• Hair

  Help Needed From Experts in Hair Science

  Posted by Anonymous on October 12, 2018 at 8:31 pm

  Hello,
  I am interested in making a hair product for dry, coarse, curly hair. Are there any books or sites anyone here could recommend for me as a starting point? I’m not a formulation chemist but do have a chemistry background. What are some things to take into consideration when formulating for african american hair?
  Also is there a book anyone can recommend which contains the effects of various chemicals on hair structure?

  Gunther replied 6 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 2 Replies

  • african-american
  • curly
  • hair
  • hair-structure
  • help
• 2 Replies

• 

  chemicalmatt

  Member

  October 17, 2018 at 4:54 pm

  No such book exists that I know of, gabby, and I’ve been formulating multi-cultural hair-care products for a LOT of years. Look into some specialty chemical sites, such as Croda, Inolex, Evonik, even BASF(!), RITA, just to name a few. Many of these manufacturers have developed formularies for “ethnic” hair-care (archaic term) over the years. Also Michelle Breyers website [www.naturallycurly.com] has cues.  Good luck.  

• 

  Gunther

  Member

  October 18, 2018 at 7:08 pm

  I’m no expert by any means
  but African American hair often needs a lot of conditioning

  For rinse off shampoos, silicones and polyquaterniums come to mind, along milder or lower levels of surfactants, to reduce drying.
  For leave on products you can add cationics, fatty alcohols
  and emulsify a bit of coconut oil so it “replenishes” oils when left on hair.

  You can check out the websites @chemicalmatt suggested
  and compare “ethnic” to plain formulations side by side to see how they differ.

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