Today we’re whipping up a simple, seven-ingredient Featherweight Leave-In Hair Conditioner that is brilliant for adding moisture and shine to hair that’s not very tolerant of oils. I’ve been using variations on this conditioner for over a year now, and I love how it softens and smooths my hair without leaving it looking stringy or dirty. I particularly love it during dry winter months (our dew point is usually well below 0°C… last week it was below -30°C!) and if I’ve been using hot tools on my hair. If you don’t have all seven ingredients you can pare down the formulation to just use four or five, too!
Want to watch this project instead of reading it?
This Featherweight Leave-In Hair Conditioner was born out of my initial “get-to-know-you” experiments with behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) back in 2018. Behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) is similar to behentrimonium methosulfate (BTMS) in that they are both fatty, cationic, conditioning ingredients. I’ve shared a lot of formulations using BTMS over the years, but this is the first one using BTMC. I brought home a bag of behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) from one of my trips to the US in 2018 (when I travel to the US I’ll have orders from American suppliers shipped to my hotel or Airbnb ahead of time so I can try new ingredients that aren’t available in Canada without paying international shipping and duties, which can easily double the cost of an order). The “use” instructions from Making Cosmetics were “Use level 0.5-3 %, add pellets to warm water or oil (85°C) to melt.” Simple enough, no? I tried 1% behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) in hot water and found that while that worked nicely initially, it wasn’t very stableâthe behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) would separate out pretty quickly.
To stabilize the behentrimonium chloride (BTMC), I incorporated some cetearyl alcohol, taking inspiration from BTMS-25, which is 25% behentrimonium methosulfate and 75% cetearyl alcohol. That worked really well, creating a surprisingly thick, creamy product that imparted beautiful ultra-light conditioning goodness to my fine hair without weighing it down. The behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) emulsifies the cetearyl alcohol into the water, and the cetearyl alcohol adds viscosity and stability along with a bit of richness.
I used that simple concoction (plus preservative and some fragrance) for the better part of a year before realizing I should really share it with you guys! I amped it up a bit, including some panthenol to reduce breakage and add shine, and some hydrolyzed rice protein to volumize and moisturize the hair, but the overall formulation is still fairly simple with just seven ingredients (and you can leave out the amp-up add-ons if you want).
Much like in the Featherweight Hair Oil formulation I shared earlier this month, the key to the lightness of this formulation is the dilution of heavier ingredients (oils, conditioners, etc.) with something that won’t weigh down the hair. The hair oil formulation dilutes heavier oils with ultra-light liquids like cyclomethicone and isododecane. In this formulation, heavier behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) and cetearyl alcohol are diluted with water. If you have ingredients like cyclomethicone or isododecane, an emulsified product like this is a good alternativeâand this one has the added benefit of containing some conditioning goodness from the behentrimonium chloride (BTMC)!
The making part is easy-peasy. We’re adding just-boiled water to our heated phase, blending the ever-living daylights out of that, and then incorporating our cool down phase. That’s it! The end product works beautifully in a bottle with a treatment pump so you can easily dispense a small amount of conditioner for each use. A treatment pump is much smaller than a standard lotion pumpâI’d say it dispenses about 1/4 the amount of product or less in any given pump, making it great for products we use in smaller amounts.
Want to watch this project instead of reading it?
Featherweight Leave-In Hair Conditioner
Heated phase
0.6g | 1% Behentrimonium chloride (BTMC)
0.6g | 1% cetearyl alcohol (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 1% panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)56.4g | 94% distilled water
Cool down phase
1.2g | 2% hydrolyzed rice protein (USA / Canada)
0.3g | 0.5% fragrance or essential oil of choice
0.3g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus⢠(USA / Canada)Weigh the behentrimonium chloride (BTMC), cetearyl alcohol, and panthenol into a small beaker.
Boil some distilled water in another beaker (I put approximately 80mL of water in the microwave for about 2 minutes until it was at a rolling boil).
Once the water is at a rolling boil, quickly weigh the required amount into the beaker with the rest of the heated phase, and then blend thoroughly. The cetearyl alcohol and panthenol will melt/dissolve very quickly, but I find the behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) needs some thorough blending to melt and incorporate. To ensure stability please make sure you blend the mixture very thoroughly; I recommend using something like a hand-held mini mixer or immersion blender (though you’d likely want to scale the formula up to 100g [3.5oz] if you use an immersion blender).
When the conditioner is cool it’s time to incorporate our cool down ingredients. Because cool down ingredients are typically present at very low amounts you’ll need to use an accurate scaleâpreferably one accurate to 0.01g. As these more accurate scales tend to have fairly low (100â200g) maximum weights you won’t be able to put the entire batch of conditioner on that scale without blowing it out. Soâgrab a smaller dish. Add a scoop or two of conditioner, and then weigh the cool down ingredients into that, using the more accurate scale. Stir to thoroughly incorporate, and then stir all of that back into the parent batch of conditioner. Doing it this way minimizes the amount of cool down ingredients lost to the secondary container.
That’s it! Transfer the conditioner to a container and you’re done. I used a 60mL (2 fl oz) bottle with a treatment-pump top.
To use, work a small amount of conditioner (I’d start with a nickel-sized amount) through the hair as needed.
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this conditioner contains water, you must include a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. This is non-optional. Even with a preservative, this project may eventually spoil as our kitchens are not sterile laboratories, so in the event you notice any change in colour, scent, or texture, chuck it out and make a fresh batch.
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 60g (1.06oz).
- To learn more about the ingredients used in this recipe, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
- I don’t recommend swapping out the behentrimonium chloride (BTMC); if you do, you’ll need to re-test the formulation to ensure it’s stable. I would probably try 2% BTMS-50 and 1â2% cetearyl alcohol as a starting point.
- You could try a blend of cetyl alcohol and stearic acid as an alternative for the cetearyl alcohol, but you will need to re-evaluate the product for stability if you do that.
- Please refer to the encyclopedia for alternatives for panthenol.
- You could use a different hydrolyzed protein (quinoa, silk, baobab, etc.) in place of hydrolyzed rice protein.
- If you’d like to really simplify this conditioner you could drop the panthenol and hydrolyzed protein (replacing them with more distilled water). You could also drop the fragrance/essential oil in the same manner.
- You could use a hydrosol instead of the water rather than including a frangrance/essential oil (or in addition to).
- If you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this page.
That sounds wonderful, Marie. Would it work in a spray pump bottle?
Definitely not, it’s far too thick đ Happy making!
shelf life of this conditioner
Shelf life is discussed at the end of the instructions đ
Hi! What Hydrolised rice protein be substituted with?
Please read the list of substitution suggestions at the end of the formula đ
I noticed you have a number of recipes for hair that are not tolerant of oils. However, what if one has curly dry hair that is tolerant of oil what recipes do you recommend as a hair detangler, spritiz and nourishing balm for hair moisture.
Check out this formulation đ My hair balms are also easy to dose as your hair loves!
Hi Marie, I can’t seem to find behentrimonium chloride (BMTC) anywhere…tried all the Canadian stores listed on your where to buy, Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. I was considering trying to swap it with the BMTS-50, but I’m not quite sure what you mean by testing it to see if it’s stable. Is there somewhere else on the site where you talk about that? Thanks!
Basically, make it & watch it to make sure it doesn’t split đ You may need to incorporate 0.3% or so of a gum like xanthan. Happy making!
Thank you!
Hi. Thank you for this recipe. I made a few substitutions. I followed your suggestion for the BTMS substitution. Everything came out great until I tried to incorporate the cool down ingredients. For this I used hydrolyzed Quinoa and silk amino acid with optiphen plus preservative. This mixture caused my cream to seize and it did not mix in. My cream completely separated. It stayed as oil and made my cream look like animal intestines. Sorry to be graphic. The more I mixed it with my immersion blender the worse it got. Do you have any ideas why this happened? I could really use your help. Thank you!
Hey Denise! Optiphen Plus can destabilize emulsions, and this one is already a bit tenuous, so I would suspect that is the issue. If you were to try again I’d incorporate 0.3% xanthan gum to further stabilize the product. Happy making!
Hi Marie,
The cream separated right after I added optiphen, so I skipped the preservative for my 2nd trial (even though I am worrying bacteria and mold..) and it works so great and I am loving it!!
It also happened to me every time I tried your facial cream recipes (both frankincense and lemon rose). I used emulsifying wax NF, and it doesnât turn creamy consistency even before the preservative. I wonder why.. Possibly optiphen that I added to hyaluronic acid solution?
Aww… it separated again after a day:( I am having trouble with both emulsifying wax and BTMS 50 with or without preservative. Any advice?
Hmm. So, it sounds like you have done a few things differently than I have, including different emulsifiers. Have you tried incorporating a gum? Given the different makeup of BTMS-50, I would probably be using it at 2â4% rather than 1%, and removing the cetearyl alcohol.
I’d try backing up and seeing if you can successfully make this lotion with your ewax NF; I wonder if perhaps your white pellets have been switched with different white pellets and perhaps you are using cetyl alcohol or something similar instead and not realizing it? This video is also worth a watch đ
I had a hard time with this because of making such a small amount…I even doubled it in an attempt to make it easier. The milk frother wasn’t enough power, so I tried the immersion blender. It added a lot of air, maybe? Well, it was great after I made it yesterday but when I went to use it this morning, it had separated. In your other recipe, you say to use guar or xantham gum and I just happen to have xantham. I would love to try this again, but can you tell me how much to use and how to add it?
Hey Tara! I’m sorry this isn’t working for you đ You’re on the right track with the gum, though I wouldn’t choose xanthan for this as it is anionic (I must change that where you first saw thatâwhere was it?). I’d include 0.3% or so cationic guar gum with the heated phase and remove that 0.3% from the water đ Happy making!
Hello Marie! I absolutely LOVE this and my hair thanks you! I’ve got an odd question – When I use the smaller batch recipe from your video my conditioner comes out perfectly (I love it so much I ran out in one week!)
But when I scale up, such as in the recipe above, it never emulsifies and remains separated… Any idea what I might be doing wrong? Thank you as always for the wonderful hair love!
That is really strange! I can’t think of why that would happen beyond perhaps it needing more blending than you’re doing for a larger batchâbut with that I’d expect to see splitting over a day or two, not never emulsifying at all. Perhaps try adding 1% Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG-100 Stearate to the oil phase (removing it from the water) and see if that helps?
I know you are so overwhelmed with questions that this will likely never get answered and if it does I will probably have figured it out… but its worth a shoot.
I noticed that you don’t recommend cetrimonium chloride as a substitution for the behentrimonium, so I’ll assume that means DONT DO IT. (At least until I learn otherwise) BUT…. Im debating on if I want to buy Verisoft EQ 65 from Lotion Crafters as a substitute because ( upon purchasing without proper research) I discovered my purchase of cetrimonium Chloride is toxic to the environment… and Lotion Crafters (the only site I have trusted to order from so far) doesn’t have Behentrimonium. So the question is… do you think their Verisoft EQ 65 would be a proper 1:1 substitution for the behentrimonium Chloride in this recipe?
Hi Heidi! You can read more about VarisoftÂŽ EQ 65 here đ A few key thoughts: it won’t quite work as a 1:1 alternative for behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) as it isn’t as concentratedâit’s closer to BTMS-50 in that regard, so refer to my suggestions on how to use BTMS-50 in the substitutions list. I do want to emphasize that VarisoftÂŽ EQ 65 really isn’t a great hair conditioning ingredient, though. It is technically the best natural cationic emulsifier I’ve used, but I feel like it’s more honest to say it’s the least-worst natural cationic emulsifier I’ve used. It’s a perfectly fine emulsifier, it’s just a crummy conditioning ingredient. If your hair is pretty easygoing and doesn’t need a lot of conditioning you might be fine with it, but yeah… it’s not great. I’ve yet to try a natural cationic ingredient that has impressed me đ
I was not successful at making it thicken up. I even doubled the percentage with cetearyl and behentrimonium chloride. I’m wondering if it’s the tiny mixer. Here’s my formula
Distilled Water 92.45%
behentrimonium chloride (BTMC) 2.00%
cetearyl alcohol 2.00%
Panthenol 1.00%
FSS Split End Complex 2.00%
Liquid Germall Plus 0.50%
Sea Salt and Orchid 0.05%
Total 100.00%
INCI for split end: Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hydrolyzed Rice Protein/Siloxysilicate & Oryza Sativa (Rice) Extract
I’ve planned to give this ago too, with silk though (I purcased some and I’m waiting it to arrive). I’m also making a riff on your cranberry orange conditioner bar (also with silk, haven’t tried it with proteins) and the simple conditioner bar too. I haven’t used silk for years so it’ll be interesting to see how it performs compared to inulin and betaine.
I’ve liked hydrolyzed rice protein a lot (and other proteins like hydrolyzed wheat protein as well), I think it beats betaine and inulin/ prebiotics in many conditioners. I promised some reasults and I honestly think that proteins are difficult to replace in haircare. Betaine is lovely affordable and versatile hydrating/ soothing ingredient though and I use it everywhere. These days I like to use it at low usage rate in haircare, unless conditioner is rich and / or rinse off type.
Thanks Marie for this one. I’ve had so much fun with this! This came together pretty easily and works like a charm. It’s nice to have one ultra-light leave in product, esspecially when fall comes! Mine feels absolutely weightless, no oilyness/ heavyness at all. I adore the feel it glides on skin! I used 2 % btms50 + 2 % cetearyl alcohol + 0,3 % konjac gum. Adam likes this one, luckily I added peppermint hydrosol for scent. He also likes your double butter mask & the hair balm. One sample with xanthan separated (no a big surprise).
I mixed mine accidentally too heavy handed so it looks slightly fluffy and thicker than I expected – no biggie. Both jar and pump top bottle work. I made another batch mixing less heavy handed at the end and difference was noticeable – same viscosity but less fluffyness. Nonionic gum seems to do that. Interesting.
My B5 and silk are liquid (and not too affordable) so I like to add them during cool down once I suspect that the emulsion won’t separate. It takes a bit calculating. My silk is 10 % but quite expencive so I used only 6 %. I just wanted to try it out anyway and it’s amazing stuff though powdered one would be fantasic! xx
Hello Marie, (sorry I put this in the wrong place before)
My husband and I tried making this recipe scaled up to 64 oz for gifts. Although we havenât had issues with the emulsion breaking, the batch itself wonât thicken at all. It just stays watery. Is there anything we can do to save this batch or is there something we missed? Thank you!