Issue 42 — July 2007

Issue 42
Category		Title		Authors
Newsletter		Lamesoft Care – high performance micronized lipids for truly sensory perception		Sybille Cornelsen, Claus Nieendick, Hans-Martin Haake and Ulrich Issberner

Introduction

Besides cleansing effects, modern consumers demand additional properties from today’s shampoos. They also want perceivable conditioning and repair effects. “Gloss enhancement” and “Anti-hair breakage” are some claims for these new basic demands. Of course high performance is also especially important in the conditioning shampoo segment. Current “2 in 1” shampoo concepts demand strong conditioning and extra care effects, combined with exceptional mildness. But many shampoos still contain silicone oils to achieve this. Lamesoft Care, the conditioning concept by global specialty chemicals supplier Cognis, is the mild alternative, matching consumers’ expectations and offering identical performance without the use of silicones. In addition, when used in body wash, the product corresponds to the growing trend of intensive skin care by enhancing the sensory properties.

Product description

Complete caring systems for hair and body can be formulated with a combination of waxes, emollients and cationic polymers. Lamesoft Care is a wax dispersion, with a unique, new chemistry for hair and body. It is based on micronized ether-structures including selected performance waxes and emollients. The free-flowing, medium viscous, pumpable wax dispersion has the INCI:

PEG-4 Distearyl Ether (and) Sodium Laureth Sulfate (and) Distearyl Ether (and) Dicaprylyl Ether.

Following the trend towards more white but elegant, luxury-pearl effect, Lamesoft Care gives an attractive marble, dense-white appearance in the final formulation. Due to its ether-based chemistry, Lamesoft Care is suitable for applications covering a wider pH range (from acidic to strongly alkaline) vs. commonly available ester based wax dispersions.

Performance profile in hair care applications

The performance of Lamesoft Care in shampoo formulations was examined using methods for:

	Combability of dry and wet hair
	Hair shine
	Hair breakage
	Overall performance in half head test versus a leading benchmark shampoo from the market

Methods

Combability was tested using an automated system (Fig. 1). Bleached strands of dark brown Caucasian hair were combed in the system and the combing work was calculated by integration of the measured combing forces. The improvement of combability was calculated as residual combing work (work after shampoo application divided by work before treatment). Therefore, the lower the ratio, the easier the hair strands could be combed after shampoo application.

Fig. 1: Automated system for the determination of combing forces and work

For shine measurements, a contrast gloss method was applied. Tresses of Caucasian dark brown hair were bleached using hydrogen peroxide and ammonium persulfate. To simulate hair under realistic conditions, an artificial sebum was applied on the tresses before shampoo treatment. For the shine measurements, the hair tresses were mounted on a cylindrical holder and images were taken under defined illumination conditions. The angle-dependent evaluation of the reflected light was done using special software for digital image analysis. From the reflection curves, the relative amounts of specular (front and backside separately!) and diffuse reflected light were evaluated by fitting 3 Gaussian peaks to the angle dependent gloss curve.

Gloss parameters used for description was gloss index (ratio of specular reflected light to whole light).

Hair breakage was determined by combing shampoo-treated and dried-hair strands 50,000 times in a special combing device. The broken hair fibers were collected in separate compartments for every strand, and the amount of hair breakage was determined by weight. Comparative half side tests were performed under standardized conditions to evaluate essential hairdressing parameters of shampoos after one application on 20 female volunteers.

Formulations

Table 1: Shampoo formulations

Fig. 2: Residual wet combing work of the examined shampoos Enlarged version

Fig. 3: Residual dry combing work of the examined shampoos Enlarged version

Hair shine performance: The influence of a shampoo containing 3.5% of Lamesoft Care on the shine of hair tresses in comparison to two shine shampoos from the market is shown in Fig. 4. In this test, the shine of hair tresses treated with shampoo were directly compared as a ratio to just placebo treatment of the hair tresses. The performance of the shampoo with Lamesoft Care was equal to the performance of one benchmark and exceeded the performance of the other shine shampoo.

Fig. 4: Change of hair shine calculated as ratio to placebo treatment Enlarged version

Hair breakage: The two shampoos containing 2 percent and 4 percent Lamesoft Care were compared with a placebo and two anti-hair breakage benchmark shampoos. The results can be found in Fig. 5. The shampoo with 2 percent Lamesoft Care reduced the hair breakage to the level of one of the market shampoos, whereas the formulation with 4 percent of Lamesoft Care even reached the performance of benchmark 2 with a silicone level of about 3 percent.

Fig. 5: Hair breakage of shampoo treated tresses 50,000 times combed Enlarged version

Fig. 6: Half Head test of a shampoo with 4 percent Lamesoft Care versus a benchmark shampoo (06-044-06) Enlarged version

Performance profile in body wash products

Lamesoft Care exhibits tactile, perceivable caring and conditioning performance in shower gel and body wash. The design of perceivable care and intensive care body wash formulations can easily be done by using various amounts of Lamesoft Care Fig. 7.

Fig. 7: Sensory Profile of a body wash formula containing 3.5 percent of Lamesoft Care compared to a market benchmark with high amounts of lipids (n=10). Additional foaming can be observed at a significant level, whereas the caring parameters were similar to the benchmark . Enlarged version

Summary

High performance is especially important in the conditioning shampoo segment. But the sensory performance of products is becoming a more decisive demand in the today’s consumer goods market as well. Lamesoft Care is the new multifunctional wax dispersion which matches the high performance of shampoos with silicone, and furthermore its multi-functional sensorial profile in shampoos and body washes provides consumer producers with the most desired product characteristics: It fits into marketing concepts for shampoo and shower products with white dense and elegant pearl shine effects. Lamesoft Care is the mild and natural alternative to conventional shampoos which often contain silicone oils to meet consumers’ performance expectations. The product is a blend of micronized lipids containing performance waxes and emollients. Performance tests with Lamesoft Care-containing prototype formulations demonstrate significant improvements of wet and dry hair combability. Beside the power-conditioning, complimentary results in luxury hair shine and anti-hair breakage can be observed. When used in body wash, Lamesoft Care corresponds to the growing trend of perceivable, intensive caring. As Lamesoft Care is cold processable, easy to handle and formulate, it is ideally suited for all types of personal care rinse-off products.

Additional information

Lamesoft Care is a registered trademark of Cognis GmbH. INCI Name: PEG-4 Distearyl Ether (and) Sodium Laureth Sulfate (and) Distearyl Ether (and) Dicaprylyl Ether.

This article first appeared in Happi, March 2007, pp. 121-124.

Author

Dr. Ulrich Issberner



In 2005, Dr. Ulrich Issberner and his family joined the Northern American Care Chemicals Organization of Cognis in the field of Personal Care Products, located in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Prior to taking this position, he worked for Skin Care Application Technology at Cognis and for Henkel, Biochemistry of the Skin, in Düsseldorf, Germany. Ulrich Issberner became a medical doctor in 1995.