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Composition for keratin fibres

Composition for keratin fibres description/claims

The present invention relates to conditioning and shine enhancing compositions for keratin fibres especially human hair. More specifically, the present invention relates to compositions comprising synthetic mica coated with metal oxide or metal oxides.

Hair conditioning compositions have widely been used for improving primarily combability of hair and furthermore enhancing smoothness, elasticity and shine. Many type of conditioners have been found on the market varying from emulsions, which are generally rinsed of from hair after application and certain period of processing time, to low viscosity lotions used without rinsing off after application. Hair shine improvement has been one of the main areas of development. Hair shine is very much related to the surface structure of hair and this varies very much with the degree of damage either by environmental effects or chemical treatment of hair such as permanent shaping or oxidative colouring. Although consumers with healthy non-damaged hair are generally satisfied with hair shine, shine of damaged hair is usually found to be unsatisfactory. There have been studies aiming improving shine of especially damaged hair.

Conditioner either leave-in and rinse off types have been widely used in hair dressing area. In the last decade especially leave-in conditioning compositions have gained much attention starting from Europe and still increasingly growing in Asian markets.

Leave-in conditioning compositions are especially found appropriate by consumers as they can generally be applied at the sites where necessary and the processing time does not have to be predetermined and more importantly washing hair after certain processing time is not needed.

Shine is an important property of hair indicating its healthiness and cosmetically appealing look. Although shine enhancing preparations are widely available, there is still need for improvement.

Additionally, shine enhancing of hair together with other hair care benefits are increasingly been found as main product benefit. Among other products, products with two physically separated phases at zero share rate have recently been put onto market.

For example WO 02/060397 discloses dual phase conditioning and styling composition for heat styling hair. According to the document compositions comprise an oil phase comprising volatile oil and an aqueous alcoholic phase comprising styling polymer, an emulsifier and salt. The document does not address at all shine enhancing of hair and especially does not disclose any composition which may fall within the scope of the present invention.

EP 996 408 discloses dual phased compositions for make up cleansing wherein a polyvinylpyrrolidone copolymer is used as a demixing agent. The documents does not address at all hair care application of such composition.

The inventors of the present invention have surprisingly found out that compositions comprising synthetic mica coated with metal oxide or metal oxides improve hair shine dramatically and condition hair excellently in terms of combability, elasticity, smoothness and softness.

Accordingly one embodiment of the present invention relates to an aqueous composition comprising at least one cationic surfactant at a concentration of 0.01 to 10% by weight, and at least one colour effect pigment consisting of synthetic mica coated with metal oxide or oxides and having a volume particle size distribution in the range of 1 to 750 μm at a concentration of 0.01 to 10% by weight, calculated to total composition.

Another embodiment of the present invention relates to an aqueous composition comprising at least one silicone compound at a concentration of 0.01 to 10% by weight, and at least one colour effect pigment consisting of synthetic mica coated with metal oxide or oxides and having a volume particle size distribution in the range of 1 to 750 μm at a concentration of 0.01 to 10% by weight, calculated to total composition.

A further embodiment of the present invention relates to a water in oil emulsion composition comprising at least one volatile silicone oil and at least one water in oil emulsifier and an internal water phase comprising synthetic mica coated with metal oxide or oxides and having a volume particle size distribution in the range of 1 to 750 μm.

Yet another of the present invention comprises a two phase composition for hair comprising 5 to 50%, by weight oil phase, 50 to 95%, by weight water phase and 0.001 to 10% by weight, all values are calculated to total composition, synthetic mica coated with metal oxide or oxides and having a volume particle size distribution in the range of 1 to 750 μm, wherein oil and aqueous phases are optically separated at zero shear rate and becomes homogeneous upon shaking and returns again to optically separated two phases upon release of agitation.

Use of synthetic mica coated with metal oxide or oxides mainly in decorative cosmetics is disclosed in an international patent application of Sun Chemical Corporation published with a number WO 2005/065632 A1. In the document synthetic mica and coated synthetic mica with at least one metal oxide or oxides is disclosed in detail, the content of the document is included herewith by reference. Suitable metal oxide or oxides for coating synthetic mica are titanium dioxide, chromium oxide, ferric oxide or mixtures thereof. In the present invention the preferred is synthetic mica coated with titanium dioxide. Such materials are commercially available from Sun Chemical Corporation and known with their INCI names Synthetic Fluorphologopite.

The particle size distribution of synthetic mica coated with a metal oxide or oxides is in the range of 1 to 750 μm, preferably 1 to 250 μm, more preferably 1 to 100 μm and most preferably 20 to 95 μm. The particle sizes referred are relating to the volume particle size distribution meaning that particles found in the coated synthetic mica having volume particle size in the given ranges.

Concentration of synthetic mica coated with at least metal oxide or oxides is from 0.001 to 10%, preferably 0.05 to 7.5%, more preferably 0.1 to 5% and most preferably 0.25 to 2.5% by weight calculated to total composition.

Compositions of one embodiment of the present invention comprise at least one cationic surfactant at a concentration of 0.01 to 10%, preferably 0.05 to 7.5%, more preferably 0.1 to 5% by weight calculated to total composition.

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