Applied Cosmetic Science and Technology Applied Cosmetic Science and Technology

The hydrophilic–lipophilic balance (HLB) of a surfactant, one of the most widely used indices of its potency for a given application, is a measure of surfactant partitioning tendency between oil and water. The HLB number shows a good correlation with the properties of the poly-oxyethylene-type nonionic surfactants and provides significant benefits to the development of advanced emulsification technology, while sometimes causing problems in formulation development and manufacturing processing for other types of surfactants. To avoid such a misfit between HLB number and solution properties, we developed “Integrated Surfactant Potency (ISP)” as an alternative index to HLB based on the chromatography technique by using thin layer chromatography (TLC). An appropriate method to determine ISP was investigated in detail and confirmed that ISP will be able to predict the properties of a surfactant solution such as critical micellar concentration, cloud point, and liquid crystal structures associated with the HLB of the surfactant. Our objective is to establish this TLC method to be utilized in many industrial fields to provide solutions through the proper selection of surfactants.