Three natural emulsifiers. Three finished products. One rigorous method behind every texture.
by Emma Terenzi · LM-71 Cosmetic Industrial Science · LabAnalysis Life Science, Milan
Discover the researchThree natural oil-in-water emulsifiers — an ester blend, an alkyl polyglucoside and a hydrophobically modified starch — put through the same seven experimental series, characterised on the same bench, profiled by the same five noses and hands. The point of the exercise was to see, without shortcuts, what each system can actually do, and to let the answer decide which finished product it belongs in.
Natural emulsifiers are quietly replacing the synthetic surfactants that defined the last century of cosmetic chemistry. Clean-beauty demand and sustainability standards set the direction; skinification and K-beauty raise the bar on lightness, absorption and multifunctionality. What has not moved is the underlying difficulty — natural emulsions that hold across different oils, pigments and actives remain a genuine formulation challenge.
Sorbitan Laurate / Polyglyceryl-4 Laurate / Dilauryl Citrate
A three-component non-ionic ester blend that works through classical interfacial-film mechanics. It asks for Xanthan Gum and Cetearyl Alcohol together, at 4%, and rewards the effort with the lightest, most fluid and most spreadable texture of the three — and the lowest soaping effect on skin.
→ Assigned to BB Cream Anti-Pollution
C14-22 Alcohols / C12-20 Alkyl Glucoside
An APG–fatty alcohol pair that self-assembles into lamellar liquid-crystal networks, carrying its own structure even before a thickener is added. It takes oil loads up to 30% in its stride and finishes rich, occlusive and quietly luminous — the highest shine and residual film of the three.
→ Assigned to Anti-Age Body Cream
Sodium Starch Octenylsuccinate
A hydrophobically modified starch that anchors the interface with solid particles rather than surfactant — a Pickering emulsion in the classical sense, stable at 5% with no added surfactant at all. Fastest to absorb, lightest to leave behind, with a distinctive powdery after-feel that reads as clean skin.
→ Assigned to Milky Toner
The same seven series, the same instrumental panel, the same five-person sensory jury — applied identically to each of the three systems so that any difference in the finished formulation can be traced back to the emulsifier itself, and to nothing else.
Mixed oil phase ± Xanthan Gum and Cetearyl Alcohol stabilisation.
10 %, 20 %, 30 % oil fraction to map upper stability limits.
Alkane, ester, triglyceride, silicone-alternative — single-oil trials.
Supplier-recommended 2 % vs. doubled 4 % to size headroom.
Xanthan Gum, Xanthan Gum Crosspolymer-2, Hydroxyethylcellulose, carbomer.
Turbo-emulsifier, cold-process (Lin), hot/cold interphase.
Trichromatic inorganic pigments — pigment compatibility screen.
Interfacial-film mechanics · lamellar liquid-crystal co-assembly · Pickering-type particle adsorption. Three mechanisms, three product families.
Five of us, at the bench, blind. Samples coded, order randomised, every attribute scored on a continuous 0–10 scale in a controlled room. We worked through pickup and spread on the back of the hand, followed each formulation through the soaping phase, timed absorption, and finished on the residue — how much film remained, how it caught the light, how the skin felt an hour later. The pigmented series was read the same way, with coverage, blendability and mattifying effect added to the panel.
Alkyl Polyglucoside excluded — immediate pigment separation.
EMMAT Cosmetics × Cassiopea by Tiziana Terenzi — pastel iridescent glass, embossed with a modular motif drawn from hand-crocheted granny squares.
Light-to-medium coverage. A triple defence against the urban day.
A tinted O/W emulsion combining light-to-medium coverage with a scientifically coherent, multi-mechanism anti-pollution active system.
Of the three systems, only the ester blend passed Series 7 with credible pigmented performance — a colour-homogeneity of 7.3 and a blendability of 7.6, against an APG platform that separated on contact with inorganic pigment and a starch platform that migrated on storage. Its sensory identity — light, fluid, the lowest soaping effect of the three — matched exactly what a tinted facial fluid needs to feel like at the point of application. Doubling from the supplier-recommended 2% to 4%, and locking in the Xanthan Gum plus Cetearyl Alcohol pair, closed the residual stability gap seen at 2% and produced the fine, uniform 2–5 µm droplet population documented under the microscope. Lowering the emulsification temperature from 75 °C to 60 °C protected the emulsifier itself — a preliminary trial finding, integrated into the finished process.
Aqua, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Coco-Caprylate/Caprate, Hydrogenated Polydecene, Sorbitan Laurate, Polyglyceryl-4 Laurate, Dilauryl Citrate, CI 77891, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Phenoxyethanol, CI 77492, Propanediol, Lespedeza Capitata Leaf/Stem Extract, Camellia Japonica Flower Extract, CI 77499, CI 77491, Ethylhexylglycerin, Ammonium Acryloyldimethyltaurate/VP Copolymer, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Phytate, Ectoin, Parfum, Lactic Acid.
A rich, lamellar body cream that asks the skin to rebuild.
A richer, structuring O/W emulsion for daily anti-age body care — generous emollient load, clinically supported cosmeceutical actives package.
The APG system builds its own scaffolding — lamellar liquid-crystal networks that structure the finished cream without leaning on external thickeners. Series 4 confirmed it holds oil loads up to 30% (Trial 16), which is exactly the emollient budget an anti-age body format needs to carry shea butter, structured triglycerides and olive unsaponifiables. The very sensory signature that ruled it out for a facial product — 7.4 shine, 7.1 residual film — is the correct answer for body care, where the skin wants richness on the surface. Emulsification at 75 °C was non-negotiable: it melts the butter and the fatty-alcohol wax cleanly, and the resulting cream reaches 98,000 mPa·s at t0 and holds inside 7% of that after 24 hours.
Aqua, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Coco-Caprylate/Caprate, Glycerin, Hydrogenated Ethylhexyl Olivate, Hydrogenated Olive Oil Unsaponifiables, Caprylic/Capric/Myristic/Stearic Triglyceride, C13-15 Alkane, Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, C14-22 Alcohols, C12-20 Alkyl Glucoside, Niacinamide, Phenoxyethanol, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Cetearyl Alcohol, Palmitoyl Tripeptide-38, Hydroxypropyl Cyclodextrin, Lecithin, Tocopherol, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Citric Acid, Parfum, Chlorphenesin, Mica, CI 77891, Tin Oxide, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hyaluronate, Sodium Phytate, Allantoin, Ethylhexylglycerin, Lactic Acid.
The first layer, poured slow. Hydration, ceramides, calm.
A lightweight, lotion-like leave-on positioned between a conventional aqueous toner and a fluid emulsion — hydration and stratum-corneum barrier support immediately after cleansing.
The K-beauty milky-toner brief asks for near-instant absorption, minimal residue and a finish that reads as skin, not product — and the sensory panel handed the modified starch exactly that profile: the fastest absorption rate of the three (6.5), the lowest residual amount (3.6), and a powdery after-feel none of the other systems produced. The starch also reaches meaningful viscosity at low oil fractions, which is what allowed the whole formulation to sit on a lean ~8% oil phase rather than the 20–30% a conventional emulsion would need. Reducing the emulsifier from 5% to 2.5% is what makes the format lotion-light; the slight centrifuge phase-separation at that concentration is consistent with the known behaviour of the ingredient at reduced dose, and acceptable for a low-viscosity leave-on. Xanthan Gum Crosspolymer-2 provides the viscoelastic matrix that carries the ceramide and postbiotic actives without weighing the toner down.
Aqua, Coco-Caprylate/Caprate, C13-15 Alkane, Glycerin, Butylene Glycol, Sodium Starch Octenylsuccinate, Xanthan Gum Crosspolymer-2, Phenoxyethanol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Ceramide NP, Ceramide AP, Ceramide EOP, Phytosphingosine, Cholesterol, Behenic Acid, Polyglyceryl-10 Stearate, Polyglyceryl-6 Behenate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glyceryl Stearate, Sodium Cetearyl Sulfate, Triethyl Citrate, Sodium Levulinate, Potassium Sorbate, Citric Acid, Sodium Hyaluronate, Madecassoside, Asiaticoside, Centella Asiatica Leaf Extract, Lactobacillus Ferment, Maltodextrin, Lecithin, Tocopherol, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Sodium Phytate, Chlorphenesin, Parfum, Lactic Acid.
Skinification is the migration of active-driven skincare logic into adjacent categories — make-up, body care, haircare. The BB Cream and the Anti-Age Body Cream sit squarely in that current: tinted make-up carrying a multi-mechanism anti-pollution complex, and daily body care with a matrikine peptide, NAD⁺ precursor and dermal-repair actives that once belonged only to serums.
The reader now expects the same efficacy grammar from a body cream as from a facial serum, and the same protective claims from a BB cream as from a moisturiser with SPF.
The Milky Toner answers the K-beauty ritual of multi-step, thin-layer hydration — a hybrid toner-emulsion applied to the transiently permeable post-cleansing barrier. Ceramide bilayer reconstitution, postbiotic microbiome support and Centella soothing are combined in a single lightweight, fast-absorbing vehicle finished with a slow-pour orifice-reducer cap for a ritualistic gesture at the point of use.
The format itself — milky, low-viscosity, layered on damp skin — is a direct import of the Korean toner category into a Western clean-beauty formulation frame.
Interfacial-film mechanics, lamellar liquid-crystal co-assembly, Pickering-type particle adsorption — three fundamentally distinct formulation spaces, expressed consistently across every one of the seven experimental series and across both the instrumental panel and the sensory jury.
Pigment compatibility, oil-phase tolerance and sensory profile determined the assignment together. No system was forced into a category the screening said it could not serve — the ester blend to the tinted facial fluid, the alkyl polyglucoside to the rich body cream, the modified starch to the lightweight toner.
Every prototype held pH and passed centrifugation at both t0 and t24h — a BB Cream, a Body Cream and a Milky Toner, each with a defined dispensing system, a packaging concept, and a coherent actives system built on top of a screened emulsifier.
That three natural systems sharing the same category and the same sustainability positioning generate such profoundly different formulation spaces is precisely the case for a rigorous, empirically grounded screening phase in natural emulsifier selection.
Extend the three-month ambient stability study to six-to-twelve-month and accelerated (40 °C) conditions; explore secondary thickener systems to counter the viscosity loss observed on the starch-based platform; run consumer and clinical testing on the three finished prototypes; and extend the seven-series screening methodology to other natural emulsifier classes as the portfolio of bio-derived ingredients continues to grow.
Master's candidate in Cosmetic Industrial Science (LM-71), with the finished experimental work developed inside the R&D bench of LabAnalysis Life Science in Milan. The thesis sits deliberately at the seam between academic rigour and industrial formulation practice — three natural emulsifiers screened under controlled conditions, and three finished cosmetic prototypes carried through to the pilot stage.
The packaging concept for the EMMAT line — pastel iridescent glass embossed with a modular motif drawn from hand-crocheted granny squares — was developed alongside Tiziana Terenzi as an EMMAT Cosmetics × Cassiopea collaboration, translating a handcrafted textile geometry into the design language of the finished products.
The methodology introduced here — seven controlled experimental series applied in parallel across three emulsifiers, combined with sensory profiling and functional product translation — is offered as a transferable framework, adaptable to other emulsifier classes as the cosmetic industry continues to expand its portfolio of bio-derived functional ingredients.
For the research, the products or a collaboration, write to me.