Xanthan Gum Powder

Making Cosmetics

Xanthan Gum, Additive

INCI Name: Xanthan Gum

A creamy white powder that dissolves readily in hot or cold water to form highly viscous suspensions or gels at low concentrations. Xanthan Gum, an additive is a natural gum polysaccharide, a unique hydrocolloid produced by a biotechnological process involving fermentation of glucose or sucrose by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris bacterium.

Xanthan Gum exhibits extraordinary and useful properties in making cosmetics such as high viscosity at low concentrations, little change in viscosity at low concentrations, with little change in viscosity at varying temperatures, and excellent stability over a wide pH range. It also provides good freeze-thaw stability and shows remarkable suspension characteristics in creams and lotions, as well as shampoos and dishwashing liquids.

Xanthan Gum produces a large increase in the viscosity of a liquid by adding a very small quantity of gum, on the order of one percent. Investigations may start at 0.1%, and go as high as 2%.

It works well with other gums (e.g., 20% with 80% guar gum), and surfactants in products with a lower pH. During the water phase, a vortex is created and the Xanthan Gum is sprinkled directly into it.