Derived from Vitamin B5, D-Panthenol gel is simply fabulous in natural hair care and skin care products. It is deeply conditioning and softening, and lends a wonderful feel to skin and hair products.
What Does D-Panthenol Do?
Panthenol And Skin
In skincare, panthenol acts as a humectant by drawing water from deeper layers of the skin into the upper layers of the skin, giving a plumper and more hydrated look and feel. It helps with softness and elasticity, and stimulates skin re-generation.
Panthenol And Hair
In hair care, panthenol is able to penetrate the hair strands, providing hydration and increasing elasticity, reducing static, dryness and breakage, and making hair shinier, softer and more conditioned. No wonder it is a favourite in shampoos!
D panthenol is really easy to work with - let's find out more:
The Solubility Of D-Panthenol
Panthenol comes as a viscous gel and is water soluble. You will not be able to use it in anhydrous body and hair butters (without an emulsifier at least). Make sure you include it in spritzers/toners, moisturisers and serums containing water to get the benefits.
The pH Of D-Panthenol
Panthenol typically has a pH of around 8-9 but you will be bringing this down to more skin friendly levels of 4-5.5 when formulating products.
The Usage Rate of D-Panthenol
The recommended usage rate is 0.5-1%. More than that and things may start to feel a little sticky.
As mentioned, panthenol is water soluble so you need to add it to your water phase. It is also heat sensitive so I advise adding it to your cool down phase, dissolving it in a little water taken from the water phase.
