Xanthan Gum

We can purchase three different types of xanthan gum: regular, soft, and clear.

• Regular/normal xanthan gum is the most common and the cheapest; you can often purchase this ingredient at health food stores as well as from most DIY suppliers. It creates hazy gels that I generally describe as slimy and snotty.
• Soft & clear xanthan gums create far more pleasant gels than regular xanthan gum; they feel far less snotty and are are much more carbomber-like in terms of clarity and skin feel. I’ve worked with both soft & clear xanthan gums from a few different suppliers and can’t really tell a difference between the two. I’d feel confident using one instead of the other, and I’d say you only need one of them.

Soft & clear: Once hydrated they create slippy, cushiony gels.

I don’t like the feel of gels thickened solely with regular xanthan gum; I find them to be slimy and unpleasant. I prefer to use regular xanthan gum around 01–0.3% in emulsions—at that low usage rate, it contributes a lovely slip and added stability to the emulsion.

Soft & clear xanthan gums are far more versatile than regular xathan gum as the skin feel and consistency is far more appealing.

Soft & clear: More expensive than regular, not as readily available.

I find soft & clear xanthan gum don’t thicken as strongly as regular xanthan gum, so if a formulation calls for regular xanthan gum and you’re using soft or clear, you’ll want to use a bit more. I’d start with 20–30% more, so if a formulation called for 0.4% regular xanthan gum, I’d try 0.5% soft or clear xanthan gum.

If a formulation calls for soft or clear xanthan gum, and you want to use regular instead, I’d use 20–30% less. You’ll also want to keep in mind that the skin feel and appearance will be different. If you’re making an emulsion that contains a small % of xanthan to thicken and stabilize you likely won’t notice a huge difference, but if you’re making a gelled product and xanthan gum is the star gelling ingredient, you definitely will.