Conditioning performance of cassia polymers on Asian hair

Cassia has been used for over one thousand years in ayurvedic and Chinese medicine. When cassia gum is quaternised, it can be used by formulators as a deposition polymer to deposit silicone and/or other conditioning agents to improve the performance of a shampoo. Two novel cationic cassia polymers, which are supplied exclusively by Lubrizol Advanced Materials Inc, Noveon Consumer Specialties, have unique advantages due to their specific galactomannan molecular structure. Cassia gum when quaternised, is a highly charged cationic polymer that efficiently deposits silicone. With a higher cationic charge density compared to conventional commercial benchmarks, the new cationic cassia polymers can generate high levels of coacervate when compared to many polyquaternium-10 products and cationic guar. Consequently, they provide distinctive sensory feel, improved small particle size (sps) silicone deposition and enhanced hair texture when applied in a conditioning shampoo. In an effort to address market needs, the Noveon Consumer Specialties team from Lubrizol modified the cassia gum and developed two different grades of cationic galactomannans with different charge densities: Sensomer CT-400 polymer (3.0 meq/g), now referred to as ‘the first cationic cassia polymer’ and Sensomer CT-250 polymer (1.9 meq/g) which is now referred to as ‘the second cationic cassia polymer’. The INCI name for both products is Cassia Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride. Different cationic charge density on the polymers leads to different coacervation formation between the cationic polymer and anionic surfactants, which provides silicone deposition and ultimately different conditioning effects on hair. These two cassia polymers in conjunction and silicone were applied to a two-in-one conditioning shampoo formulation and blind sensory evaluations were conducted to explore the conditioning performance on Chinese hair. The sensory evaluations were conducted with both half-head salon evaluation and hair tress performance evaluations. The detailed methodologies are introduced in the following section.

 Test methods

Half-head salon sensory test