Formulation, Evaluation, and Comparison of Herbal Shampoo with Marketed Synthetic Shampoos

Abstract

The use of natural plants and herbs to formulate shampoo is yet to
be fully established in literature as an excellent replacement to the
synthetic shampoo. The herbal shampoo can be used as a good
replacement for synthetic shampoos, as it cleans sebum, dirt,
dandruff, promotes hair growth, strengthens, and darkens the hair.
Moreover, it also acts as a conditioning and moisturizing agent and
performs all these actions without affecting or damaging hair. This
study formulates a good herbal shampoo using natural products,
devoid of any synthetic compound, and compare it to marketed
synthetic shampoos for efficiency and safety. The herbal shampoo
was formed using aqueous extracts of the soap nut and kola nut, with
plant oils and essential oils. Fragrance oil, gum and a natural
preservative was used. The shampoo was evaluated using visual
assessment, physicochemical, and performance tests. The formulated
herbal shampoo (FHS) had a brown color, good transparency, and
odor. It also had a suitable pH of 5.52 which was very close to the
pH of the scalp, thereby preventing skin irritation. It showed a
detergency power of 26.19 and was able to reduce the surface tension
of water to 35.4dynes/cm which is close to the 40dynes/cm mark. It
also had a fast wetting time, good wash ability and high and stable
foam quality. When compared with the marketed shampoos, it
showed properties as good as the marketed shampoos in some tests,
and even better than some shampoos in some other tests