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Does increasing the size of micelles increase the cleaning power of cleansers?
Posted by Abdullah on May 9, 2022 at 4:19 pmNACL increases the size of micelles in cleansing products. Does this increase in size mean it will solubilize and remove more soil compared to smaller micelle size?
For example
If we compare a and b.
A has active surfactants
6% SLES1% CAPB
1% APGB has active surfactants
6% SLES
1% CAPB
1% APG3% NACLDoes it mean formula B will have more cleaning power because of bigger micceles by NACL?
Abdullah replied 2 years, 9 months ago 3 Members · 8 Replies -
8 Replies
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No. Salt only changes the stock solution, not the actual product (which is diluted with lots of water). Also, micelle size does not correlate with cleaning power.
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The stock solution would be what’s in your bottle, the ‘actual cleansing product’ is shampoo and water on your hair
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@Abdullah I know the question is for @Pharma, but I couldn’t resist to comment. Things that make micelles grow when you’re initially using an anionic surfactant are anything that can give some space between the ionic heads, so they are not too close to each other and repel. For that, you can add either amphoteric or non ionic surfactants, which alternate with the anionic to give mixed micelles. Another wat to do that is by adding small alcohols which work as spacers. Salt can also make micelles grow by providing counter ions to reduce the negative charge of anionic surfactants.
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@Abdullah Usually, mixing two anionics has no benefit over mixing one of them with a zwitterionic or non ionic. The exception is the mixture of SLES and LABS, where you have a spacer in the SLES molecule (the ethoxylated part), wich makes the LABSA interact differently with it. At the end, it depends on the molecular structure.
Small alcohols (compared to fatty alcohols) can be pentanol or hexanol.
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ketchito said:@Abdullah Usually, mixing two anionics has no benefit over mixing one of them with a zwitterionic or non ionic. The exception is the mixture of SLES and LABS, where you have a spacer in the SLES molecule (the ethoxylated part), wich makes the LABSA interact differently with it. At the end, it depends on the molecular structure.
Small alcohols (compared to fatty alcohols) can be pentanol or hexanol.
Thanks
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