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Hair Mask with gumlike / slimy texture
Hallo everybody! Actually this is my first post here. I’m a professional formulation chemist and I currently work in creating a hair mask.
In this project, the company decided to actually imitate a very known benchmark. The benchmark is a hydrating mask with a texture that is giving you the impression that something went wrong in its stability.Texture can be defined as gumlike / slimy and it reminds me the way xanthan gum or a cellulose derivative behaves when it is dissolved in an aqueous system. However the list of ingredients in the benchmark excludes xanthan gum or a similar cellulose. I don’t think the ingredient list is very important cause this particular benchmark is one of four masks that this company distributes and the other three with different ingredient lists have the same texture.
However, here is the ingredient list in the hydrating mask : aqua, cetearyl alcohol, dimethicone, canola oil, parfume, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetyl alcohol, argan oil, shea butter, hydrolyzed vegetable protein PG-propyl silanetriol, PEG-60 almond glycerides, acetamide MEA, butylene glycol, steareth-2 and afterwards the preservative and allergens.
All the carried out experiments using cetearyl-cetyl alcohol for creating a robust consistency along with the rest necessary ingredients resulted in a - let’s say- conventional texture which is steady, rich and pleasant, but it is away from the gum-like texture mentioned above. Can anyone share a thought? I’ve consulted a colleague which has a formulation experience of about 20 years in cosmetics and mentioned that something is actually intervening with the micellar system.
Although this sounds intriguing, in my opinion this could get very challenging when producing an industrial batch and I can’t really imagine a R&D department proposing an ingredient to be used in such a way. However, cosmetic formulation is an open-minded field with a lot of surprises!
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7 Replies
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Chris, I would not expect a haircare product with that ingredient base to be slimy at all, so your results are not surprising. There is another additive in that product that is not listed (Pectin maybe?) Perhaps your client can live with something that may be, in my opinion, better, such as what you obtained? Who needs gummy anyway? An aside: whomever formulated that mask sure liked Croda.
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@chemicalmatt. Thank you for your comment. I definitely agree with you, however ladies tend to believe that a slimy texture is due to high end components. Yes Croda have put a finger in it for sure. Keravis PE for example is all over in these products. The funny thing is that i started another set of experimentation with cmc (!!!) and I probably matched it, but the first freeze/ thaw cycles are kind of dissapointing. However, the benchmark failed these cycles also.
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I think it’s not the texture what ladies actually like but the feel after the product is washed off. As if there’s a ‘conditioning’ residue on hair. Have you tried cetrimonium chloride?
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@ngarayeva001, texture and fragrance are the first things ladies notice. All these textures have upon the hair the same effect. Yes I use cetrimonium chloride and also behentrimonium chloride. I strongly think that this peculiar texture is due to a component omitted from the ingredient list, because the ingredients these benchmarks have in their labels can lead easily to a very quick knock-out. But the reproduction of the texture is however elusive.
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it probably is a cellulose derivative that hasn’t been declared on the label
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Reduce oil to 0.5%. You might get the texture you want this way. I have a reverse problem. I don’t want slimy texture.
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Dear Chris,please try polyquaternium-10.
0,5% would be enough I think. Introduce it to the water phase while stirring and start heating. It will swell when you reach 45-50C.
I hope this will provide the texture you are looking for.
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