The Great Cyclomethicone Accident of 2016

I made some (crappy) shampoo, so of course I was compelled to make some conditioner to go with it.

Given two mostly-failures in a row, I really wanted this one to work.

I modified Susan's Modified Conditioner Recipe with Extracts and Hydrosols to suit my needs, leaving out both extracts and hydrosols, and replacing them with water, adding some glycerin and hydrolysed oats, and adding dimethicone and cyclomethicone in the cool-down phase.

The process for making a conditioner is the same as for making a lotion or cream that I outlined in this post. Conditioner is actually just a lotion made with emulsifiers that attach themselves to the hair (because they are cationically charged) instead of ones that rinse off. If you use an emulsifier that will not bind itself electrically to the hair, it's called a cream rinse, and it's just lotion for hair!

The water phase of my conditioner included distilled water, glycerin, and hydrolyzed oats, while the oil phase included BTMS-50 (behentrimonium methosulfate (50% active) and cetyl alcohol and butylene glycol) and (additional) cetyl alcohol. Once those were heated, emulsified, mixed, and cooled, I added preservative, dimethicone, cyclomethicone, and fragrance.

<anecdote>While weighing my cyclomethicone I spilled some all over my table and my formulating notebook. It was a greasy (rather silicone-y) mess. Thankfully, and unlike oils, cyclomethicone evaporates quickly, so my notebook is not ruined and no sign of the disaster remains except for the fact that I wrote "The Great Cyclomethicone Accident of 2016!" in my notebook! Neat!</anecdote>

So anyway, I followed the same procedure as to make lotion as for making my mom's nag champa cream. And guess what! It worked! It is very thick and might be better suited to a jar than a bottle, which wouldn't be a problem if I had any jars, and feels nice and condition-y on my hair! I used 7% BTMS-50 following the recipe, but I think that 4% might be enough, as this stuff is almost too thick to get out of the bottle.

:D