The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.
Laura posed this question: I would also be very interested to know what happens to the hair when we treat it with an oil mask for a few hours or even overnight and then wash the oil away with a shampoo. If the oil does not penetrate the hair cuticle, is there any benefit from this...
What makes a conditioning shampoo conditioning? The conditioners, of course! A shampoo without conditioners is called a clarifying shampoo and it’s intended to remove styling products (although I used it when my hair was extremely oily as they don’t tend to contain moisturizers, either). The shampoo we made yesterday would be considered a clarifying shampoo...
Clarifying shampoos are generally used to remove build up and not condition our hair. They’ll help remove styling product build up and cleanse your hair well. Ironically, one of the best ways to remove above normal levels of silicone build up (from anti-frizz and heat protecting sprays) is to use cetrimonium chloride, a cationic conditioning...
If you want to make a basic or clarifying shampoo, just leave out the dimethicone and conditioning agents. That’s really what defines a clarifying shampoo. You can leave in all the lovely film formers – proteins, aloe vera – and the moisturizers, but you leave out the conditioning agents. (I tend to do this as...
I keep seeing people worried about build-up of conditioners on their hair (a lot of times accompanied by information about how a friend of a friend was told by her hair dresser that she had a waxy coating of conditioner on her hair, which the hairdresser proceeded to scrape off with a pair of scissors!)...