Oily gel for hair

I used sucragel to make a face wash (74% almond oil, 25% sucragel, 1% preservative fragrance and vit E). What I noticed the product is a bit sticky. It’s ok for an emulsifying face wash, but I am not sure that you would want that effect on your hair.

Vegetable oils will tend to make hair look weighed down and attract dirt. Better would be a silicone like Dimethicone or Cyclomethicone.

I have just checked sucragel’s technical specifications (I only used it to make an oily gel with vegetable oils), it says that  it can
gel almost any non polar ingredient such as vegetable oils,
esters, and silicones. So, it is definitely worth trying to make a small batch and see how it works. @Fekher let us know if it works. It sounds as an interesting idea.

It’s a common beliefs that oils are better for hair, but our hair (above the skin surface) are actually dead. So all you do to them is a ‘cosmetic’ effect. And silicones are much better for a visual effect of ‘healthy hair’. I was working on a hair conditioner formula recently, and my first approach was to add 10% of argain oil in it (because oil is good for hair?). I was advised to reduce it to 0.5%. The product is much better now! I understand if oil is cheaper and thus more feasible for you, however as Perry mentioned, it’s going to be heavy. And I will add as per my experience with sucragel,  it’s also sticky.

@ngarayeva001 how does sucragel wash off? Does it leave a residue?

@Christopher

Yes, a Sucragel gelled oil will wash off quite easily in water.  In fact, that’s one of the interesting attributes of Sucragel Gelled Oil formulations … as soon as they come into contact with water, the gel immediately “milks” and becomes water-thin and rinses off quite readily.

@Fekher

What you are proposing would be no more sticky than a pomade, but it may not have much hold/styling power and, as noted, would probably weigh-down the hair

@MarkBroussard Thank you Mark. I’ve been very interested in this material but have been hesitant because of fear of reduced rinse-off capabilities.

@Christopher, Mark summarised it well, I will only add that it leaves skin moisturized unlike surfactant based cleansers (I know all emulsifiers are surfactants, I mean detergent type surfactants). It will not dissolve waterproof make up. Also, if you add ground walnut shells (pumice, other abrasives) you will make a pretty nice scrub.

https://youtu.be/5gEi1892mOI

@Fekher

There’s only one way to know … make a batch and have a test panel use it to see if performs the way you want it to.  I suspect “a little dab will do you” to quote an old hair products commercial. 

@Fekher there’s a scientific study where they show that coconut oil absorption is incomplete even after leaving hair tresses undisturbed for 24 hours (undisturbed is not attainable in real life)

So, unless your customers are willing to sleep with a plastic sheet on their pillow or something to avoid staining it,
the best option is likely going to be a leave-on spray with some oils in it. 

Sprays need to be water-thin for them to flow trough the nozzle
and oils are, well, oily as previously mentioned
so the main solvent should NOT be oil, for practicality.

You can easily emulsify oils in a water based spray, easily done.
When I have more time I will keep on developing an oil containing spray where the main solvent is cyclomethicone instead of water ( I got a feeling that C12-C15 alkylbenzoate can help).

It looks like Malassezia hydrolyzes (breaks down) triglycerides to their fatty acids
but not all people (except those that suffer from dandruff) react badly to fatty acids.
In fact stearic acid and other fatty acids are used in creams, and most people do fine with them.

So the big problem isn’t Malassezia (or any other fungus), rather the exaggerate adverse reaction to free fatty acids.

So it looks like those suffering from Seborrheic Dermatitis should avoid all oils (not just olive oil) and all creams with fatty acids.

To complicate things even more, some (roughly half) of SD sufferers, improve with oils, albeit the other half do even worse.

https://morganwlfc.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/malassezia-theory-the-oil-paradox-and-how-asthma-could-improve-our-understanding-of-seborrheic-dermatitis/

Just a reminder that this is a science based forum. Please stick to scientific topics & refrain from religion and politics. You can do that on Facebook or Twitter, but not here.

thanks!
Perry, 44

*Some of the comments in the discussion above were edited or deleted.