How to make a conditioner cream for bleached hair?

If you have enjoyed and like our last week's tutorial about making a conditioner balm, we are taking you to a slightly more complicated this week with a liquid conditioner cream. This one is slightly more tricky to create but is easier to use for the consumer and is easier to rinse. You still can use it as a pre-wash conditioner but it will perfectly work as a post-wash, rinse conditioner and detangler.

The star of the show is the buriti oil which has proved to be effective in pampering bleached and damaged hair. We are using the brazil nut oil in addition to the buriti oil. Brazil nut oil is rich in phytosterols and we decidedly used it for this formulation.

We are using a cationic, non-quaternary, environmental friendly and COSMOS approved surfactant as the base of the conditioner. Since this is a cationic surfactant you can use it only with nonionic or cationic viscosity modifiers and this is why we are using the tara gum here. You certainly can prepare the formulation without the gum but tara gum improves the thermal stability, increases the viscosity and improves the flow of the conditioner.

Before we jump to the formulation there is just one more thing you need to consider:

The cationic base in this formulation needs to be buffered otherwise the pH will drift over time and the conditioner will destabilize. We don't sell the buffer solution but when you purchase the conditioner base, you will have access to the brochure in which we explain to you how to make it yourself. If you want to know more about buffering a formulation and why on earth some products need buffering and some not we have a post in our pro-member's area from March 2021. You can purchase this post as a standalone post.

Or you can enroll in our flagship course in pH measurement and adjustment

So now that we have discussed all details and backgrounds about this formulation let's jump to the formulation and procedure:

1- Prepare phase A and B in separate heatproof beakers

2- Heat phase A and B in a water bath between 80-85 C

3- When both phases are at the same temperature and phase B is completely melted stop heating and emulsify the oil phase in the water phase

4- Disperse and hydrate the tara gum as the emulsion is still hot

5- Start cooling while stirring

6- Blend phases D @RT.

7- As the conditioner cools down and at a temperature lower than 40 C add phase D and then the preservative and the essential oil.

8- Take a 10% dilution and measure the pH . We aim for a pH between 3-4,5 and in our case it was 4,0.

9- Take your microkit and stability samples and fill the rest in a suitable container.

Watch the video here