Hands are a body part too?!?
In: Chemistry
There is not much of a difference in the actual surfactants used between shampoo and body wash (surfactants are what we chemists call soaps, the act of making soap is called saponification). Hair care products will have things like glycerin, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and quaternary ammonium salts to hydrogen bond to the hair to make it feel fuller, silky, or texturized is what we say. Body wash is basically bar soap dissolved in more water. It’s marketing genius because you’re paying mostly for water. In India, laundry detergent is sold in bars to save money on shipping. We used to do the same before washing machines, then we granulized it, now we make a liquid out of it and again, marketing genius because you’re paying for mostly water; it’s usually the first ingredient in shampoo, laundry detergent and body wash. BTW, body wash and shampoo use straight short chain fatty acids to make the surfactants as they make lots of lather. Laundry detergent is something you DON’T want to suds up so they use very long chain and branched chain fatty acids for those.
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