Symyx focuses on viscosity

The company's Symyx Tools division says the the service is now available to the industry in both self-contained Benchtop Systems as well as fully integrated Workflow configurations as a means of regulating the viscosity of any liquid personal care or cosmetic formulation.

The viscosity of liquid formulations has become increasingly important in recent years, as it helps to determine the fluidity, and ultimately, the skin feel of formulations.

In today's over-crowded and highly competitive cosmetics field, a formulation that is not deemed to have the desired skin feel or texture can mean that it will be by-passed by consumers.

But as well as the skin feel, viscosity also affects the dispensability of formulation.

This is particularly important as it can determine whether or not a personal care product is compatible with a specific type of packaging or dispensing system.

Gerard Abraham, president of Symyx Tools says that the tool has been developed over a period of many years through close collaboration with its customers, adding that it helps to " improve R&D certainty and productivity for customers of all sizes."

The new tool means that formulators can measure a product's viscosity through an extensive testing system that responds with fast, accurate and consistent data.

Through the integration of automation, chemistry protocols and research software the tool aims to enhance R&D technologies, ultimately reducing the cost per experiment and speeding up the development of new products, the company claims.

The tool has been specially developed to obtain the exact mixture in order to get the desired consistency, whether it be a spray product, a thick hand cream, or a thinner and more delicate skin care product meant for the face.

As well as the viscosity, the tool can also measure the tribology and optical properties of the formulation, while the accompanying software can be used to build formulation libraries, detailing all information pertaining to individual formulations.