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Hair Conditioner Formula review. Need some input for tweaking.
I’ve been working on a hair conditioner bar and I would greatly appreciate some formula input. After the 1st three uses my hair looked the best it has ever looked before. Lots of bounce, volume, super shiny and incredibly silky. My super long hair that normally tangles really fast stayed completely tangle free between washes without even brushing it. Lots of nice slip and beautiful wet/dry combability.
Now after using for the 4th time it still looks really shiny, voluminous and pretty nice but the hair under the nape is a little dry and starting to get a little tangled.
Any advice? Should I increase the btms a little or the Cassia Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride? Take out or add any ingredients? Any other formula critiques you can think of after seeing it?
My goal is to provide adequate conditioning without weighing down hair so it has a nice volume.
The 2nd issue is the bar needs to be just a tad harder and when it gets towards the end of being used up it falls apart. The bar has a really nice slip to it now, but I’m afraid if I add any more stearic acid it will be draggy and I would rather not take out any of the liquid ingredients unless they’re part of the drying/tangling problem after 4 uses.
Thank you so much for taking a look. Looking back at old posts on here has been so helpful. Looking forward to reading your feedback.
Solid Conditioner Bar Formula:
Cetearyl alcohol 30.4%
Btms 50 42%
Stearic Acid 8.3%
Coconut Oil 3.7%
Glyceryl Oleate 4%
Polyquaternium 7 3%
Cassia Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride 1%
Dimethicone dm6 1%
Cyclopentasiloxane 2.2%
Hydrogenated Ethylhexyl Olivate, Hydrogenated Olive Oil Unsaponifiables 1%
Fragrance .8%
Colorant- Titanium dioxide and iron oxide .6%
Optiphen plus (Phenoxyethanol (and) Caprylyl Glycol (and) Sorbic Acid) 1%
Hydrolyzed Rice protein 1%
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7 Replies
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BTMS - Cationic ; Stearic acid - Anionic
You should not mix those two together. Remove Stearic acid, increase Cetearyl alcohol and see.Not sure how much you heat your formula and when you add Cyclopentasiloxane but it is volatile, so .. I guess no point to have it in it?
(Perhaps if something “survives” the heat it might get trapped in the bar and work .. not sure. You will probably have batch to batch changes) -
Paprik said:BTMS - Cationic ; Stearic acid - Anionic
You should not mix those two together. Remove Stearic acid, increase Cetearyl alcohol and see.Not sure how much you heat your formula and when you add Cyclopentasiloxane but it is volatile, so .. I guess no point to have it in it?
(Perhaps if something “survives” the heat it might get trapped in the bar and work .. not sure. You will probably have batch to batch changes)Perfect, thank you for the great advice! Will take out stearic acid. I heat melted ingredients to 160 f and then remove from heat, add all other ingredients minus the Cyclopentasiloxane and then add that right at the very end. I’ll try it with and without to see if it’s making a difference. Thanks!
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It’s not a great formula but good start.Steric acid should never be used for conditioning bars. The cationic emulsifiers already harden the bar enough. I guess that’s why you may have added the other unnecessary ingredients, to soften it and make it glide….Remove titanium dioxide, even small quantities. Imagine what happens when you accidentally get a drop of sunscreen in your hair, it gets very tacky..8% fragrance is a lot for some people so you can reduce that or use essential oils.I’m a beginner but I would suggest simplifying. Try making a small batch with just the lipids, emulsifiers, fragrance and then add other ingredients in. Your current formula seems to be more complex than necessary. An easy way to do this is to make a bar for a specific hair type and make sure each ingredient does double or triple duty so there’s no redundancy.
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@kellymila If you need to control de hardness of your formula, just play around either with the fatty alcohol or the btms.
The loss of conditioning over time might be due to uneven mixing. Perhaps when the product is cooling down, part of the oils migrate to the top (especially the cyclomethicone you add at the end), and don’t evenly mix throught the whole product. I’d keep on mixing till the mixture starts setting, and try to use ingredients that I don’t need to add during the cool down (except for the fragrance and preservatives).
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@Paprik how stearic acid is anionic? Actually it is fatty acid with carboxylic acid function without negative charge.
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Fekher said:@Paprik how stearic acid is anionic? Actually it is fatty acid with carboxylic acid function without negative charge.
carboxylic acid functional its acid or anionic, its wil protonated at base pH
same thing with btms with amine functional group will positively charge at low pH ( cationic)cationic and anionic surfactant will form salt and destabilized you product.
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@ariepfadli except you need a base for it to become deprotonated, which this formula doesn’t have, and stearic acid is not soluble enough in water for water to act as a base
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