Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating Cetrimonium chloride in shampoo

  • Cetrimonium chloride in shampoo

    Posted by Anna_Maria on September 7, 2022 at 8:07 am

    Hello!
    Do you think Cetrimonium chloride is recommended to use in a 2 in 1 shampoo ? along with amodimethicone.
    Thank you!!

    ketchito replied 2 years, 2 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Abdullah

    Member
    September 7, 2022 at 10:14 am

    No it is not recommended. But if it is part of a blend that you have to use then you dont have another option but using it.

  • ketchito

    Member
    September 7, 2022 at 11:11 am

    @Anna_Maria There’s a small window of opportunity of including CTC in a shampoo, even in the presence of SLES, bute you need to also use an amphoteric surfactant and at definite ratios. If you want to add CTC, I recommend you to test first your surfactant mixtures only, so you can see of there’s precipitation, or you manage to get a gel phase (the latter is what you want). Once you did that, you can start adding other ingredients.

  • Anna_Maria

    Member
    September 8, 2022 at 5:00 am

    Thank you for your answer. But is there any specific reason for that ?

  • ketchito

    Member
    September 8, 2022 at 11:31 am

    @Anna_Maria cationic surfactants (CTC) and anionic surfactants (SLES) generally react with each other at most concentrations, forming a precipitate that doesn’t work neither as a detergent nor as a conditioning agent. There are specific ratios (high excess of anionic compared to cationic), structures (amidoamines don’t react so readily with anionics) and addition of co-surfactants (amphoterics for instance) that prevent precipitation and even show a synergistic effect when combined. But that would take a lot of trial and error without the required knowledge. You could search for some literature about this topic before, or simply avoid adding cationic surfactants in shampoos.

Log in to reply.

Chemists Corner