Personal hygiene regimes have become an important part of our everyday lives and this presents new challenges for the formulation of personal care products. Consumers increasingly demand not only excellent cleansing performance but also a continuing pleasing effect after rinse-off application.
Furthermore, the products must meet the expectations created by increasing awareness of environmental concerns and be as near to natural as possible. The mildness of the formulations is essential and amino acid-based surfactants such as the salts of cocoyl glutamate and lauroyl sarcosinate have an increasingly important role to play in this developing market (Fig 1).
Both substances consist of the joining of a naturally occurring amino acid as a hydrophilic head to a long chain fatty acid as the hydrophobic tail. The ionic structure of the amino acid part has a high affinity to proteinaceous surfaces such as skin and hair. Studies have shown that these amino acid-based surfactants form a protective monolayer on the skin and this prevents drying out of the skin. This protective monolayer also keeps more aggressive primary or secondary surfactants that may be present away from the surface of the skin.1
A range of comparative testing of common anionic surfactants such as sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulphate (SLES) against N-acyl glutamates and N-acyl sarcosinates show clear advantages of amino acid based surfactants in performance.
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