Home Cosmetic Science Talk Formulating How much does adding nonionic surf impact shampoo mildness? / PH drift

  • How much does adding nonionic surf impact shampoo mildness? / PH drift

    Posted by Climatechangeanxiety on March 31, 2021 at 12:35 pm

    I’m experimenting w/ the current liquid shampoo formulation for dry hair and am noticing that the next day, my foam diminishes significantly.  :(

    From all i’ve researched on this board, I suspect it’s due to a drift in PH. I won’t be able to accurately test my PH for a couple days (waiting to get distilled water during weekend) but:

    #1 How likely is PH drift being caused by decyl glucoside? This is my main suspect
    #2 if I remove decyl glucoside, theoretically how much will this impact mildness of the total formulation? Yes, I can test it out but I took waaaayy too many showers recently and my face/hair are dried out + benzyl alcohol hurts my face. I need a break from being my own guinea pig..F
    rom all i’ve researched, nonionic surfs encourage micelles to change into rod-shapes which means more mild on skin/less aggressive penetration vs. the small micelle spheres of anionic surfs.

    Liquid shampoo:

    SCI  5% (ASM 95)
    Coco Betaine 4%. (ASM 50)
    Decyl Glucoside 2%. (ASM. 50ish)
    Cationic Guar Gum 0.7%
    Guar Gum 0.3%
    Xanthan Gum. 0.3%
    Benzyl Alcohol + DHA 0.7%
    Essential Oil few drops

    TIA - this board is da bomb

    imported_stefarama replied 3 years, 1 month ago 5 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Abdullah

    Member
    April 1, 2021 at 1:17 am

    Decyl Glucoside is mild but it makes the Skin dry.
    Reduce cationic guar to <%0.3

    Increase your preservative to %1.

    You need more anionic surfactant.

    Is your sci completely solubilized in water?

  • MarkBroussard

    Member
    April 1, 2021 at 2:17 am

    It would appear that you simply don’t have enough total surfactant in your concoction to develop a nice foam.  Try doubling up on each of the surfactants you are using.

  • DRBOB@VERDIENT.BIZ

    Member
    April 1, 2021 at 4:39 pm

    Alternatively you can add a foam/lather booster ie 1-2% active amine oxide

  • imported_stefarama

    Member
    April 1, 2021 at 9:33 pm

    might I suggest a human hair mannequin head for testing the shampoo? I do this all the time until I get to a point where I like it and am ready to use on humans. :)

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