Assessment of styling performance in hair gels and hair sprays by means of a new two-point stiffness test.

A new two-point bending stiffness method on flat hair strands was developed and validated after application of hair styling gels and hair styling sprays. A special mold was used to align single hair fibers after applying the formulations to the hair. The styling gels used contain different commercially available thickeners and styling polymers, e.g., carbomer, acrylates/beheneth-25 methacrylate copolymer, Polyquaternium-86, PVP, VP/VA copolymers, and VP/methacrylamide/vinylimidazole copolymer. Evaluation of hair sprays was performed after spray application on flat hair strands. Commercially available hair styling resins were used, e.g. acrylates/t-butylacrylamide copolymer, octylacrylamide/acrylates/butylaminoethyl methacrylate copolymer, and VP/VA copolymer (30:70). The new stiffness test method provided the best correlation with practically relevant sensory assessments on hair strands and a panel test in which styling gels were evaluated. However, we did not observe a correlation between the new stiffness method on flat hair strands and practical assessments in hair spray application. We postulate that different polymer/hair composites are responsible for these discrepancies. Hairs on model heads for half-side testing are spot-welded after spray application, while hairs are seam-welded in the stiffness test after alignment of single hair fibers. This alignment is necessary to achieve reproducible results.