What's with the mica and boron nitride? Think about the refractive index for a minute. When we use ingredients like boron nitride, mica, dimethicone, and so on, we increase our hair's shininess. The problem is that we don't know how much they're using - it's probably a titch - so I'm leaving those ingredients out of the equation and sticking to the silicones and emollients for my shine. If you want to include boron nitride or mica in your product, make it, then add a little bit and see how you like it. I don't really want the shine of mica in my hair, so I'm not including it in this version.
We have a few problems in trying to replicate this product. First problem: Where can I get dimethiconol? I can't find it anywhere! I found it at Making Cosmetics, but you have to buy a giant pail of it, and I really just want to try it for this product. Second problem: Where can I find the ethyl ester of silk? I need to use this version of silk as this is an oil based product, and the silk I own is water based and will just float to the top of the product and sit there. Third problem: How did they incorporate panthenol, a water based ingredient, into this product? If it's an oil soluble version, where can I find it?
I don't think we can replicate this product, but we can get close-ish. We can't find three of the ingredients, and I think the dimethiconol and the silk are pretty much essential in this product, so this is going to be a problem. We can try our best to make something awesome, so let's give it a go!
As a note, some people would argue that the silk isn't essential to this product for your hair as there probably isn't a lot in there, but I would argue that it's essential for our enjoyment and perception of the product.
Cyclomethicone will be the base of this product, at about 80% to 90% or so. When considering the ester you want to use, you could choose C12-15 alkyl benzoate or ethylhexyl palmitate, which is considered a silicone replacement and offers some nice shine in our hair. The ethylhexyl palmitate is a slightly lighter feeling ester, but that really won't make a huge difference in our hair. We'll be including dimethicone, of course, for the defrizzing and shine. We don't need to include preservative in this product as it is oil based and we won't be introducing water into it but we could include a non-polar fragrance to it (although I wouldn't bother with a product like this as you already have the fragrance from your conditioner and possibly leave in conditioner, so why go through the trouble of figuring out which of your fragrance or essential oils are polar and which are not just to include it in this product?).
So we have three ingredients in this product - cyclomethicone, dimethicone, and our ester (either C12-15 alkyl benzoate or ethylhexyl palmitate). I'm going to base this recipe on my usual anti-frizz spray and replace 5% of the cyclomethicone with 5% ester.
A POSSIBLE BUT NOT REALLY THAT CLOSE TO A DUPLICATION OF CHI SILK INFUSION HAIR SERUM
85% cyclomethicone
10% dimethicone
5% C12-15 alkyl benzoate or ethylhexyl palmitate
(If you have dimethiconol, try using it at 5% to 10% of the cyclomethicone amount.)
I've never tried this Chi Silk Infusion Hair Serum before - those of you who have, can you comment as to how close you feel this is to the original?
Join me tomorrow as we take a look at a few "cleansing" conditioners.
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