Designing a green tea extract / finasteride cream

[lordhair]

I'm going to use 50 grammes of cream

I'm thinking of adding 8-10 grammes of GTE powder to it (Standardised to 40% EGCG)

Does that sound alright? Perhaps too much?

I'm not sure how much finasteride to add to it (I'm going to crush 5mg proscar tablets)

Any recommendations?

Thankyou

 

[CCS]

Use 2.5g of GTE per 50g of cream. that is 5%. Maybe 8% could be better, but you will get a brown paste at a high concentration. My guess is it will be too much. As for finasteride, it is not water soluble like GTE. So I think you will need to use them in separate creams. If you do put them in the same cream, ethanol, propylene glycol, and DMSO are pretty good for dissolving both fat soluble and water soluble compounds. Topical finasteride is absorbed much better if you use octyl salicylate, and probably also oleic acid. I got so much oleic acid (1/2 gallon) that I'll send some to you for the cost of shipping. I don't know if these last two, which are not that water soluble, will hurt the solubility of the GTE. Use at least 0.025% finasteride, or it was 0.25%. I forget which. You need to extract it with ethanol first, and then add that to the mix, unless you want white stuff in your hair.

 

[lordhair]

Thanks for that information college and the offer of the oleic acid

Are you sure that the finasteride won't dissolve in cream? I have made spironolactone cream by crushing spironolactone tablets in the past and that seems to dissolve OK

So would crushing 5 X 5 mg proscar tablets into the 50 grammes of cream give me 0.25% finasteride? I get confused about the amounts

Thankyou

 

[CCS]

it just depends what is in your cream. finasteride is not water soluble. I think ethanol or propylene glycol can dissolve almost any of our active ingredients, so if you use those, you should be fine. I don't know how soluble the GTE is in ethanol, though. How thin or short is your hair? Are you just putting cream in the hair line? My liquids should be as effective as creams, but go on clear and thin and not get on the hair.

 

[lordhair]

My hair is quite thick but I have no problems using cream because I just make partings along my hair and rub in a small amount of cream at a time

I prefer cream because it just seems to go on better than liquids

Perhaps I could mix the crushed finasteride into a paste with a bit of ethanol and then mix that into the cream?

Thanks for all the advice anyway - I'm going to start experimenting with a few concoctions and see how I get on