Let's analyze the ingredients!
Water: Our solvent.
Cetyl Alcohol: A fatty alcohol that helps boost the substantivity of the cationic quaternary compound and moisturizes hair.
Cetearyl Alcohol: A fatty alcohol that helps boost the substantivity of the cationic quaternary compound and moisturizes hair.
Behentrimonium Methosulfate: Our cationic quaternary compound that conditions hair. Found in BTMS-50.
Cetrimonium Chloride: A cationic quaternary compound that makes it easier to wet and dry comb hair. Suggested usage at 2% to 5%, I find 2% in a conditioner to be a great level for wet and dry combing and increasing softness.
Cocamidopropyl Betaine: An amphoteric surfactant that offers foaming and lather to a product. When used in shampoos, it increases mildness.
PEG -7 Olivate: A water soluble ester that offers emolliency and moisturizing to products.
Guar Hydroxypropytrimonium Chloride: Also known as cationic guar, used at 0.2% to 1% as a thickener for surfactant mixes and conditioner.
Tetrasodium EDTA: A chelation ingredient used at 0.2%.
Hydrolyzed Oat Flour: A water soluble starch that can be found at retailers under a few different names and it's used as a humectant, moisturizer, kinda protein, film former, and thickener. (You can find some information at Ingredients to Die For - click here - and try to ignore the poor grammar and spelling!) It's used at 0.25% to 5%. You would sprinkle the oat flour in cold water and wait 15 minutes for it to fully hydrate. Add the other water soluble ingredients (the heated water phase), heat to our normal heat and hold temperature (around 70˚C), then make our product as normal. Given where this is on the ingredient list, I'm thinking it'll be no more than 1% in this product, and probably closer to 0.25%. (If you can't find this, then I suggest using hydrolyzed oat protein in the heated water phase.)
Mentha Piperita (Pepperment) Leaf Extract, Matricaria Recuitita (Chamomile) Flower Extract, Yucca Leaf Extract, Urtica Dioica (Nettle) Leaf Extract, Melissa Officinalis (Melissa) Leaf Extract, Equisetum Arvense (Horsetail) Leaf Extract: Various extracts that might be good for your hair. These could be essential oils or water soluble extracts. Yucca is known to contain saponins that offer foam stabilization abilities to a product. (Click here for an interesting article on yucca!)
Polysorbate 60: A solubilizer for things like essential oils and Vitamin E.
Tocopheryl Acetate: Vitamin E.
Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol: Preservatives found in Optiphen.
Fragrance: Makes it smell pretty.
So what do we have here? We have an oil in water emulsion using BTMS-50 as the conditioning and emulsifying agent, which means it's a conditioner. We have a titch of cocamidopropyl betaine for some very gentle cleansing. Fatty alcohols offer emolliency and boost the substantivity of the quaternary cationic compound - the behentrimonium methosulfate - and the PEG-7 olivate offers oil free moisturizing. The cationic guar and oat flour offer thickening to the product (which really doesn't need a lot of thickening with all the fatty alcohols) and conditioning. And the cetrimonium chloride makes it easier to wet or dry comb your hair.
I'm not sure what the consistency of this product might be, so I'm going to guess at it. If I wanted something thick, I'd use 7% BTMS-50 and 3.5% cetyl alcohol and cetearyl alcohol (combined amount). Something thinner, I'd use 4% BTMS-50 and 2% cetyl alcohol and cetearyl alcohol (combined amount). But the fatty alcohols are listed as being at higher levels than the behentrimonium methosulfate, so I'm not really sure why that might be. So I'm going to go with the 4% behentrimonium methosulfate, 2% cetyl alcohol and cetearyl alcohol (1% each).
If you're using BTMS-25, you already have the cetearyl alcohol included in this product. If you're using BTMS-50, you already have the cetyl alcohol included in the product. So you only need to use 1% of the one you're missing. And yes, you can use BTMS-25 for this product as there isn't really any emulsification going on here (look at what might be oil soluble - nothing...okay, we do have some possible essential oils, but the polysorbate 60 will take care of that!).
Final thought...If you're using cetrimonium chloride, this will be a thinner product than one without it. If you want something thicker and you're using cetrimonium chloride, I'd use 7% BTMS (25 or 50), and half that amount in the fatty alcohol not included in the BTMS product.
Unfortunately, you'll have to tune in tomorrow for a possible duplicate recipe because I need to get ready for work! Busy day ahead. (Thursdays always are as this is our Chilliwack craft group/games night day and I have to get the supplies ready for tonight!) How do you think this recipe should look? What ingredients would you include or exclude? Anyone want to share their thoughts?
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