Your actives are fine. The carrier is the problem.

Judge it on four things rather than on marketing language. First, the size class: delivery behaviour changes below roughly 200 nm, and a credible supplier publishes a design target and characterises against it. Second, whether the structure is engineered before the product is made rather than produced by whatever mixing the factory happens to do. Third, whether it is measured, by dynamic light scattering, on every batch rather than once at launch. Fourth, whether the carrier can hold more than one kind of active at the same time. NanoBase™ is built to that specification: a tri-domain architecture engineered to a ~185 nm design target and DLS-characterised each batch.

Because the ingredient is not the constraint, the carrier is. Most formulas are emulsions built on HLB, a 1949 surfactant framework designed to keep oil and water together in a jar. It produces micrometer-scale droplets that sit on the surface, and it says nothing about where an active ends up after application, because it was never asked to. A high-performing active in a carrier that cannot deposit it evenly will read as a disappointing product.

Hydrophilic-Lipophilic Balance is a classification method for surfactants published by William Griffin in 1949. It is a good tool for the job it was written for, which is predicting whether an oil and water mixture will stay combined on the shelf. It is not a delivery framework. It does not describe particle size distribution, surface charge, or how an active partitions once the product is on skin, so a formula designed only to an HLB number is designed for shelf stability and nothing else.

Three delivery environments coexisting in one carrier rather than one: a nanoemulsion domain, a vesicular or nanoliposomal domain, and a nanomicellar domain. Ingredients partition between them according to their oil and water affinity, expressed as logP. A single-domain carrier forces every active into the same environment, which is why oil-loving and water-loving actives usually cannot be carried well in the same product. Three domains remove that trade-off.

Not automatically, and the distinction matters. Regulatory definitions of a cosmetic nanomaterial turn on intentionally manufactured, insoluble or persistent particles with at least one dimension in the 1-100 nm range. A carrier engineered to a ~185 nm design target, using organised nanostructured domains rather than persistent nanoparticles, sits outside that definition. NanoBase™ is not classified as a cosmetic nanomaterial under current FDA, EU or ISO cosmetic definitions, so a finished product built on it carries no nano-labelling obligation on that basis. Confirm against the requirements of each market you sell into.

Only if the nano structure has to be created on the production line. If the architecture is engineered and characterised upstream and supplied as a finished raw material, the manufacturer mixes it at room temperature with the equipment they already own. No nano-processing equipment, no particle-size instrumentation, no specialist tech transfer. That is the difference between buying a delivery architecture and building a nanotechnology line.

Sub-200 nm is the size class where published third-party work reports materially better active utilisation than conventional macroemulsions. Smaller is not automatically better: below about 100 nm a material starts meeting regulatory definitions of an intentionally manufactured nanomaterial, with the labelling that brings. A design target around 185 nm sits inside the performance class and outside the labelling threshold. Ask any supplier for their target and for the method they verify it with.

Ask three questions. What is the stated size target, as a number? What instrument verifies it, and is it run on every batch or once? And is the distribution released against a defined signature rather than a single averaged figure? A supplier who answers all three is describing something they measure. A supplier who answers in adjectives is describing something they hope for.

Yes, if the architecture ships as a finished raw material. The capital cost in nanotechnology is the equipment, the instrumentation and the people to run them, and all of that sits upstream with the supplier. A new brand buys the finished architecture, formulates on top of it, and manufactures at any qualified contract manufacturer. Pensive Beauty® designs the formula and delivers an 8 to 14 page executive summary free for qualifying new brands, on every product rather than only the first. Bench formulation, materials and stability work are quoted separately.

It depends entirely on the agreement, and it is the question most worth asking early. Many private-label arrangements keep the formula with the lab, which means the brand cannot move production or negotiate. The alternative is that the brand owns the formula and the safety data sheet outright and can manufacture with any qualified contract manufacturer. Ask for that in writing before development starts.

They are three different carrier structures. A nanoemulsion is oil droplets dispersed in water at nanoscale, suited to oil-soluble material. A liposome is a phospholipid bilayer around an aqueous interior, suited to amphiphilic and bilayer-associating material. A micelle is a surfactant assembly that solubilises material which will dissolve in neither phase alone. Most systems use one. Carrying all three at once is what allows a single formula to hold actives that would otherwise be incompatible.