1. This is not the split tree and not the cream-picker
Open why-emulsion-separates when water is already ringing the jar. Open the face-cream emulsifier guide when you have not locked a family at all. Stay here when both families could emulsify the oil load on paper and the fight is salt versus feel. Browse the emulsifier aisle as two documented jobs, not as a beauty contest. If the batch already split, you need the diagnostic URL first.
2. Olivem 1000 is a feel and structure story — read it that way
Olivem 1000 is a verified olive-class O/W lot. People buy it for a satiny, liquid-crystal story and a PEG-free label. That is a sensory and process brief. It is not a promise that every salted water phase will keep that satin. If the cream looks emulsified in the kettle and then goes lotion-soft after cool-down, you may be on the neighbouring process-gap page — not here. Here the question is whether you chose that feel knowing ions would arrive.
3. Emulgade SE-PF is the workhorse contrast, not a villain
Emulgade SE-PF is the documented conventional O/W blend on the same shelf. Formulators reach for it when the water phase will carry salts and they want a cream that still stands. Soaping on the skin is then blamed on ‘the cheap emulsifier’ when the oil phase, the fill temperature or the perfume is the soaping source. Use this lot as a hold contrast. Do not use it as a moral failure. Two files, two jobs.
4. Name the salt before you rename the INCI
Write the ionic or buffered liquids that will enter the water. A cream that only ever sees a quiet humectant water is not the same brief as a cream that will take a peptide concentrate and a mineral claim. If you must have both the olive feel and the salted water, you are designing a compromise, not finding a secret third drum. Small bench pairs — same oil phase, same process, two emulsifiers — beat a slogan. Do not invent a salt-tolerance percentage here.
5. Soaping, wax and slip are observations, not verdicts
A waxy cool-down can be the liquid-crystal story doing its job. A light slip can be the workhorse doing its job. Neither observation tells you the emulsion is stable, and neither is a reason to call the other family ‘wrong.’ Record feel after 24 hours on skin, not only in the kettle. If the brief sold ‘olive satin’ and the salted chassis only gives workhorse slip, change the claim or change the water — do not keep both lies.
6. Neighbouring notes are destinations, not outlines to copy
Notes on selecting an emulsifier for a formula and the guide to choosing an emulsifier for a cream, fluid or spray can confirm that families exist. They are not a structure you may paste into MO-LAB. You may say the brief asked for two jobs. You may not publish a universal ‘use Olivem below X% salt’ rule. The split tree and the face-cream picker stay next door.