With these dry winter days I’ve been finding I’ve been reaching for this fragrant hair serum a lot recently—whenever my hair needs a bit of smoothing, added shine, and general oomph. I’ll run a pump or two through my hair from about the ears down and it leaves my hair smoother, easier to manage, and just generally looking better—without weighing it down. It doesn’t hurt that it also smells fantastic, leaving me walking around in a bit of a rose-scented cloud directly after use (it’s crazy easy to make). If you’ve got relatively fine hair that needs a bit of a kick in the winter, this serum is for you!
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I first made this hair serum back in September thinking it would be a mist. It had other ideas. Polyquaternium 7, the primary conditioning agent in this formula, is super viscous, and even at just 2% it yielded an end product that didn’t so much mist as aggressively jet out of a mister top. No worries—it still applies beautifully when worked through the hair with your hands, and I find it’s easier to monitor exactly how much product you’re using when you have to look at it in your palm before you apply it to your hair.
I’ve included two conditioning ingredients—the previously mentioned Polyquaternium 7 and some cetrimonium chloride. I really fell in love with Polyquaternium 7 last year when I used it to make my Foaming Shaving Cream. The skin and hair feel is just… divine. I cannot get over how utterly touchable it leaves everything it touches! Cetrimonium chloride helps with detangling and helps improve rinse-out as it’s also a surfactant. The usage rate is quite low as that’s the maximum recommended usage rate for leave-on products.
Up next, panthenol: how I love thee. Panthenol (AKA vitamin B5) is a great hair moisturizer, making the hair softer and shinier, and making it more elastic. Some vegetable glycerine also further increases the moisturizing properties of the serum.
I also included a bit of Cromollient SCE (INCI: Di-PPG-2 Myreth-10 Adipate). I first used it last year in a cleansing oil, but the fact sheet on has a section all about how amazing it is for hair. It helps with detangling, makes wet combing easier, and adds some of the benefits of oil + hair without worrying about solubilizing it into an otherwise watery formula.
The scent comes entirely from our hydrosol; I’ve gone with rose because I am positively addicted to rose, but you could easily use something else instead. I’ve also provided guidelines for using a fragrance or essential oil instead instead—those are in the handy “Substitutions” section at the end of the recipe!
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Smooth & Shine Hair Serum
22.125g | 73.75% distilled water
6g | 20%Â rose hydrosol
0.6g | 2%Â vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 2%Â Polyquaternium 7 (USAÂ /Â Canada)
0.075g | 0.25% cetrimonium chloride (30% solution) (USA / Canada)
0.15g | 0.5%Â panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)
0.3g | 1%Â Cromollient SCE
0.15g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)Weigh the everything into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup or directly into a 30mL/1oz bottle with a treatment pump (a dropper top will also work). Stir or cap & shake to combine. If you didn’t make the serum directly in your bottle, transfer it to the bottle. That’s it!
To use, dispense a single pump into your palm, rub your hands together, and then run your hands through your hair, taking care not to deposit too much product in any one place. Repeat as necessary. That’s it!
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this serum contains water, you must include a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. This is non-optional. Even with a preservative this project is likely to 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 30g.
- 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 you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this page.
- You can use a different hydrosol for a different scent.
- Sodium lactate or propanediol would both be good alternatives for the vegetable glycerin
- You could use honeyquat instead of Polyquaternium 7, but I don’t really recommend it—mostly because honeyquat smells really, really fishy and rather gross while Polyquaternium 7 smells like nothing
- You can replace the cetrimonium chloride and/or panthenol with more water. This is not a substitution but will keep the recipe in balance.
- You could try a different water soluble oil like Olivem 300 or water soluble shea butter in place of the Cromollient SCE.
- If you’d like to use a fragrance or essential oil instead of a hydrosol for scent simply use 93.25% water and include 0.5% fragrance or essential oil; I’ve found the Cromollient SCE in the formula will solubilize the fragrance. If you are using something other than Cromollient SCE this may not hold true.
Is this best on wet or dry hair?
It works well with either 🙂
Hi! I LOVE this serum. it’s amazing and THANK YOU! I have a question…how could I make this into more of a gel? Like “xanthum gum” kind of gel. I believe I can’t mix anionic with cationic surfactants and I can’t get my hands on cationic guar gum. Do you have any advice that could help? I’ve thought of replacing the liquid with aloe vera gel but that could get expensive. Ty in advance for any help you might be able to give me.
I’m so thrilled you’re loving it! I would try hydroxyethylcellulose; I’ve had good results using it with cationic ingredients 🙂 Happy making!
Hi Marie,
I have a honeyquat PF from lotioncrafters. Hopefully it’s the right kind (is it?) because it doesn’t smell fishy at all, whatever scent it does have is light and almost unnoticeable. Looking forward to whipping some of this up!
Lucky you! With that swap you can probably mist this if you’re so inclined 🙂 Let me know how it goes if you try it!
I didn’t have polyquaternium 7 so I used honeyquat (craters choice brand) instead. This honeyquat is not viscous and has a watery oily consistency and smells very slightly like vinegar. I thought the final serum was very watery and I didn’t feel like it was doing anything for my hair. It literally felt like I was rubbing water on my hair. Does anyone know if the recipe is followed to the letter if the final product is watery or thicker?
Yes, as written it is thicker and feels much more substantial, which is yet another reason I prefer polyquat 7 to honeyquat. I find polyquat 7 to be a far superior conditioning ingredient with a much more noticeable effect, and because it is so thick it also gives our products more viscosity and body 🙂
Can I use Polyquat 7 and glycerine in Aloe vera gel and use it as a hair mask instead ? Should I add preservative to it, given that my aloe vera gel already has Sodium benzoate as a Preserve .
If you’re going to do that I’d recommend making it right before use—maybe just 30–40g at a time. Use it all, and discard any excess 🙂
I see that the cetrimonium chloride says 0.25% but what I’m finding is 30%. Do I need to do something special to it to make that concentration? Thank you!
No; mine is 30% as well. I’ve edited the formula to make that clearer 🙂
I can’t seem to source Olivem 300, Cromollient SCE or water soluble shea butter where I live (the Netherlands). I see you suggest Polysorbate 80 in the encyclopedia. Would that work with this recipe?
Thank you very much!
That would kind of work, but if I were you I’d just leave it out. It’s not doing any solubilizing work in here—it’s there for hair care goodness. “I also included a bit of Cromollient SCE (INCI: Di-PPG-2 Myreth-10 Adipate). I first used it last year in a cleansing oil, but the fact sheet on has a section all about how amazing it is for hair. It helps with detangling, makes wet combing easier, and adds some of the benefits of oil + hair without worrying about solubilizing it into an otherwise watery formula.” Polysorbate 80 doesn’t have any of those characteristics, so I’d just use more water 🙂 Happy making!
Hi! I just made this (with the ingredients I have on hand)…it’s amazing even after improvising. would sodium lactate be a better choice over glycerin (I have both). Could i add sea kelp bioferment,
dimethicone and/or keratin to this? I want to make my hair as soft and smooth as possible without making it gross. Oh I skipped the cromollient, but I’ll be ordering the cetrimonium. And lastly…are any of these ingredients a heat protestant (other than dimethicone…if I can even use it here)? Tyyyyy
Hey Jennifer! Because this serum is 100% hydrous you’ll need to stick to things that are water-soluble. Sodium lactate is a stronger humectant than glycerin, and would be a good choice for an alternative. Why not try a batch each way and see what you think? Sea kelp bioferment + keratin are water-soluble, so those will work, but if you want to incorporate dimethicone you’d want a PEG dimethicone so it won’t separate out 🙂
A search on UL Prospector for “heat protectant” narrowed down to hair ingredients brings up over 40 results. I’m not going to go through the documentation for all of them, but here are a few product names you could do further research into: Styleze™ CC-10 by Ashland, HAIR OlĂ©obooster® by Hallstar, KeraGuard by Mibelle AG Biochemistry, SEPICAP™ MP by SEPPIC, and 392 F by Blue Sun International. Happy reading!
Hello! Could I replace the Centrimonium Chloride with Sodium Lactate instead of more water? Thanks!!
Yes, though they do different things in formulations 🙂
Yes, they do 🙂 I was just wondering because you have water listed as substitutions for Centrimonium Chloride (to keep the formula in balance) and someone had asked about substituting the glycerin for sodium lactate so I thought I’d double check 🙂 I have everything except the Centrimonium Chloride. Thanks Marie!!
Ok, cool! With all the substitution questions I get I’m rarely sure of the thinking behind the ask, so I usually try to clarify when something will work but is more of a “swap” than a “substitution” 🙂 Happy making!
Ah yes, “swap” is a much better description than “substitution”! I was trying to think of how to say it better in my first comment but went with “substitute”, knowing that wasn’t really what I was doing My toddler makes sure sleep is at a minimum around here so my brain suffers as a result, lol Thanks again! I’m actually going to be making this today for me and my stepdaughter!