if trying to preserve an anhydrous product (including all oil+sugar/salt scrub) the oil soluble preservative will get locked in the oils so will not reach any water, if water was introduced into the product. So if you added an oil soluble preservative then that preservative will stay in the oils and not move over to where the water is located to protect that water against bacteria and mould so would be useless. So contrary to what you may have read, we should really use a water soluble preservative in an anhydrous product which means we’d need to add an emulsifier to get that preservative mixed in properly with the oils.”
This post came from Swifts blog (and she was quoting someone else), and now I’m super confused
I’m also thinking about the ph range if the product. Since only water would be introduced to the product, shouldn’t my chosen preservative should be active in a ph of 7 (8 in my case since I live in a hard water area)?
Before reading this I was heavily considering Jeecide Cap 2, however, now I’m not so sure.
“If water may be introduced to the product or the product used in a humid bathroom then a preservative is advisable. An expert microbiologist advises that if trying to preserve an anhydrous product (including all oil+sugar/salt scrub) the oil soluble preservative will get locked in the oils so will not reach any water, if water was introduced into the product. So if you added an oil soluble preservative then that preservative will stay in the oils and not move over to where the water is located to protect that water against bacteria and mould so would be useless. So contrary to what you may have read, we should really use a water soluble preservative in an anhydrous product which means we’d need to add an emulsifier to get that preservative mixed in properly with the oils.”
This post came from Swifts blog (and she was quoting someone else), and now I’m super confused
I’m also thinking about the ph range if the product. Since only water would be introduced to the product, shouldn’t my chosen preservative should be active in a ph of 7 (8 in my case since I live in a hard water area)?
Before reading this I was heavily considering Jeecide Cap 2, however, now I’m not so sure.
Last edited:
