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Making my own hair styling clay
Hi everyone, I am trying to make my own hair styling clay, because a lot of commercial products have given me terrible acne. My goal is to create a hair styling clay with ingredients that won’t break my skin out, that has a matte finish and strong hold. I am not a chemist or have any background in this, so forgive me if I sound amateurish.
I am roughly basing the ingredients I am using off of a commercial product which I really liked:
- Water: 68%
- Polysorbate 80: 1%
- PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil: 1%
- Rice Bran Wax: 18%
- Kaolin Clay: 8%
- Bentonite Clay: 4%
What I did was combine the water, polysorbate-80, peg-40 and left it alone for 20 minutes. I then added in the rice bran wax and heated it over low heat until the solution became a milky white color (this took about 30 minutes on the stovetop). At that point, I took it off the heat and combined the two clays and mixed it by hand. I left it to cool yesterday, and now it’s a very creamy consistency with quite a bit of grit in it. I have tried to style my hair with it, but it doesn’t have a strong hold and is very gritty when trying to emulsify it in my hands.
I am wondering if anyone here has ever made their own hair styling products before? Any feedback on what I’ve done or the ingredients themselves is greatly appreciated! I plan to try to make several more batches with varying ratios, but if this continues to be unsuccessful, I’ll just cut my long hair lol. Thank you!
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2 Replies
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might help improve the consistency and hold of your product while ensuring it remains gentle on your skin:
Adjusting Ratios and Process-
Ensure that the rice bran wax is fully melted and well-incorporated before adding the clays. A double boiler might provide more consistent heat and prevent overheating.
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Sift the kaolin and bentonite clays before adding them to the mixture. This can help reduce the grit and improve the smoothness of your final product.
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Adding a small amount of a thickener like xanthan gum or a stabilizer like stearic acid can help improve the texture and stability of your product.
I hope it can help you 🙂
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Hi SoapHouse,
Thank you for your reply!! I didn’t get any replies and I honestly thought I did something wrong when I posted my message, lol. I will get back to what you said now:
1. Do you think double boiling the rice bran wax by itself might be more efficient? As of right now, I am putting the rice bran wax, combined with the water/polysorbate-80/PEG-40 hydrogenated castor oil, on the double boiler. The wax takes a LONG time to melt (like 30+ minutes), and even then I’m not 100% sure it’s fully incorporated… Wondering if trying to melt the wax with the other ingredients is messing me up.
2. Noted, will do that from now on!
3. I think I can buy xanthan gum easily from Whole Foods nearby. Do you have any percentage recommendation for what to experiment adding it in? Also, would this be added with the clay in the cooling phase? So far, my two attempts have been very watery and gritty.
Sorry for all of the questions- I’ve never done any of this before and just want a good product to hold my floppy Asian hair up, lol. Thank you again for your help!
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