TONY O’LENICK, THOMAS O’LENICK, ANDREW O’LENICK
SurfaTech Corporation, Lawrenceville, USA

Abstract

The process of conditioning is an important part of the hair care regimen. In order to provide adequate hair conditioning, several new technologies have been developed. Recently, the focus of these technologies has been to provide better hair conditioning and reducing the carbon footprint of the formulation. In short, the quest for a natural, stable conditioning formulation platform for hair has been a long and difficult development. This work focuses on the incorporation of a series of naturally based citrate polyesters into a hair conditioning formulation. These formulations will be studied under the microscope and tested for wet and dry combing. This work has shown that the formulations provide superior conditioning when compared to sodium lauryl sulfate and can be incorporated into hair formulations to produce a natural hair care product.

Hair conditioners have become part of the daily cleansing routine to improve the softness, appearance, and manageability of hair. Hair conditioners function by reducing the friction between strands of hair, thus allowing smoother brushing, or combing, and ensuring that the hair retains moisture. Without the reduction of friction between hair, when the hair is combed or brushed, the force might cause damage to the scalp (1). The technology used to make the effectiveness of the conditioner has changed a lot over the years. The earliest form of hair conditioning was by applying natural oils to the hair (2).

NATURAL OILS
For centuries, natural oils have been used to condition human hair (3). Different formulations made use of naturally occurring oils like olive and argan oil to provide conditioning. In fact, the reason for choosing a particular type of oil was not fully understood until Lim et al. disclosed: unlike our skin, our hair has no way to keep itself moisturized. Even though hair follicles produce sebum, a natural oil needed to be applied to the hair to travel down the hair shaft and keep hair healthy and lubricated (4). Unfort ...