Unknown ratio in my cetearyl alcohol

Servant4Christ · Nov 10, 2022

I had a LOT of rewards points to spend and decided to offset the cost of buying nearly every ingredient I need to make DIY B&B's hot pour shampoo bar recipe by buying some of the surfactants on Amazon. Anyway, I had no idea at the time I purchased that you can get different ratios of cetyl to stearyl depending on where you buy your cetearyl from. So I'm looking at my package and on Amazon and this cetearyl alcohol doesn't tell me what the ratio is on the package. How will this impact the recipe? Should I send it back and buy cetearyl elsewhere or maybe just buy stearyl since I already have cetyl?

AliOop · Nov 10, 2022

I didn't know that at first either, until one day there was no cetearyl to be had from any supplier, and I figured out how to make it by combining cetyl and stearyl (I had one already and could order the other).

That made me check my prior cetearyl orders, which showed that I'd used different ratios in various batches. Fortunately, all of turned out fine.

Servant4Christ · Nov 10, 2022

Thank you. Looks like the question of ratio was already asked about a year ago and the seller responded with 46.9 cetyl to 50.4 stearyl, but I think the seller may have mistyped because the numbers don't add to 100. If you switch the 6 and 9, it adds up and looks like basically a 50:50 ratio, but I panicked thinking if I don't use 30:70 my shampoo might not be shampoo in the end! Lol.
As you can probably tell, Syndets are newer to me so I don't have as many of those ingredients YET. I'll get there, though. I should have everything for my shampoo bars by Monday. I figure by the time I'm ready to make conditioner bars, I should have nearly everything I need for lotion, too! I keep dreaming of a Christmas stocking full of soap and syndet ingredients so I can go all maker/mad scientist!

AliOop · Nov 10, 2022

I would love a stocking like that, too! I think you will be fine with what you have. Since the cetearyl is only 15% of the entire recipe, you are talking about a very small change in the overall balance.

Servant4Christ · Nov 10, 2022

Off topic, but how do you have reactions other than just 'like'? Is that a supporting members only feature?

AliOop · Nov 10, 2022

I don't think you have to be a supporting member for that. On my computer, I just hover my cursor over the Like button, and it offers me a bunch of different options. On my phone, I have to touch and lightly hold the Like button for the options to appear.