Silverson Machines Ltd.

Silverson Machines, Inc.
355 Chestnut St. , East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Phone: 413-525-4825
Fax: 413-525-5804

Silverson Machines

High Shear Mixing Equipment for the Cosmetics and Personal Care Industries

Silverson experts understand the mixing challenges you face in the cosmetics industry, such as reducing production times, process hygiene, powder/liquid mixing, producing stable emulsions, dissolving powders, disintegrating solids, blending liquids of different viscosities and dispersing and hydrating gums, diluting high active surfactants, thickeners and stabilisers. We will work with you to make sure you get the right mixer for your specific needs. Silverson has the flexibility to custom design and build machines to meet your exact specifications.

For applications such as shampoos and conditioners, lotions and creams, nail varnish and liquid soaps, Silverson has a mixing solution for you.

About Silverson Machines

Since 1946 Silverson has been a leader in the development of high speed, high shear mixers, supplying customers throughout the world.

What is high shear mixing?

High shear mixing is an advanced mixing technique that involves intense mechanical agitation and shearing forces to achieve superior blending, dispersion, and particle size reduction. Unlike conventional mixers or agitators, high shear mixers utilise specialised rotor/stator technology to generate extremely high shear rates, creating a powerful suction effect that continuously draws materials into the high shear zone.

Leveraging this advanced technology, high shear mixers provide remarkable mixing efficiency, enabling:

• Faster processing times and increased production throughput.
• Finer and more uniform droplet/particle size distributions.
• Improved product quality, consistency, and stability across batches.

Silverson high shear mixers are engineered to deliver exceptional mixing performance, combining advanced rotor/stator technology with robust construction and scalable designs. When you choose a Silverson mixer, you not only get the best quality high shear mixer on the market today, but you also get the advantage of Silverson’s engineering expertise and years of application knowledge in the cosmetics & toiletries industries.

Eliminating Aeration

The high shear mixing/shearing action of the Silverson rotor/stator workhead sets up a circulatory pattern of mixing that is all below the liquid surface, minimising aeration. For completely aeration-free mixing, a Silverson In-Line mixer, along with the pipework and vessel form a closed system, and the flooded suction provided by the self-pumping In-Line mixer cannot introduce air into the product. This makes it ideal for the processing of aeration-sensitive products such as shampoos and detergents.

Creating Stable Suspensions and Emulsions

When forming an emulsion, it is crucial to add the dispersed phase to the continuous phase correctly. While this might be less critical at laboratory scale, it becomes essential when dealing with larger volumes, a common problem when scaling up. 

As all Silverson mixers are built to the same tolerances, this simplifies the scale up process. Products can go from the lab to production without the need for reformulating.

Silverson In-Line mixers are ideal for the preparation of emulsions, including water-in-oil (W/O), oil-in-water (O/W), and water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) emulsions. Adding the dispersed phase just prior to the In-Line mixer will ensure an instant emulsion, maintaining uniformity and stability throughout the process.

Creams & Lotions

Cosmetic creams and lotions are used for a variety of purposes such as cleansing and moisturising. Suntan lotions are formulated on similar base ingredients but include UV filters such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. The manufacturing process is centered around two of the most difficult mixing tasks: hydration of thickening and suspending agents and preparation of a stable emulsion. The high shear mixing action of a Silverson rotor/stator mixer can achieve these tasks and offers a number of advantages over conventional mixing.

You can find more information on how Silverson Mixers can be beneficial for these applications in our application reports: Manufacture of Sunscreen Creams and Lotions & Production of Cosmetic Creams and Lotions

Or watch our 'How to' video on Cosmetics Creams and Lotions:

Read our Case study to find out how Silverson Machines helped a luxury face cream manufacturer improve their product: https://www.silverson.com/us/case-studies/face-cream-manufacturing-process-improved-by-high-shear-mixing/
 

Achieving High Viscosity Mixes

Silverson In-Line mixers are capable of handling high viscosity cosmetics products, such as creams and lotions, gels and SLES-surfactant based products. The self-pumping In-Line mixers are able to do this without the need for additional processing equipment, such as centrifugal pumps.

Before now these mixers have only been available as a production-scale model but Silverson have recently launched the new small-scale mixer range.

New! - UHS-HV small-scale High Viscosity In-Line mixer

The 150 UHS-HV is ideal for small scale in-line manufacturing of higher viscosity products. This mixer matches the capabilities of the production scale Silverson HV In-Line mixers. It incorporates a unique and innovative “pumping rotor” design that substantially increases the mixer’s self-pumping capacity, ideal for processing higher viscosity products.

High flow rates, typically around 6,500 litres/hour are maintained as viscosity rises, often eliminating the need for an additional feed pump when processing many higher viscosity products such as creams, ointments, sauces and slurries.  A range of motor options is available, including high speed, which allows the mixer to run at 9,000 rpm. This gives the mixer more power to continually recirculate higher viscosity products in the vessel. Other motor options include stainless steel and Flameproof models.

High Active Surfactants

Dilution of high active surfactants requires a high shear mixer due to the significant difference in viscosity between the two liquids. A Silverson In-Line mixer has the capability to rapidly blend the water and surfactant, either on a batch or continuous basis. It is also completely aeration-free. For more information on this application, please read the report here.

Read our case study on how Silverson High Shear mixers have helped one customer improved their SLES Dilution:

https://www.silverson.com/us/case-studies/silverson-mixers-now-used-as-standard-by-international-company-diluting-sles/

Shampoo

Shampoos are a mixture of surfactants, conditioning agents and many other ingredients in an aqueous base. Manufacturing of shampoos presents a number of challenges; many ingredients require special handling and the entire process must be carried out without aerating the product. Silverson In-Line mixers are widely used for this application. The high shear action can rapidly blend liquids of widely differing viscosities, hydrate and disperse thickening and stabilising agents and emulsify silicone oils, etc., and is completely aeration-free. For more information on this application, please read the report here.

In the video below see how Silverson High Shear Mixers are used from the laboratory to the production floor at DCS Group. The DCS group specialises in the manufacture of personal care products such as shampoos, shower gels, body lotions, body mists, and colognes on behalf of clients all over the world. At their manufacturing facility in the UK, they currently have a range of Silverson mixing equipment such as Silverson L5M-A Laboratory Mixers, which are used every day for their research and development work. Whilst on the production floor they have scaled up their applications and processes using Silverson In-Line mixers, Bottom Entry Mixers and Flashmix powder/liquid mixers.

Carbopol

Carbopol is a thickening ingredient found in many personal care gels, creams and lotions across the cosmetic industry. It is also the gelling agent used in many hand sanitiser gels. Dispersing Carbopol effectively can be a challenging task, but with a Silverson powder/liquid mixer, such as the Flashmix, you feed the powder into the hopper and let the machine do the rest. After a short recirculation period the Carbopol is fully hydrated and agglomerate-free in a fraction of the time taken by conventional agitators. A Silverson powder/liquid mixer will consistently produce a uniform mix, leaving you with a clear, bright gel time after time.

For more information on this application, please read the report here.

CBD Infused Cosmetic Creams and Lotions

A Silverson mixer is able to produce a fine, stable emulsion for CBD products such as CBD cosmetic creams, CBD lotions and CBD oil based balms, in small batches typical of this sector.

CBD oils and CBD oil based products are becoming increasingly popular due to benefits including pain relief and reducing of inflammation. To produce a high quality CBD oil based cream, dispersing the CBD oil into the aqueous phase is the key stage in the manufacturing process. See how a Silverson mixer is able to create a stable emulsion with a droplet size of 2 - 5 microns in the how to video below.

The batch-to-batch consistency achieved with a Silverson mixer is advantageous where declared CBD potency levels need to be maintained.

Other Cosmetics applications

For more information on other Cosmetic applications such as Lipsticks, Nail Varnishes, Deodorants and Antiperspirants, etc., you can find the entire range of Cosmetic application reports on the Silverson website here.

Get in touch

www.silverson.com

sales@silverson.co.uk

https://silversoninc.com/cosmetics

https://www.youtube.com/@silversonmachines

https://www.facebook.com/silversonmixers

https://www.linkedin.com/company/silverson-machines

Link to our brochure: https://www.silverson.co.uk/en/resource-library/brochure/