The Frequency Ranking of Occurrence of Individual Ingredients in Hair Care Cosmetics Available on the Polish Market

Abstract

The Polish market of cosmetics is highly rich in different types of hair care preparations. A great number of Polish and foreign cosmetic companies and brands mean that finding care products ideal for a given person should be trouble-free. Unfortunately, a wide selection is both an advantage and a problem when a customer is doubtful about how a given cosmetic can work and what an individual’s hair really needs. Reading the composition of cosmetics, the potential user can recognize the needs of their skin or hair, which affects taking more conscious care and choosing the right cosmetics with more attention. This article assesses which ingredients and types of ingredients are present in the largest number of preparations and in the highest positions in the composition. This is a comparison of ingredients present in the largest amounts between four groups of hair cosmetics: care products with washing properties (shampoos), care products without washing properties (conditioners), preparations that are aqueous solutions (water cosmetics), and preparations that are not aqueous solutions (waterless cosmetics). It was revealed that the vast majority of all high-ranking ingredients are substances responsible for the functionality of hair cosmetics: surfactants, rheology regulators, substances responsible for foaming properties, emulsifiers, and solvents. The huge number of substances that can be used in hair products imposes the fact that the ingredients of the highest rank will be substances with many applications and, at the same time, are those that form the base of the cosmetic.