Lamellar structure thins shampoo but thickens cream

zeteinzetein Member
in General
Too much salt makes worm-like micelles go lamellar, and shampoo becomes thin.
However, in creams/emulsions the same structure thickens the system.
Why two different results?

Comments

  • AbdullahAbdullah Member
    "Too much salt makes worm-like micelles go lamellar, and shampoo becomes thin."do  you have the source?
  • jemolianjemolian Member
    edited June 7
    @Abdullah seems like it's a description for salt thickening and the salt curve. 
  • ketchitoketchito Member
    @zetein After the big peak in viscosity for SLES, what you see is that the giant worm-like micelles are being broken into smaller rods, that's why the decrease in viscosity. Not sure though if they can further be reformed into a lamellar conformation, since the packing of anionics is not precisely convenient for such ordered and tight structure. 
  • PerryPerry Administrator, Professional Chemist
    Colloidal solutions are complicated systems which can take on most any of the defined conformations. You would have to do a phase diagram to determine what the prevalent structures are of any given system. Each system is different

    Basically, it's complicated. 
    Learn to formulate cosmetics
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