Abstract

Acrylates/Methacrylamide Copolymer is designed for improved hair styling performance for clear gels, waxes, creams and other styling products. In addition to its excellent styling properties, the new polymer functions as a thickener avoiding the additional use of rheology modifier. Polymer film specimens formed by dried styling gels were found to be extremely flexible. The implications of these polymer film properties on the in-use properties are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

After decades of development and improvement of hair styling polymers there is still room for improvement. Many generations of polymers (1, 2) have been developed over the years starting from the first synthetic styling polymer Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in the 1950s based upon a patent from W. Reppe (3). Today’s styling formulations are further optimized by the use of polymer combinations. This is especially true for styling gel and wax formulations. Combinations of styling polymers and polymeric thickeners are used to achieve the right balance of rheology profile, setting performance and humidity resistance without sacrificing sensory properties, e.g. peaking, gel structure and clarity. A lot of those formulations still contain PVP-based polymers, acrylic-based polymers and Carbomer-based thickeners. Formulations with our new multifunctional performance polymer offer an opportunity to go the opposite way and reduce the complexity of styling gel and wax formulations by the use of only one polymer. In addition this polymer also has the potential to be used in combination with non-ionic, cationic and anionic polymers to give the formulator ...