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I researched this topic a while ago and it occasionally comes up, but I do want to talk about why I still heat and hold. I have seen multiple argument for it. There are some that are based on science and others on bias. If you do not know what heating and holding is, let me explain. Heating and holding is a technique for emulsions to make them more stable. It is heating both the water and oil phase to the temperature for 20 minutes. Then proceeding with the rest of the emulsion. This is what heating and holding is. I think it’s always important to understand where a formulator is coming from with all types of ingredients, natural or not. It all depends on the project or what the client wants. Just because you only formulate natural cosmetics does not mean you understand how other ingredients may need to processed. I heat and hold because of thermodynamics. Emulsions are thermodynamically unstable. What does that mean? It means that eventually, emulsions will become unstable and separate. As formulators, we want that to be as late as possible. Ideally, emulsions should last for three years. What length and level of stability will depend on your end goal. I have talked about this in a post before. For brands, you really need 3 years of stability. For a home formulator, until you use it up may be fine to you. They are two different situations. It is very important to know what you need for stability. It really is a Chemistry topic. Heat and temperature often get mixed up. However, they are not the same. Heat is associated with energy whereas temperature is just a measurement of the average kinetic energy. Read more about it here. When something is hot is just actually releasing energy and when something is cold, it is actually absorbing energy. When I first learned this general chemistry it actually blew my mind because it really goes against what we naturally think or at least what I did. When we are heating were adding energy to the phases. Now, 20 minutes truly is an arbitrary number, from my understanding. This is by the time you know for sure that you’re emulsifier has completely melted and that there is enough energy to create emulsion. Emulsions require energy to be formed. This is why chemists are always adamant about you using a high sheer mixer when making emulsions is because we want very fine dispersion of the internal phase. That energy we add from heat helps that! Heat helps because there’s more energy so everything is moving faster on top of already a very fast movement from the blender. It is more than just the emulsifier is melted. I’ve seen some argue if you’re using natural emulsifiers, that heating and holding does not matter. And yes, ethoxylated emulsifiers do benefit from heating and holding because of phase inversion. Ethoxylation is a chemical process and many natural certifiers so not approve ingredients that are ethoxylated. It is includes you polysorbates and ingredients that end in -eth. At certain temperatures they switch solubility and when the emulsion is formed it flips and makes a more stable emulsion. However, no matter the naturalness of the emulsifier, heat still helps with all of what I mentioned before. Even if it is natural that it’s still beneficial. The reasoning is the same as before we need that energy from heat. I would even argue that some of the natural ones, like Olivem 1000, need it more. They need the most help. Emulsions are also just very fragile until all the waxes have set up and give it structure. This is why I use an overhead stirrer during the cool down phase. This stirring does not reduce the particle size, but it keeps the oil droplet suspended while the emulsifying waxes are solidifying. And this is why some formulators will tell you to mix it occasionally when things are very hot. They’re very fluid and are easy to move around and are very fragile. It is easy to get caught up in, “well it worked for me”. However, what we do is Chemistry. It is ultimately up to you whether you want to do this. This obviously increases production time. However, if you want a stable emulsion I highly do you recommend doing it. If you are worried about water loss read this post, link. Want to Learn More?Consider getting access to the diamond level blog. 1 Month Access to Diamond Level
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