Abstract

The formulator of personal care products is truly faced with a plethora of ingredients, some old, some new. Silicones can come in many forms with varying functionality, performance and solubility. This leaves the formulator in a strange situation, where they must ask “Why use silicone in Personal Care Applications?” This question is sometimes indeed very difficult to answer, partly because the information needed to choose suppliers do not provide the correct silicone. Formulations produced today are very complex, they are multi-ingredient compositions that must have synergy to produce the desired effect. This article will address the basic silicone polymer, that is one in which there is no organo-functionality, which is polymers that contain only CH3, Si, and O groups.

Science for formulators

This is the first of a series of articles in a new approach to providing science to formulators. The concept is to provide the underlying science and to present it with formulation tips that make the information useful. Happy reading!

Tony O’Lenick is President of Siltech LLC. in Lawrenceville, Ga., a company he co- founded in 1989. Siltech is a silicone specialty  company. Prior to that he held technical and executive positions at  various surfactant and specialty chemicals companies including;  Lambent Technologies, Alkaril Chemicals Inc, Henkel Corporation  and Mona Industries. He has been involved in the surfactant and silicone industry for over 35 years. Tony has written 5 books in various aspects of surfactant, silicone and organic chemistry, also published over 70 technical articles in trade journals, contributed chapters to six books, and is the inventor on over 300 patents. He teaches a course in silicone chemistry, surfactant chemistry and patent law. He has received a number of awards for work including the 1996 Samuel Rosen Award given by the Ameri ... ...