Mass market hair colour protection products have gained acceptance worldwide.
Hair colouring has become popular, with virtually every consumer group in the past decade. It's easy to see that the hair colour market now extends well beyond the traditional constraints of gender and age, with greater numbers of young women and now men colouring their hair. In the wake of this growth it's important for marketers of hair care to develop follow-on products that address previously unmet needs in the areas of colour protection and colour vibrancy.
Almost everyone who colours their hair knows that daily washing with traditional shampoo products can diminish the qualitative aspects of hair colour in a matter of days. Special shampoo and spray-on products now exist in the marketplace for people who want to protect their hair from premature colour fading. In fact, the hair colour protection market has grown so sharply in the past couple of years that hair care marketers now dedicate a whole series of skus to the category.
Between June 2006 and June 2007 more than 170 products claiming colour protection were launched around the world. The proliferation of hair colour protection products is proof positive that consumers require user friendly options to maintain the colour of their hair. The vast majority of these products come in the form of shampoos and conditioners. Europe is the number one region for these product launches (37%) followed by Latin America (24%), with North America and Asia tying in third place at 18%. Yet surprisingly few of the new products around the world exist as leave-on systems.
Leave-on solutions
Leave-on systems allow formulators to include functional ingredients like cationic film forming polymers that bind with negatively charged amino acids on the surface of hair. These types of film forming polymers can be found primarily in hair styling gel and mousse formulations designed for hair hold but they can also be used in personal care applications where a need exists to form a protective barrier on the hair cuticle. Formulators of high end sunscreen products, for example, typically include acrylic-based film forming polymers in the formulation as a strategy to maintain the active on skin in the presence of water. This protective barrier phenomenon can be strongly applied to products claiming hair colour protection. The film formed on the hair is believed to protect hair colour from losing its vibrancy as a result of excess washing.
If you look at some of the commercial products available in the marketplace today you'll see a variety of label claims that address the needs of people who have recently coloured their hair. Rinse-off products typically contain statements that emphasise the benefits of moisture retention and UV filters. Leave-on products, on the other hand, contain statements that emphasise the benefits of sealing hair. Both sets of claims address consumers who want to maintain the vitality of natural looking hair following hair colour treatment. Of course consumers have a strong interest in adopting a hair care regime that can extend the colour vibrancy of hair, yet colour fading and the loss of colour vibrancy typically comes with everyday cleansing.
Formulations that focus primarily on the avoidance of hair colour degradation as a result of cleansing will best serve consumers to extend the duration of rich, brilliant hair colour. So what does the ideal product formulation look like in this area? What set of products may be available to address consumer needs in accordance with daily cleansing routines?
By looking at the product labels it is apparent that many formulations on the market today rely on polyquaternium compounds or silicone-containing dispersions as the functional ingredient. It is also known that two product forms – rinse-off and leave-on – can be used to deliver these functional ingredients. However, the optimum product form and functional ingredient(s) that work best in extending the colour vibrancy of hair has not been explored.
To better understand this, a qualitative method for evaluating hair colour vibrancy and retention was developed using a trained panel of eight people. The panel was asked to evaluate colour vibrancy based on an anchor system of control swatches. The control swatches were all from the same dye lot and were washed a different number of times. The control palette can be seen in figure 1. Treatment of the sample swatches is described in table 1. These swatches were then rated according the control palette.
A series of three commercial leave-on products were evaluated to identify the product form that was best associated with hair colour protection: a traditional mousse formulation with polyquaternium-4 as the film former; a daily colour sealer with a blend of cyclopentasiloxane, dimethiconol, and PG-amodimethicone; and a silicone water emulsion cream with dimethicone and polyacrylamide as the functional ingredients. After applying the products and washing the swatches ten times, the trained panel evaluated the swatches on the basis of colour retention.
Significant differences in performance were noted. The silicone water emulsion cream retained virtually no colour vibrancy when evaluated using the control colour palette. The daily colour sealer, with a blend of silicone-containing ingredients, retained only 10% of colour vibrancy. The traditional mousse product with polyquaternium-4 faired much better, providing a 50% improvement in colour retention. The panel indicated that mousse is one of the best product forms for the delivery of hair colour protection. The sealers and creams that were evaluated provided little or no benefit when the products contained silicones or silicone-containing blends as the functional ingredient. Since the mousse formulation provided some colour protection benefits, it was decided to explore other types of film formers in this application area.
FILM FORMING POLYMERS
If mousse formulations with polymers provide the highest level of hair colour protection, then is it possible to raise the level of colour retention beyond 50% through a careful selection of polymer technology? A second round of panel evaluations revealed differences in the performance of a standardised mousse formulation substituted with various polymers (see table 2).
The mousse containing a film forming starch polymer (polyquaternium-4/hydroxypropyl starch copolymer) was judged by panellists as the highest performing product in terms of hair colour protection. The linear structure of the high amylose starch provides excellent film formation properties on hair. And the better the film forming property on hair, the higher the hair colour protection benefit.
A standardised mousse formulation substituted with polyquaternium- 4/hydroxypropyl starch copolymer suggests that there is an opportunity to formulate higher performing hair colour protection products as leave-on systems. Given that polyquaternium-4/hydroxypropyl starch copolymer delivers on the promise of higher performance, marketers can look to mousse formulations containing starch-based film forming polymers as a strategy to gain a new level of acceptance and loyalty in mass market offerings.
By all accounts, the trend towards hair colour now extends well beyond the adult population. More consumers than ever consider hair colour an act of self expression and individual beauty. In fact the hair colour market is expected to grow on a global basis by 8% in the next five years; no wonder that hair colour prices can start from t100 at professional salons. And as demand for high quality colour treatment grows, demand for colour protection products that prove effective will also grow.
Looking beyond the salon and mass market hair colour category, a number of producers now offer natural and eco-friendly dyes targeting educated consumers that lead alternative lifestyles. These hair colour products tend to perform at a different level than traditional technologies. Consumers of natural products may not have the benefits of synthetic technologies that help to prevent colour degradation in the short-term. It's fair to assume that in most cases consumers of natural dye products have a greater need for hair colour protection than others who colour their hair. In the years ahead, as eco-friendly formulas move beyond the niche and into the mainstream, expect to see additional hair colour protection products based on naturally derived ingredients. Bio-polymers, such as polyquaternium-4/
hydroxypropyl starch copolymer, provide marketers with the technology they need to produce high performing colour protection products in both natural and standard formulations.
Author
Maria Tolchinsky, National Starch Personal Care, US
e-mail maria.tolchinsky@nstarch.com
For more information about polyquaternium- 4/hydroxypropyl starch copolymer, visit www.personalcarepolymers.com