October 2020 • Vol. 26 • Issue 8
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History of the Evolution of Two-in-One Shampoo Technology …by Paul Thau
hree months after I rejoined the Warner-Lambert Personal Care R&D Group in 1970, I was invited to attend a seminar at Union Carbide’s R&D facilities in Tarrytown, NY. The topic was the introduction of a new cationic polymer, known by the tradename Polymer JR. This presentation was made by Earl Richardson, Ph.D. In his introduction, I recall distinctly that this new polymer was claimed to be compatible with amphoteric surfactants, but not with anionic surfactants. Several months later, Noxell Inc. introduced a shampoo containing a blend of amphoteric surfactants containing Polymer JR. However, this product was not received well in the marketplace because it did not foam sufficiently and was too substantive to hair. I maintained my interest in potential applications for Polymer JR and did some exploratory work with this interesting ingredient. One day, Robert Anguillo, who worked with me in the Exploratory Laboratory at Warner-Lambert, suggested that we investigate if Polymer JR could contribute any conditioning properties to hair if incorporated into a basic shampoo based upon TEA lauryl sulfate or ammonium lauryl sulfate. He proceeded to prepare several trial formulations. The only negative property that these prototype formulations exhibited was slight haze in appearance; both were otherwise physically compatible. However, we needed a methodology to measure if this prototype shampoo would provide conditioning properties to hair. I recalled from my previous position at Ciba/Madison Labs, when evaluating a cationic shampoo developed in Switzerland, that rubine dye was useful for measuring substantivity to hair. Robert and I used this methodology to determine if the Polymer JR in his formulations was substantive to hair. After initial studies, we became excited to find that the moderate level of coloration imparted to hair swatches indicated substantivity. We conducted a limited use study with one formulation to evaluate cleansing and conditioning. At that time, we did not understand the exact mechanism by which Polymer JR provided conditioning. However, we proceeded to write a patent application for our innovative formulations. A US patent application was submitted on November 30, 1971 and US Patent 3,816,616 was issued on June 11, 1974. An excerpt from this patent is shown below: “This compatibility is totally unexpected since in addition to the general knowledge that anionic substances and cationics tend to salt out of solution, the technical information supplied by the maker of Polymer JR states that: aqueous solutions of Polymer JR are not compatible with anionic detergents.” In 1975, the Warner-Lambert marketing department decided to deemphasize activities related to shampoos and hair conditioners. Union Carbide was able to acquire the rights to our patent from Warner-Lambert allowing them to promote (continued on Page 4)
EFFECT PIGMENTS SYMPOSIUM ...see pages 6-7 for more information.