Introducing Big Kelp Flex

Your Friend in High Suspension (Low Viscosity) Places

Making the perfect, natural mineral sunscreen is hard. Consumers want an all natural formula, excellent sun protection, a velvety skin feel, no microplastics, and all in an easy-to-use pump spray format. No big deal, right?!

In reality, formulators are forced to choose: use a synthetic ingredient like a carbomer (often not on clean lists because of concerns over microplastic or impurities) to get the mineral particles to evenly disperse or use a natural ingredient like a gum or bentonite that causes nozzle clogging or white casting. Turns out, it’s pretty difficult. Until today.

Super suspensions, no microplastics, no impurities of concern

Your friends at Macro Oceans have solved this problem. Meet Big Kelp Flex, a 100% natural superabsorbent natural polymer made from pure seaweed cellulose. This breakthrough ingredient is capable of suspending high density particles like SPF grade zinc or titanium even at very low viscosities. Don’t believe us? Check this out:

That’s a super suspension of 0.5% Big Kelp Flex in water with TiO2. Still don’t believe us? Have a look at how beautifully it suspends these 40-200 micron mica particles in a lovely, evenly dispersed spray. You can see how a 0.5% xanthan solution performs in comparison.

One reason we’re so excited about this ingredient is because it delivers synthetic-level performance but is 100% natural.

How it works its magic

If this sounds like magic, that’s because seaweed has some magical properties. In any plant, cellulose fibers provide the backbone structure that gives that organism its shape. In a tree (the source of most cellulose in the market today) those fibers are short and stocky. They connect together in strong building blocks, allowing trees to defy gravity and grow upwards. In contrast, cellulose fibers in seaweed are much longer and more flexible.This allows the seaweed to flex rhythmically in its natural environment, resisting strong tides, currents and waves.

This structural difference is reflected at the molecular level.

This intriguing insight fueled a decade-long journey of breakthrough R&D and surprises. What we discovered is that these long, thin seaweed fibers can absorb 600x their weight in water creating a unique, smooth visco-gel structure that is thixotropic and shear thinning without losing particle suspension in the bottle or at the nozzle during application. That means that while this superabsorbent polymer may be 100% natural, it delivers performance on par with the best synthetics like carbomers and acrylates.

(Un)Natural performance

From suspensions to textures, Big Kelp Flex is, well, incredibly flexible. You can use it to create a structure strong enough to suspend high density particles like zinc, titanium, mica or color pigments, even in very low-viscosity systems. You can also use it to create a wide range of velvety smooth textures combined with an excellent quick-break skin feel without the tackiness commonly associated with xanthan gum and other natural rheology modifiers.

There are so many different things it can do, we decided to chart them out:

So whether you need a low viscosity suspension, a velvety smooth texture or a stable emulsion, Big Kelp Flex has your formula’s back.

The best hangtime, every time

We started Macro Oceans because we’re optimists: we’re building a big kelp economy for a low carbon future. And the beauty industry is full of optimists: you’re creators making amazing products that consumers love.

Big Kelp Flex is where our optimism combines: together we can build amazing products that consumers adore and a more sustainable economy for all. For more information, please reach out (hello@macro-oceans.com). We’d love to hear about what you’re going to build.