In yesterday's post, we took a look at the ingredients to create a hydrating and oil free recipe with niacinamide and willow bark. Today, let's take a look at this new gelling agent and what it offers.

I?m using Sepinov EMT 10 as my gelling agent (INCI: Hydroxyethyl Acrylate / Sodium Acryloyldimethyl Taurate Copolymer). It's a pre-neutralized polymer you can use to make gels, cream gels, and alcoholic gels, and can be added to an emulsion as a rheology modifier (thickener).

The recommended usage rate is 0.5% to 5%. The lower usage rate is for including it in lotion, while the higher levels are creating gels or cream gels where EMT 10 is the main ingredient.

Why use this instead of another gelling agent" Because it?s not like normal gels. It can make a perfectly fine thick gel, but it?s awesome for making things like facial sera thanks to its silky skin feel. If we think of gels as being bouncy and watery, EMT 10 makes gels that are smooth, only slightly bouncy, and less watery than a normal gel. I?ve yet to make a clear gel with it, but that?s no big deal when you?ve made something lovely and moisturizing.
It?s an anionic or negatively charged ingredient, so it?s not compatible with cationic or positively charged ingredients. This means you can?t add cationic polymers like honeyquat, polyquat 44, polyquat 7, and so on, as well as emulsifiers like Incroquat BTMS-50, Rita BTMS-225, and so on. Some hydrolyzed proteins might be right out, too, so if you ...