MULTIFUNCTIONAL INGREDIENTS 35
TABLE 4: HIGH-OIL O/W SENSORY OBSERVATIONS TRANSLATED INTO FORMULATOR ENDPOINTS Endpoint
Base high-oil control Initial pickup Rub-out behaviour 24-hour stability After-feel Balm-like structured pickup Clumped during rub-out Visible oiling off; thin oil ring at jar edge
Heavier oily residue; uneven break under pressure
High-shear rheology 180 mPa·s at 1000 s-1
appearance, better fingertip pickup and less immediate slumping. Mid shear (100 s-1
High oil + evaluated blend Structured soft cream/lotion with soft peaks No clumping; smoother uniform application No visible oiling off or phase separation
Formulator meaning Richness without excessive firmness Better coherence under hand shear Improved oil-phase control in this chassis Slightly residue, high shine, no heavy residue Rich finish with less greasy perception 803 mPa·s at 1000 s-1 ) relates
to spreading and massage. High shear (1000 s-1
) relates to vigorous rub-out, where a weak
high-oil system can lose coherence, express oil or break unevenly on the skin. In the tested high-oil system, the evaluated
blend increased viscosity modestly at low shear, more strongly at mid shear and most strongly at high shear (Figure 4). At 1 s-1
, a modest viscosity
increase was observed between the control formulation and that with 3% SF-b. At 100 s-1
viscosity was increased by over two-fold. At 1000 s-1
, the , the 3% SF-b formulation retained
more than four times the viscosity of the control during conditions emulated vigorous rub-out. When compared to a high-oil system with 1.5% added stearic acid, we can see that the trend not only holds, but, again, the stearoyl furan has
a non-linear impact maintaining approximately one-third higher viscosity than the stearic acid benchmark at 100 s-1 while retaining a measurable advantage at 1000 s-1
. The value of the high-shear result is not
simply that the treated emulsion is thicker. The better interpretation is that it exhibits a more coherent mechanical response when the product is being actively spread. The full flow curve adds a second useful
clue. The base-control curve contains a small nonlinear break in the mid-shear region before continuing downward. In a high-oil emulsion, a non-linear break is a warning sign consistent with shear-induced reorganization or partial coalescence in the dispersed structure, although rheology alone cannot identify the microscopic pathway.4 Both the non-furan and stearic acid controls
50000 High Oil SF-b ■
High Oil Stearic Acid ■ High Oil Control ■
5000
Greater structure retention during vigorous rub-out
split/broke emulsions within 24 hours. The treated arm follows a smoother shear-thinning profile and maintains more viscosity across the application-relevant sweep. To a formulator, that difference reads as a product that is less likely to collapse into an oily, uneven film during vigorous rub-out. Ageing stability is demonstrated by measuring
the shear-dependent viscosity within a week of formulating and again after 2.5 months stored at room temperature. The aged and freshly prepared flow curves for the formulations prepared using the evaluated blend were nearly superimposable while the control sample shows a steep drop off in at rest viscosity as well as an increased instability observed during higher shear regimes. The sensory observations make the rheology
commercially legible (Table 4). The base control had balm-like pickup but clumped during rub- out; after 24 hours it showed an oil ring and a less uniform break. The treated sample presented as a structured soft cream/lotion with soft peaks, high spread, high slip, moderate playtime and no clumping. After 24 hours the sample supplemented with
500 50 0.1 1 10 Shear Rate (s-1 ) 100 1000
SF-b remained visually uniform with no visible oiling off. During rub-out it thinned into a lighter lotion-like texture, left only slight residue and high shine, and gave a smoother, more uniform final film. The sensory pattern is consistent with the rheological observations: the useful change is not just added thickness, but better coherence under hand shear. A stearic-acid-matched high-oil control adds
another important checkpoint. In the available observation set, the stearic-acid-matched high- oil control broke emulsion during the 24-cycle stability challenge, while the evaluated blend maintained emulsion integrity. This argues against treating the blend as an ordinary stearic acid addition in this stressed high-oil chassis; the furan is playing a role. Visual evidence from polarized light
Figure 6: Microstructure and rheological behaviour of oil-in-water emulsions structured with SF-b. Bright-field optical micrographs compare the control emulsion, a formulation containing 1.5 wt% stearic acid, and one containing 3 wt% SF-b. The corresponding flow curves demonstrate that SF-b produces finer, more uniform droplet distributions accompanied by higher viscosity across the measured shear-rate range, consistent with enhanced emulsion structuring relative to the control and stearic acid benchmark. All images collected at 20x magnification
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microscopy supports the structure story in the high oil emulsion systems. The control system is characterized by irregularly shaped oil-rich domains that exist over a broad distribution of droplet sizes (Figure 6). Adding 1.5% stearic acid results in more
spherical oil-rich domains that still shows a broad distribution of droplet size. Finally, when
September 2026 PERSONAL CARE MAGAZINE
Viscosity (mPa·s)
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