When To Use Preservative In Cosmetic Products (Malaysia)

 

Why Some Products Needs Preservative and some don’t? 

If you are someone who likes to DIY products, or are making your own handmade product for selling, you might want to hear this.

Watch video if you prefer: 

Hi my name is Nisha, pharmacist and formulator and today we will be talking about preservatives and why some product has it and some don’t.

Microbes like bacteria, fungus and molds are generally ‘living things’, like human they too have need; where they need nutrients and water to survive, they need air to breathe, and they need the environment to be just nice; not too hot, not too cold, not too acidic/ alkaline. Like human la basically.

Now lets go through that one by one

Number one; 

water content

If lets say a product that contains water; we need to put preservative ij it; because water is something all living thing needs to survive. Its opposite from oil. If you product doesn’t have water at all; only oils; than you don’t require preservative; only antioxidants to prevent it from getting rancid

PH level. 

Most microbes cant live in highly acidic (low pH) or high pH. So if you product is below pH 3 or above pH 8: generally you don’t require preservative for this. Cold process soap is one of the example.

Packaging: 

if lets say your packaging is ‘airless’ than generally you don’t require preservative coz without ‘air’ microbes wont survive. If your packaging is open mouth type where you will put ‘dirty’ hands in to scoop out; then you will need a stronger preservative system.

And finally; the 

intended use.

If lets say your product is made for one time use; then you wouldn’t need preservative because once opening your container; you gona use it right away.

So basically these are how you determine wether you will need preservative in your products or not.

If you have any other further question; do whatsapp us at 0126643817