What are Chelating Agents / Explaining Sodium Phytate

Sodium phytate is an all-natural chelating agent. The most common chelating agents you see being used in cosmetics are disodium EDTA and tetrasodium EDTA. I have read some controversy on if these two ingredients are safe for your skin, so this is why I have chose not to use them. Especially since there is a natural alternative to them, sodium phytate.

What are your thoughts on disodium EDTA and tetrasodium EDTA?

So "what the heck is a chelating agent" you may be asking? I'll explain.

Apparently there are these "metal ions", which can be present in any water-based system. These metal ions can react with your formulation ingredients causing problems, including:

• Spoilage and rancidity

• Degradation of vitamins and essential fatty acids

• Fragrance degradation

• Discoloration

• Haze formation and precipitation

• Poor foaming and rinsability performance.

Chelating agents are chemicals that form soluble, complex molecules with certain metal ions, inactivating the ions so that they cannot normally react with other elements or ions making a more stable formulation. Yeah, that sounds confusing right? In simple terms, chelating agents create a more stable formulation and helps keep all the lovely ingredients in your product more stable. So chelating agents basically improve your products and keep them in tip top shape for longer. Chelating agents also act as a preservative potentiator.

Why I love sodium phytate so much, compared to disodium EDTA and tetrasodium EDTA, other than the fact that it is a natural alternative. It offers a handful of other lovely benefits to your products as well. Sodium phytate can also help with discoloration and rancidity caused by metals present in formulations and works synergistically with other antioxidants. Sodium phytate, moisturizes skin, improves skin elasticity, normalizes oily skin, may help reduce pore size, helps lighten skin, & may help improve the appearance of cellulite.

Sounds like such a lovely ingredient right? What makes it even better, is that you only need about .05% - 0.5% in your formulation. So a little goes a long way. The one thing I don't like about sodium phytate is that it has a very high ph of 12. When you add it into your water phase it will dramatically increase the ph to about 12 so that means you need to adjust the ph to 6 or below. Don't go any lower than 3 because that is just to acidic for our skin.

Sodium Phytate can be added to the water phase of any formulation, it is not suitable for anyhydrous formulas, and it is not heat sensitive so you can add it to your formulation before heating.

So that is all for now. In my next blog I'll explain how I incorporated sodium phytate into a facial serum.

What are your thoughts on Sodium Phytate, have you ever used it?

Have you ever used a Chelating Agent or ever heard of them?