A gentle conditioning agent consisted of oppositely-charged-induced cellulose nanocrystal and cationic cellulose: Stability, conditioning and delivery

Abstract

The concerns about the health and environmental effects of the conditioning agent in current hair care products have attracted attention to seeking out a gentle and biosafe alternative, especially from nature. Cationic cellulose is a gentle conditioning agent from natural resource, but is rarely used in emulsion due to its hydrophilicity. In this study, cellulose-based complexes were prepared by opposite-charged-induced cellulose nanocrystals and cationic cellulose to replace cationic surfactants as conditioning agent. We demonstrated that the presence of cellulose nanocrystals effectively improved the emulsifying property of cationic cellulose, thereby could be used to prepare stable silicone oil emulsion. More importantly, by analyzing the relationship between emulsion morphology and the deposition of silicone oil, it was proposed for the first time that emulsion flocculation was positively correlated with deposition of silicone oil. Based on this, a method for rapid comparison of deposition of silicone oil was creatively proposed using ultraviolet absorbance of emulsion. Besides, we found that the resulting emulsion could be used as platform for delivery of essential oil to control the release of essential oil. In summary, this study has developed a gentle and clean cellulose-based complexes for personal care, which is expected to produce safer and cleaner emulsion to reduce potential health risks.