Minimalist ingredients for today’s hair care routine

The past year has left consumers wanting to simplify their beauty routine. Many are looking for vegan and more sustainable hair care products. What better way of doing this than providing consumers with formulations that use fewer ingredients, are vegan, and sustainable while delivering desired benefits.

Most hair conditioners and masks contain emulsifiers, oils, silicones as ingredients. Formulators typically have to heat these ingredients in order to use them in their formulations. This process requires time and energy. The trend of “less is more” is becoming a requirement. By reducing the number of ingredients in a hair care formulation, consumer companies can save money on the cost of raw materials, time and energy by using cold process formulations. Companies can pass on these savings to the end-users, a win-win in today’s climate

Many personal care chemists are familiar with rheology modifiers based on an inverse emulsion process of polymerization. The rheology modifiers are used throughout the personal care industry. Skin care applications traditionally use anionic inverse emulsions while hair care applications use cationic ones. These products allow formulators to develop formulations that reduce the number of ingredients because they already contain the polymer, an emollient, and an inverting surfactant. Each of these components are valued by the formulators. The water-soluble polymer through the charge density delivers viscosity, sensory effect and compatibility with surfactants. The emollient contributes to the sensory benefits of your final formulation. The inverse emulsion polymers are typically water in oil emulsion which release the polymer when diluted in a water-based formulation. These inverse emulsions are very stable.