Formulation, evaluation and comparison of the herbal shampoo with the commercial shampoos

Abstract

The study aimed to formulate a pure herbal shampoo and to evaluate and compare its physicochemical properties with the marketed synthetic and herbal shampoos. The herbal shampoo was formulated by adding the extracts of Acacia concinna, Sapindus mukorossi, Phyllanthus emblica, Ziziphus spina-christi and Citrus aurantifolia in different proportions to a 10% aqueous gelatin solution. Small amount of methyl paraben was added as a preservative and pH was adjusted with citric acid. Several tests such as visual inspection, pH, wetting time, % of solid contents, foam volume and stability, surface tension, detergency, dirt dispersion etc, were performed to determine the physicochemical properties of both prepared and marketed shampoos. The formulated herbal shampoo was also evaluated for conditioning performance by administering a blind test to 20 student volunteers. The formulated herbal shampoo was clear and appealing. It showed good cleansing and detergency, low surface tension, small bubble size and good foam stability after 5 min. The prepared shampoo and commercial shampoos showed comparable results for % solid contents also. The score of the conditioning performance of the tress washed with herbal shampoo was found to be 3.0 out of 4, while the score of the marketed synthetic and herbal shampoo was 3.4 and 3.3 respectively. The results indicated the formulated shampoo is having excellent conditioning performance, at par with commercially available shampoo. However, further research and development is required to improve it's quality and safety.