Testing products

[sjconner]

I found a video at Snowdrift Farms that shows their testing kit in use. It is a great video. http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/chekit.wmv

I want to add handmade lotions but the testing is soooo expensive and I am basically a chicken. I think I would be comfortable testing a recipe at one week, one month, 3 months and 6 months.

Any one else have any other ideas or suggestions.

Susan

[caryfh]

are you wanting to do microbial testing or stability testing? I'm not familiar with the kit at Snowdrift as I sent my items off to be tested at Sagescript, but I might be able to offer some suggestions if I knew what you were looking for.

[sjconner]

I am looking for microbial. What does stability testing test for?

Susan

[caryfh]

Stability testing is just shelf-life testing. Some places will do this so you can get a better idea of what your product will do at 6 or 12 months out - this would be good if you feared the oils would go rancid. They typically set it in a controlled area where they can significantly elevate the temperature to simulate what would happen 12 months from now, but by only using 8 weeks to attain the information.

For the microbial testing I used Sagescript. I had seen that you could do the testing yourself, but I figured I would pay to have someone else take care of that. I chose this route, not because I didn't have the ability, but because I wanted to devote more time to formulating/experimenting and I also wanted to be able to show that my product had been tested by a third party.