Silicones are often utilised in personal care products due to the performance benefits that they provide, including conditioning, slip, extended wear, shine and lubricity characteristics.
More personal care product launches include the INCI name dimethicone than any other silicone offering. Dimethicones are silicone polymers that typically contain trace amounts of cyclomethicones, the starting molecules for silicone production.
Historically cyclomethicones have also been used as stand-alone carriers or diluents in personal care products due to their inherent volatility, which is ideal not only for AP/Deo, but numerous other applications.
Cyclomethicones are a group of thermodynamically stable cyclic silicone molecules which are used in the manufacturing of the higher order polymers. The structures are small, volatile, cyclic versions of dimethicones with formulas: [~Si(Me)2O~]n.
Although a range of structures from n=3 to n=6 is formed, the equilibrium ratio is about 85%/15% n=4/n=5. The structures where n=3 and n=6 represent less than 1.0% of the mixture.