The Beauty & Personal Care Brand Builder Series

Ingredient Deep Dive

Polyacrylamide

The Beauty & Personal Care Brand Builder Series

Ingredient Deep Dive

Polyacrylamide

The Stabilizing Film-Forming Thickener

Polyacrylamide is a synthetic thickener, stabilizer and film former used to build smooth texture and keep emulsions and suspensions uniform.

It thickens and stabilizes formulas, forms a light film that improves wear, and helps suspend particles and pigments.

Quick Insights

Ingredient Rating:

GOOD

Type of Ingredient:

Texture Enhancer

Intended Function:

A synthetic thickener, stabilizer and film former for smooth, stable textures.

Common Applications:

Used across moisturizers, serums and lotions and treatment formulas.

Target Audience:

Formulators needing a robust thickener/stabilizer for emulsions and suspensions.

Also Known As:

Polyacrylamide

Benefits of Polyacrylamide

A synthetic thickener/stabilizer that builds smooth texture and holds formulas together.

Thickening: Builds smooth, stable viscosity in gels, creams and lotions.
Emulsion Stability: Helps keep emulsions uniform and resistant to separation.
Film Forming: Forms a light film that improves product wear.
Suspending: Keeps particles and pigments evenly dispersed.
Efficient: Effective at low levels.

How It Works

Polyacrylamide’s long polymer chains hydrate and entangle to raise viscosity and structure a formula; the same network stabilizes emulsions and suspends particles, while a thin dried film improves wear.

Formulating with Polyacrylamide

Polyacrylamide is used at low levels as a thickener/stabilizer, often supplied in a ready-to-use liquid dispersion added to the water phase. Observe good manufacturing and preservation practice.

Safety Analysis

Polyacrylamide is well tolerated in finished cosmetics at typical use levels. As always, substantiate the finished product’s safety (e.g. patch / HRIPT testing) in line with MoCRA requirements.

References

https://incidecoder.com/ingredients/polyacrylamide

https://cosmeticanalysis.com/cosmetic-ingredients/polyacrylamide

https://cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient/polyacrylamide/

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