I use a lot of conditioner and so far I haven’t found the best one to make my wavy hair easier to handle and more curly. So I want to make my own recipe. Apparently it’s really easy to make, with only a couple of ingredients: water, oil, an emulsifier, and a preservative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found two very similar recipes using BTMS as the main ingredient over at Humblebee & Me<\/a> and The Things We’ll Make<\/a>. BTMS is a lightweight, plant-based cationic emulsifier that is apparently a really good detangler and hair conditioner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n BTMS-25 and BTMS-50 are roughly the same price, but the latter is twice the BTMS concentration of the former, although with less of the stabilising additives blended in. I want a thin, lightweight conditioner that doesn’t weigh my hair down much, so maybe using less of the more concentrated BTMS is the best option for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For leave-in conditioner, about 3% BTMS-25<\/a> seems to work fine, so maybe I’ll try 1.5% BTMS-50. The TTWM recipe is 5% BTMS-25 and the Humblebee one is 4% BTMS-25 but those are not specifically leave-in, for which they recommend a lower strength. Humblebee does have a 1% BTMC leave-in conditioner recipe, and that is about twice as strong as BTMS-50. I could try the BTMC instead, but it’s harder to get and I’d have to get cetearyl alcohol too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m looking for a lighter oil, this rules out things like shea & coconut butter. Also, I’m not really looking for a coating oil that makes my hair shiny – what I’m looking for is a penetrating oil. The following I think are light penetrating oils judging by this<\/a> site:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grapeseed is the lightest oil and sunflower is by far the most penetrating out of these. The other two contain vitamins, almond oil also containts proteins, and none<\/a> of these should leave greasy residue on fine hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TTWM uses a 1:1 oil-to-BTMS-25 ratio (5% oil), Humblebee uses a 2:1 ratio (8% oil). If I indeed go for 1.5% BTMS-50, I guess I could start with 3% oil. I could also try the Humblebee formulation without oil first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I need to do more research but it looks like 1% Geoguard would work. Interestingly it is the most expensive ingredient at around half of the total formulation cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe oil<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The preservative<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Other ingredients<\/h2>\n\n\n\n