Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride (and) Polyurethane-79 (TKB’s Crystal Clear Wax)

TKB’s Crystal Clear Wax is an oil soluble thickener and suspending ingredient. It is comprised of 70% Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride and 30% Polyurethane-79, so it is 70% natural.

What makes this ingredient really unique is that it:

1. Thickens oils clearly (unlike waxes and fatty thickeners that create opaque products).
2. It has excellent suspending abilities, keeping insoluble ingredients like micas suspended even if you don’t use enough to make the product really viscous.
3. It’s a shear thinning (thixotropic) thickener! This means it thins out when shear force (like spreading the product across your skin or dispensing it through a mister top) is applied. Learn more about thixotropy here!

This ingredient appears to be Oilkemia™ 5S polymer made by Lubrizol.

Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride (and) Polyurethane-79

Small clumpy clear-ish bits that almost seem wet

0.5–6%

Nothing terribly noticeable

~90°C (194°F)

Crystal Clear Wax is oil soluble.

Crystal clear thickening of oils, excellent suspending abilities, shear thinning.

No, but it is a great option if you want to make shimmery body oils and a really fun, easy-to-use thixotropic thickener.

Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride (and) Polyurethane-79 only exists as a refined product.

• Quite easy to use
• Thixotropic thickening!
• Excellent suspending abilities
• Clear thickening of oils

• Availability—I’ve only found it at TKB Trading.
• Cost: 30g (1.06oz) is $14.95USD as of early 2025, so it’s about $0.50USD/gram

Decent alternatives will vary with what you’re making & what the Crystal Clear Wax is doing in that formulation. None of the below alternatives will be one-for-one swaps—all will require testing and likely some degree of re-formulating.

Polyamide-3 and Polyamide-8 can both thicken oils clearly, but I don’t find they suspend insoluble particles as well as Crystal Clear Wax does. They’re also quite particular about the polarity of oils they’re used with, so you’ll probably need to do some re-formulating.

Trihydroxystearin is an easier-to-get thixotropic thickener, but it does not thicken clearly and requires more work to activate. Making Cosmetics advises “Add to heated oil at 55–60°C (130-140F), mix for 10–20 min (!) under high sheer to fully activate. Keep blending (blade stirrer) in the cool down phase, until 40°C (100F)”. My Skin Recipes says “The temperature must be controlled to be between 65–100 degrees. When the mixture is blended until thick, turn off the heat and blend until cooled. The thickness obtained depends on the temperature level that is warmed during the blending to disperse in the formula.”

Quite a few commercial shimmery body oil sprays use a thixotropic silica to thicken and suspend, so if you can find one of those, that’s definitely worth a try! HDK H15 Pyrogenic Silica from Trulux (Australia) and Treasure Active’s Silica Dimethyl Silylate (Nigeria) both mention thixotropic properties.

TKB’s Thickening Clay could also be a good shear thinning, suspending alternative, though it also requires more work to activate. The manufacturer recommends 10 minutes of mixing at moderate shear (a stick blender would be a good option).

More common oil thickening ingredients like beeswax, cetearyl alcohol, or stearic acid might be an acceptable alternative depending on the application. Be aware that these ingredients will not thicken clearly and do not have the same suspending abilities as Crystal Clear Wax. They also don’t work very well for slightly thickening oils as they tend to precipitate out of the mixture over time.

Include Crystal Clear Wax in the heated oil phase of your formulations. It needs to get pretty hot to melt (80–100°C [176–212°F] in my experience—it seems to vary with the emollient you’re using), so I haven’t found a water bath to be a great option for melting Crystal Clear Wax.

If you don’t have beakers and a lab hot plate that you can set to a reliably low(ish) temperature, you can put everything in a small saucepan and melt it on low on your stovetop. Alternatively, combine the ingredients in a heat resistant glass measuring cup, put that on a cookie sheet, and then bake it in your oven set to ~100°C (212°F). Make sure you keep an eye on it as you don’t want to scorch your oils!

Take care to ensure the Crystal Clear Wax has melted completely before you remove your mixture from the heat. It’s so clear that it vanishes into oils even if it hasn’t fully melted!

Stir while cooling to ensure a uniform final product.

I’ve had quite good results simply melting Crystal Clear Wax into oils and hand stirring as it cools, but several sample formulations from Lubrizol call for much more stirring/blending:

• Some specify 2–10 minutes of homogenizing at 10k rpm at 90°C (194°F)
• Some just call for stirring/mixing “until homogenous” at 90°C (194°F)
• Some specify stirring for 15–30 minutes at 90°C (194°F)

Broadly, it seems like formulations using higher concentrations of esters call for more stirring/blending/homogenizing, while formulations based around true oils like sunflower and coconut call for less.

So, if you are having trouble getting a smooth, uniform product with Crystal Clear Wax, experiment with more powerful mixing at at 90°C (194°F).

Stored somewhere cool, dark, and dry, Crystal Clear Wax should last at least a year from the date of manufacture. 365 days is the manufacturer recommended retest date, not an expiry date.

Crystal Clear Wax is easiest to use with medium to high polarity oils and emollients—generally, “real” oils like sunflower and almond oil rather than esters like Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCT aka Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride) and non-polar oils like mineral oil.

If you just want to make shimmery body oils, the 10g sample size from TKB Trading will make about 2kg (4lbs) of shimmery body oils (based on a 0.5% usage rate). The cost per gram is definitely more reasonable if you get an ounce, though—$1.40CAD/gram for 10g vs. $0.73CAD/gram for 30g (1.06oz).

Buy it from an online DIY ingredient supplier; the only place I’ve found it is TKB Trading.