aqueous cream type formula

I have been wondering ... well the idea had popped through my mind about making an aqueous cream type formula.

Aqueous cream is a light, non-greasy moisturiser that is made from a mixture of emulsifying ointment (which contains paraffin oils) and water, with phenoxyethanol as an antimicrobial preservative.

While it is described as a moisturizer with warnings it is better used as a soap substitute for dry skin conditions.

From online I have gotten the ingredients as:

Active ingredients
This cream contains Liquid Paraffin 6% w/w, White Soft Paraffin 15% w/w.
Also contains: purified water, emulsifying wax (containing cetostearyl alcohol, sodium laurilsulfate), chlorocresol 0.1% w/w.

This cream contains 21% paraffin based emolients along with the required emulsifying wax and a preservative.

As part of the emulsifying mixture ( cetostearyl alc/SLS ) sodium laurilsulfate is a very strong anionic surfactant. although HLb calculations are usually done with non ionic surfactants the HLB value of SLS I saw online as 40... normal sodium soap is also an anionic with HLB value of around 18.

Aqueous cream is said to cause problems to some with sensitive skin.

I was thinking of using a choice of oils, butters and beeswax to a similar consistency as that of a 6 parts liquid paraffin / 15 parts white soft paraffin mixture.

and replacing the SLS within the emulsifier mixture with either pure sodium soap or a blend of Sodium soap and a Polysorbate like Polysorbate 20 with a relatively high HLB value.

a rule of thumb is to use the emulsifier blend at 5% of the Oil phase used but as it is intended to be used as a soap substitute this might be a higher amount...

the amount of cetostearyl alcohol ( a blend of roughly equal or 60/40 cetyl and stearyl alcohol one way or the other ) is up in the air... I'm just playing with ideas...

Phenoxyethanol is used as a preservative in aqueous cream... any other suitable preservative would probably also work.

Now the fun part as this is our own creation we are limitless in what we can add as additional water phase ingredients. To begin with the idea is to create a highly emolient soap substitute for especially dry skin types... why not play around and add some really nice goodies...?

anyways... just something that came to me late night and I'd love to know what anyone else thinks about it?

Or what we can add to the original idea with some brainstorming?