Thickening water products are one of the most important formulation requirements, because rheological agents can significantly affect the skin feel, stability, and even efficacy of the product. Generally, the water-based thickener used in the formulation is the most effective, but when the thickener content in the resident formula exceeds 0.5%, it will cause the product to have a poor skin feel.

Technically speaking, all thickeners combine water through absorption, swelling or electrostatic repulsion to achieve a thickening effect, and can be divided into dissolving or swelling types. It is usually recommended to use a combination of thickeners with different mechanisms to achieve the thickening effect. .

Swelling polymers such as carbomers and acrylate copolymers are currently the most commonly used synthetic polymers because they can effectively thicken and have excellent shear thinning rheology, and this shear thinning characteristic is precisely the What consumers like. However, they are very sensitive to electrolytes, because the addition of electrolytes makes the system lose charge repulsion and reduce the viscosity of the system.