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Team 8

Team Members

Faculty Advisor

Duncan Edel
Tim Rodrigue
Nina Huczko

Dr. Anson Ma

Sponsor

Unilever

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Characterization of Aeration Techniques for Skincare Products

Every day 2.5 billion people in over 190 countries use Unilever products, including their well-known skin care brands. Unilever must consistently innovate their product lines to continue to impress consumers. With the help of last year’s team, Unilever created a scalable aeration technique that incorporates compressed air into a lotion, laying the groundwork for an innovative product with a light, whipped texture. This year our goal was to analyze this aeration technique to see how the process affected the products over their intended shelf-life. Our analysis compared the non-aerated and aerated samples across several metrics including specific gravity, viscosity, and microscopy. To test specific gravity, we developed our own procedure to avoid eliminating the product’s entrapped air. The rheometer profiles of each sample showed us how the viscosity varied over time, while microscopy testing demonstrated bubble behavior over time. Comparing the non-aerated and aerated samples across these three metrics over time indicated that the aerated product experienced significant physical changes over its shelf-life. Based on our findings, Unilever can reevaluate their formulation and aeration techniques to create products that will have a stable shelf life and desired whipped texture for consumers.