Hair Conditioner: Why should you read the label?

Last time, I discussed what formulation is and why it is important. Today here are some examples.



You may know that in UK herbal essences comes both in a jar (marked as an intensive treatment) and as the tall bottle (regular conditioner, available in US as well)

the infamous picture

However what you may not know is that the ingredients in the jar and bottle are different. Click on the pictures to enlarge them if you wish.

Ingredients: Hello Hydration Tall Bottle

Ingredients: Hello Hydration Jar

I generally only look at the first five to six ingredients (here is why). Therefore the key part of this list is

Tall Bottle	Jar
Aqua	Aqua
Stearyl Alcohol	Stearyl Alcohol
Cetyl Alcohol	Behentrimonium Chloride
Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine	Cetyl Alcohol
Glutamic Acid	Bis Aminopropyl Dimethicone
Bis Aminopropyl Dimethicone

Although both products are marketed as 'hello hydration', they are very different products. 




The Jar: Behentrimonium Chloride in the jar is an excellent surfactant for softness . The jar is marketed as an intensive conditioner and the addition of this ingredient quite high up in the list is likely to be what contributes to the softness experienced



The Bottle: The tall bottle contains stearamidopropyldimethylamine as its key surfactant. This ingredient gives slip to hair but is also easy to wash off. It will add softness to hair but not as much as behentrimoinum chloride.  The bottle also contains glutamic acid which is an amino acid which can be taken up by hair from conditioner (but interestingly not from water........we'll talk about it another day).




My experience has been:

Jar: Wonderful softness that lasts for days. Not much slip.

Bottle: Excellent slip but not much softness. If left on for too long (hour plus) can make hair feel quite strange - kind of crunchy, kind of crispy but not brittle......very odd.




Next up: Same brand, different conditoners, same ingredients..........different effect?