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Experiments in the workshop: Leave in conditioner with kera straightening and lycopene bioferment I love leave in conditioners! They offer so much wonderful awesomeness to your hair with low levels of ingredients.

Where to start making a leave in conditioner? As usual, think about your goals? What do you want in this product? That answer will help you move in the right direction!

I have oily, frizzy hair that tangles easily, so I want something that will offer conditioning, de-frizzing, and detangling. The first ingredient I'll use is Incroquat BTMS-50 at 2%. I don't need much as I'm not planning on adding any oils to the mix, but I need enough to emulsify the silicones. I'm using dimethicone and cyclomethicone 2% each because I want something to help de-frizz my hair and keep it smoother looking. I want to add cetrimonium chloride at 2% because I want something to help with detangling my hair. Incroquat BTMS-50 is a good detangler on its own, but I need just a little more as I really do tangle quite a lot!

Those are the basic ingredients I want to include in this recipe, but there are more things I can add to the mix for other reasons. For instance, I like to add panthenol to anything for my hair as it offers great hydrating without too much frizzing. It also makes our hair more pliable and makes it look thicker.

I'm including volumizing complex at 3%, an ingredient which I received from the Formulator Sample Shop. The INCI is Water & Rice Amino Acids & Lactobacillus/Date Fruit Ferment Extract & Polyperfluoroethoxymethoxy Difluorethyl PEG Phosphate. The rice amino acids will work like hydrolyzed proteins as film formers and moisturizers with the smaller form being able to penetrate our hair shaft, and the polyperfluoroethoxymethoxy difluorethyl PEG phosphate "is said to bind to the hair, giving it bounce and volume". It's recommended for curly and wavy hair. If you don't have this, leave it out and increase the water amount by 3%. I'm including a cationic polymer - in this case, polyquat 44 at 0.5% - to offer a titch more conditioning without the weight of the cetyl alcohol we find in the Incroquat BTMS-50. You can use any cationic polymer here, including polyquat 7 (use at 2% in the heated water phase) or honeyquat (use at 2% in the cool down phase).

I've been telling you all about lycopene bioferment this week, so I should include it in this product. It works as an anti-oxidant that might protect the disulphide bonds in our hair from breakage. Seems like a good application to me! I'm adding it at 3% in the cool down phase. (I'm not sure if it is heat sensitive, so I'm putting it in the cool down phase to be on the safe side!)

I've also been telling you about kera straightening and curl, so I'm including that at 2% in the cool down phase, again because I'm not sure if it is heat sensitive or not.

80% distilled water

2% Incroquat BTMS-50

2% cyclomethicone
3% volumizing complex
2% kera straightening & curl
3% lycopene bioferment

Use the general instructions for making a conditioner. I recommend you put this in a spray bottle for ease of application!

What do you do if you don't have these ingredients? Figure out what the most important ingredients are in this product. For a leave in conditioner, you definitely need the conditioning agent - that would be the Incroquat BTMS-50 - with water and preservative. If you are interested in reducing frizz, then you want to include the dimethicone and cyclomethicone. If you don't want to use silicones, then use a silicone alternative or an oil, although they really won't work as well as dimethicone, unfortunately. If you are interesting in moisturizing with more oils, you could add up to 4% in the heated oil phase in this recipe if you aren't using the silicones. If you are using the silicones, you could add another 2% oils in the heated oil phase to this product.

For every ingredient you leave out, add a similar amount to the distilled water. If you leave out the volumizing complex at 3%, add 3% to the water amount. This is so the recipe always adds up to 100%.
Posted by Susan Barclay-Nichols at 5:30:00 AM 
For my hair kera straightening and curl works best when the emulsifier is nonionic. I straighten my hair several times a week and I just love this ingredient!

I use the lycopene bioferment in conditioners, detanglers and shampoos. It can cloud a shampoo if the pH is low. I really like combining this with the pea peptide.

I wasn't that fond of kera and lycopene together for a leave-in conditioner since I straighten my hair. I find that the lycopene bioferment encourages curls. Not that curls are bad...I like them...but when I want my hair straight, I want it really straight.

January 1, 2015 at 5:02 PM Fred Castle said...

Just wondering why is the cetrimonium chloride needed? http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredient/701258/CETRIMONIUM_CHLORIDE/

January 6, 2015 at 10:07 AM 
Hi Fred! If you click on the link for cetrimonium chloride for more information on this ingredient. Thank you for the link. I don't consider EWG a reputable source due to their use of outdated studies and huge data gaps.

January 6, 2015 at 10:50 AM