Kao Announces Lamellar Structure Shampoo Technology

Kao Corporation (President: Yoshihiro Hasebe) has announced a new shampoo technology. This technology has enabled shampoos that can contain large amounts of lipid ingredients necessary for hair.

Establishment of Lipid Ingredient Supplementation Shampoo Technology

Kao Hair Care Research Laboratories has made it possible to incorporate a large amount of lipid ingredients into shampoos by using a lamellar structure. With this new technology, we have succeeded in developing a shampoo that can replenish lipid ingredients while washing hair.

Shampoo Structure and Background

Hair is composed mainly of protein and lipids, and lipids play an important role in hair manageability and luster. However, with conventional technology, it has been difficult to add sufficient amounts of lipid ingredients to shampoos. Kao took on the challenge to solve this problem.

Details of Lamellar Structure Technology

In conventional shampoos, surfactants form spherical aggregates called micelles, but in the lamellar structure, water layers and oil layers overlap alternately, making it possible to incorporate a large amount of lipid ingredients. Kao applied this structure to shampoo, and by adding aliphatic alcohols and fatty acid glycerides, we were able to incorporate a large amount of lipid components while maintaining basic performance.

Evaluation and Results

We washed hair bundles 30 times with the prototype shampoo and investigated the amount of residual lipid components and the appearance of the hair bundles. As a result, it was confirmed that the amount of residual lipid component increased with repeated washing, and the hair bundles became more aligned and manageable.

Conclusion

With previous technologies, it was difficult to incorporate a large amount of lipid components into shampoos, but we were able to establish a new technology by using a lamellar structure. This technology makes it possible to wash hair while supplying lipid components to hair, and is expected to be more effective than conventional shampoos.