Ashland unveiled ingredients to tap into consumer confidence at in-cosmetics 2014

Ashland Specialty Ingredients, a commercial unit of Ashland Inc. recently announced new ingredients designed in accordance with consumer preferences around the world and invited the personal care industry to see how the company’s consumer science program helps product formulators tap into consumer needs for distinctive hair styles, lasting impressions of beauty and self-confidence.

Exhibiting under the banner, “Imagine, Collaborate, Succeed,” Ashland explained how new ingredients substantiated by consumers open the door to extraordinary experiences in hair, skin and oral care. 

At the in-cosmetics 2014 in Hamburg, Germany, Ashland unveiled series of products.

Conditioning polymer for hair repair 
N-DurHance? A-1000 conditioning polymer is a new technology demonstrated to restore and improve the look of healthy hair over the course of several wash cycles. Based on a homopolymer of acrylamido-N-propyltrimethylammonium chloride, N-DurHance A-1000 lends hydrophobic properties to hair in a way that affords an enduring conditioning effect. For the first time, consumers may perceive the benefits of softer, smoother, shinier and more manageable hair over the course of successive shampoo applications.

In developing the N-DurHance A-1000 conditioning polymer, Ashland found a symbiotic relationship between conditioner formulations containing the technology and anionic surfactants typically found in shampoo formulations. With very high cationic charge density, N-DurHance polymer fully binds to the negative charges on hair when delivered from conditioner formulations. A number of cationic polymer charge sites remain, however, to flocculate in situ during next-day cleansing with anionic shampoo components. 

Accordingly, N-DurHance A-1000 conditioning polymer works differently than other technologies to provide consumer benefits that actually improve through five cleansing cycles.

Polymer for hair styling 
AquaStyle? SH-100 polymer is a highly functional technology that brings all-day hold to virtually any hair style, anywhere. With this polymer, consumers may create individual hair styles with the benefits of long-lasting hold, high humidity curl resistance and style memory delivered from crystal clear formulations. The latest addition to Ashland’s popular line of styling polymers, AquaStyle SH-100 polymer provides the means for a range of consumer preferred benefits, including smooth comb-through, with no flaking. A highly efficient polymer, formulators also benefit from ease of use, cost efficiency, and the ability to achieve the desired clarity in today’s hair gel products. Incorporating a number of formulation capabilities in a highly functional polymer, Ashland opens consumer-identifiable hair styling attributes to a significant and growing segment in the nearly $10 billion styling products market. 

Biofunctional for beautiful skin 
For skin care applications, Ashland introduced Neomatrix? biofunctional, a novel pentapeptide inspired by stratifin signaling proteins, an epidermal biomessenger that functions on an intercellular basis to support skin’s own dermal remodeling and repair functions. Designed to help skin optimize cross-talk for dermal remodeling, the pentapeptide has been shown to enhance in vitro expression of epidermal stratifin and to support in vitro production of skin matrix rebuilding components, such as pro-collagen, collagen I, collagen II and hyaluronic acid. In clinical studies, Ashland demonstrated that Neomatrix biofunctional answers a global cosmetic need in wrinkle repair, wherein 12 volunteers aged 41 to 61 years observed highly statistically significant reductions in the total number of “crow’s feet” wrinkles.

Healthy-looking skin is a result of a complex equilibrium of thousands of processes that protect, repair and respond to environmental exposure. Skin reacts in an orchestrated cascade of cellular processes to self-repair and remodel. Dermal remodeling is achieved through turnover, which consists of a fine balance between the synthesis of new skin matrix components, such as neo-collagen, and depletion of old matrix components by specific enzymes, such as metalloproteinase. Neomatrix biofunctional, shown to enhance expression of stratifin signaling proteins in vitro, supports dermal turnover balance, resulting in wrinkle repair, as demonstrated in clinical studies.

Bringing clarity, performance and elegance to rinse-off formulations with SurfaThix? N polymer
Included among Ashland’s innovations in rinse-off chassis is SurfaThix? N polymer, an all-in-one solution with applications in shampoo and body wash formulations. Lending clarity, performance and elegance to surfactant-functional systems, the new polymer frees formulators to succeed in delivering clear systems with yield value, stable suspension of particles and beads and elegant sensory attributes without formulation trade-offs.

Creating confidence 
Collaborating with manufactures of personal care products to provide new ingredient technologies that capture desired consumer experiences, Ashland is dedicated to bringing more than benefits to finished formulations. 

“Working with consumers early in the design phase of new ingredients, we want to bring something to formulations that you may not find on the label: The confidence consumers have when they see healthy-looking skin or hair. We are happy to bring the consumer quotient to personal care,” said Jim Mish, leader of the Consumer Specialties group at Ashland Specialty Ingredients.

For more information, visit Ashland at booth 4F30.
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