Custom Make High Shear Mixer in Lipstick Manufacturing, Cosmetic Industry

Lipstick Manufacturing

Raw material of lipsticks mainly consists of wax, oil, alcohol and pigment. Waxes involve beeswax, carnauba and candelilla; Oils include mineral oil, caster oil and lanolin. Other ingredients such as fragrance, pigment, emollients and preservatives can be added to protect lipsticks antiseptic. Theoretically, Lipstick manufacturing is pigment dispersed into a mixture of oils and waxes. Three main processes for manufacturing lipstick can be described as: mixing, cooling, filling and molding. During the process of lipstick manufacturing, several machines such as agitator/dispersing, high shear homogenizer, freezers, filling machine and lipstick mould can be used.

Manufacturing Process

A typical manufacturing process would be described as: melting and mixing raw material, cooling the mixture and filling into lipstick moulds. Detailed steps are as follows:

(1) Melting the wax in a separated container by heating it

(2) Mixing the oil and wax by agitator/disperser

(3) Milling pigment

(4) All necessary raw material are mixed together in one container

(5) Cooling the mixture

(6) Filling it into lipstick mould

1. Agitator

Agitator is used to stir or shake material. Agitators can come in many sizes and varieties, depending on the application. Generally, agitators consist of an impeller and a shaft. Here it is used to combine the two phases: oil phrase and wax phrase. Also it can be used to disperse pigment and other ingredients, which would be added to oil/wax phase and mixed until a homogeneous product has been achieved. Modern industrial agitators incorporate process control to maintain better control over the mixing process.

But it has some disadvantages:

(1) Long mixing time due to oil and wax phase is immiscible;

(2) pigment and other solid pieces hard to mix;

(3) agglomerate can easily formed due to mill asymmetrically;

(4) constant stirring

2. High Shear Homogenizer/Emulsifier

High shear homogenizer/emulsifier can easily disperse two immiscible phrases. The high speed rotation of stator and rotor creates a strong suction, drawing the wax particles and other ingredients into the work head. Strong centrifugal force generated by high speed rotation of stator and rotor will mix, crush, disperse, homogenizer and emulsify materials. After thousands of circulation of shearing, homogenizing, any ingredient will be reduced to a fine stable particle size; thus, high speed homogenizer has some advantages comparing with agitator:

(1) Dramatically reduced process time

(2) Greatly improved product consistency and quality

(3) Stable homogenizing results

(4) Leaved out some stages of products

(5) Improved productivity

(6) Saved cost and time