Hi!

I've been making micellar water for about a year now because I got sick of spending $10 on soapy water. This functions great for me, BUT it has some cloudiness and settling at the bottom. Not a huge deal, I shake it up before using, but I want to figure out why this happens. I figured dialing it back to just the essentials -- surfactant, water, preservative --- would help sort things out.

My formula is based on Surfpro CC-6 (PEG-6 Caprylic/Capric Glycerides), used in Bioderma and Simple micellar waters. It also has glycerin, panthenol, and niacinamide. I use citric acid for pH adjustment, sodium chloride (for a small amount of thickening), and Germall plus for preservation.

Here's my *usual* formula:

This is mixed cold and would probably be considered one phase, but I pre-mix the powders with some water before adding to the solution.

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Here's the minimal version:

This also got cloudy, but had much less settling (so it's probably the surfpro that's getting cloudy and the panthenol & niacinamide that are settling out even though they're soluble up to %'s much higher than this).

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Any thoughts for how to improve clarity? Am I missing something to stabilize? I'm also... being super lazy and using tap water, could the mineral content be causing issues?

Thanks for any help you're able to give!