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I’d follow what big brands are doing. They invest the most money on research and have the best scientist in the industry. And they are of course very evidence-based, so if they don’t rely on ingredients like frankincence is for a reason. I’ve just checked and the only studies I found about this material are mostly in vitro or mice studies. The human studies I found have been published in low impact factor journals, with many flags about their methodology.

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Thanks for sharing @philgeis. I didn’t know Dr. Steinberg was a co-founder. Do you know whay they are ending that program?

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That looks like a like conditioning leave-on. If you want a more detangling one, you might try an emulsion like It’s a 10, which is one of the best in the market: https://incidecoder.com/products/its-a-10-silk-express-miracle-silk-leave-in-spray

incidecoder.com

It's a 10 Silk Express Miracle Silk Leave-in Spray ingredients (Explained)

It's a 10 Silk Express Miracle Silk Leave-in Spray ingredients explained: Aqua (Water/Eau), Propylene Glycol, Cetearyl Alcohol, Cyclopentasiloxane, Behentrimonium Chloride, Quaternium-80, Fragrance/Parfum, Panthenol, Hydrolyzed Silk, Morus Alba Leaf Extract, Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Oil, Linalool, Benzyl Salicylate, Limonene, Hydroxycitronellal, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, … Continue reading

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Olivem 3000 is not a powerful emulsifier (it has a low degree of ethoxylation). Also, propanediol might be impairing emulsion formation, so either remove it (and add your gum with high mixing directly to the water phase), or reduce it to 1%. You can check big brand’s to see what common emulsifiers they use.

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Which equipmente are you using to measure conditioning in your lab? Cationic polymers are kings to deliver softeness and frizz control in shampoos due to their coacervation properties. This has been tested many times. Cationic surfactants can also be a good addition if you’re able to form a gel phase and not a precipitate (in case you’re using an anionic surfactant). Emollients like peg-7 glyceryl cocoate could deliver some conditioning mainly in the presence of a coacervate that help them deposit. Lauryl glucoside is a surfactant, so I wouldn’t expect to compare to the conditioning agents in objective tests.

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Ascorbic acid is heat sensitive, so that might be the cause of your gass formation during stability. Not sure high T conditions are adequate for a heat sensitive material, buy you could try to prevent that with stabilizers, there are many patents attempting to stabilize ascorbic acid.

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Are you using Glyceryl stearate? Or Glyceryl stearate SE?

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Questions 1 and 2 have to do with pH. Your first solution that is only cloudy might also precipitate over time, or if you increase the pH to the level of your second solution. Keep in mind that the interaction of hard water ions and anionic surfactants is electrostatic, and thus has to do with pH.

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Hard to know if your just call them surfactants. If your powder surfactant is SCI and that’s what’s causing the issue, then adding CAPB can help melt and incorporate SCI better. You just need to find the best ratio so it doesn’t get too soft.

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If something is water soluble, unless it’s a big molecule (like a water soluble polymer which could actualy form a coacervate and deposit on hair), it will remain solvated by water and just remain like that (and of course, go down the drain) rather than interacting with your hair. If your product is a leave on, the story can be different.

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I asume both proteins are hydrolyzed. Can you check what’s the solvent? If they are both 1% solutions, I’d reduce them up to 0.1%.

Phenoxyethanol can also cause a viscosity drop, just in case.

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Cetearyl alcohol, stearic acid and BTMS could be impairing your SH performance. Try one sample without them.

And just as a reference, silicones are not biodegradable, but they do degrade (just not because of bugs).

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Carbopol 940 is equivalent to the 980, but it has some residual benzene that was used as solvent.

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I believe many of the ingredients in your formula are not necessary.

Imorganic salts (like NaCl) can actually increase viscosity in some emulsions, but for now, I’d skip it.

For hyperpigmentation in your formula, niacinamide is one of the few that have some solid studies behind, and perhaps tranexamic acid.

Glycols in high amounts would for sure impair your emulsion. I’d add not more than 4% of combined gllycols.

Now, you only have Stearic acid as your sole emulsifier, and not at a pH in which it’s all neutralized. If you don’t want to have a higher pH, then switch emulsifiers. You can use Arlacel 165 (or similar) at 4-5%, remove your Glyceryl stearate and increase your fatty alcohol also around 4%.

I never liked to use HEC in emulsions, but if you want a starch, use Hydroxypropyl starch phosphate, which will also help stabilize the emulsion.

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The co-surfactant for sure impacts coacervate deposition and hence, oils deposition (like silicones). Now, without quantifying silicone deposition, it’s not possible to know if there was an improvement with one or the other material. Since CAPB improves the detergency of anionic surfactants more than Cocamide MEA, what your panel might be experiencing is a more pleasant sensation from the formula with Cocamide MEA due to less detergency.

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Unfortunately instead of cationic proteins, you have cationic peptides and other smaller molecules. I wouldn’t use them in a shampoo since few of those peptides have film forming capacity. I’d use them more (not cationic but normal hydrolyzed proteins) in a mask or leave-on product to allow difusion.

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Keep in mind that ChatGPT only has access to abstracts or open access journals, while leaving many out, so there’s some bias (access bias?) to its answer. I’d feel more comfortable checking EU opinión on the topic, or CIR review.

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Usually that yellowish color comes from some residual amines. You can try lowering the pH (make few samples decreasing the pH and compare them to see if it improves the color). Also, usually adding a dye solves the issue (I wouldn’t be so worried to have a yellowish tone before adding a dye).

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You can search in any of these books:

- Handook of cosmetic science and technology

- Handbook of green chemicals

- Handbook of cosmoceuticals and excipients

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You first mix, and then you reduce the pH, else, GHPTC would gel and won’t let you mix well.

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Check the pH of both solutions.

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Could you try with CAPB instead of Coco-betaine?

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This is also a wild guess (too wild maybe), but perhaps PQ-37 because it can attract water, it making you retain more water than usual and tha’s the smoke you see when blow drying. That water-holding capacity might also have something to do with your curls. And the high thickness, a mixture of high amounts of fatty alcohols and PQ-37. Maybe you could reduce both PQ-37 and cetearyl alcohol…like 0.35% of PQ-37 and 3.5% of Cetearyl alcohol ?

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Hi @paprik! I believe that’s your coco sulfate (kraft point issues). Would you do some test replacing it with SLES?

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It already comes in Arlacel 165.