October 2014 Teacher's Guide for
Shampoo: From Lab to Shower
Table of Contents
About the Guide 2
Student Questions 3
Answers to Student Questions 4
Anticipation Guide 5
Reading Strategies 6
Background Information 8
Connections to Chemistry Concepts 17
Possible Student Misconceptions 18
Anticipating Student Questions 18
In-Class Activities 20
Out-of-class Activities and Projects 21
References 21
Web Sites for Additional Information 23
About the Guide
Teacher’s Guide editors William Bleam, Donald McKinney, and Ronald Tempest created the Teacher’s Guide article material. E-mail:
Susan Cooper prepared the anticipation and reading guides.
Patrice Pages, ChemMatters editor, coordinated production and prepared the Microsoft Word and PDF versions of the Teacher’s Guide. E-mail:
Articles from past issues of ChemMatters can be accessed from a DVD that is available from the American Chemical Society for $42. The DVD contains the entire 30-year publication of ChemMatters issues, from February 1983 to April 2013.
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Purchase information can be found online at www.acs.org/chemmatters.
Student Questions
1. What is the “dirt” in our scalps that we are trying to remove with shampoo?
2. What is sebum and what does it do for our body?
3. What factors determine how dirty our hair might be at the end of the day?
4. What is the relationship between hair shape and its oiliness?
5. How does a surfactant in shampoo help to spread water over the hair?
6. What is the mechanism by which surfactant molecules get oil molecules to mix with water?
7. What is a micelle?
8. How do the two most popular surfactants in shampoo differ in their behavior?
9. Name two other important ingredients and their functions in shampoo, other than water and surfactants.
10. Why are cationic polymers good conditioners for shampoo but also a potential problem in use?
Answers to Student Questions
1. What is the “dirt” in our scalps that we are trying to remove with shampoo?
The “dirt” in our scalps is the fats and oils of sebum.
2. What is sebum and what does it do for our body?
Sebum is an oily substance secreted by the sebaceous glands inside our skin. The sebum acts as a lubricant for the hair and skin, providing some protection from bacteria.
3. What factors determine how dirty our hair might be at the end of the day?
Some of the factors affecting your hair’s “dirt” status include where you work, the amount of humidity in the air and even your ethnicity. If you live in a dry and hot area, your hair will be less oily; working at a restaurant or car mechanics means more oily hair.
4. What is the relationship between hair shape and its oiliness?
People with straight hair will tend to have oilier hair than curly haired people because oil wicks more easily from the scalp up the hair shaft of straight hair than it can in curly hair.
5. How does a surfactant in shampoo help to spread water over the hair?
Surfactants reduce the surface tension of water which helps spread water on the hair.
6. How do surfactant molecules get oil molecules to mix with water?
A surfactant’s molecular structure contains two parts: “…one attracted to water molecules and the other one attracted to oil molecules. The part that is attracted to water is called polar, and the one attracted to oil is called nonpolar. The polar part contains regions of partially negative and partially positive charges, while the nonpolar part has no partial charges.” So, the surfactant molecules can hold on to the oil molecules while also being attracted to the water molecules, thus mixing the oil with the water.
7. What is a micelle?
A micelle is a cluster of molecules formed from surfactant molecules surrounding oil molecules. These clusters are lifted out of the hair strands and washed away by the surrounding water.
8. How do the two most popular surfactants in shampoo differ in their behavior?
Both surfactants, sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate, lower the surface tension of water, but sodium lauryl sulfate is more drying to the hair and removes more oils than sodium laureth sulfate.
9. Name two other important ingredients and their function in shampoo, other than water and surfactants.
Shampoo contains substances that create a lather as well as conditioning molecules which keep the hair smooth after rinsing.
10. Why are cationic polymers good conditioners for shampoo but also a potential problem in use?
Cationic polymers are good conditioners because they strongly cling to water through static attraction and are not easily removed when the hair is rinsed—great for conditioning the hair. On the other hand, these conditioners can irritate the eyes if used too frequently.
Anticipation Guide
Anticipation guides help engage students by activating prior knowledge and stimulating student interest before reading. If class time permits, discuss students’ responses to each statement before reading each article. As they read, students should look for evidence supporting or refuting their initial responses.
Directions: Before reading, in the first column, write “A” or “D,” indicating your agreement or disagreement with each statement. As you read, compare your opinions with information from the article. In the space under each statement, cite information from the article that supports or refutes your original ideas.
Me / Text / Statement1. The average person’s head produces about 2 grams (the weight of 2 paper clips) of sebum per day.
2. Many ingredients in shampoo reduce the surface tension of water.
3. Surfactants are nonpolar molecules.
4. Water molecules are polar, while oil molecules are nonpolar.
5. Polar molecules have partial positive and negative charges.
6. Surfactant molecules surround oil molecules to form a molecular cluster that can be rinsed away.
7. The most abundant ingredient in all shampoos is water.
8. Conditioning molecules are rinsed away when you rinse your hair.
9. Some conditioning molecules can irritate the eyes.
10. Shampoo formulations are extremely different for different shampoos.
Reading Strategies
These matrices and organizers are provided to help students locate and analyze information from the articles. Student understanding will be enhanced when they explore and evaluate the information themselves, with input from the teacher if students are struggling. Encourage students to use their own words and avoid copying entire sentences from the articles. The use of bullets helps them do this. If you use these reading strategies to evaluate student performance, you may want to develop a grading rubric such as the one below.
Score / Description / Evidence4 / Excellent / Complete; details provided; demonstrates deep understanding.
3 / Good / Complete; few details provided; demonstrates some understanding.
2 / Fair / Incomplete; few details provided; some misconceptions evident.
1 / Poor / Very incomplete; no details provided; many misconceptions evident.
0 / Not acceptable / So incomplete that no judgment can be made about student understanding
Teaching Strategies:
1. Vocabulary and concepts that are reinforced in this issue:
· Carbohydrates
· Equilibrium
· Structural formulas
· Emulsifier
· Polarity
· Surfactant
· Surface tension
2. To help students engage with the text, ask students which article engaged them most and why, or what questions they still have about the articles.
Directions: As you read the article, complete the graphic organizer below to describe surfactants.
Background Information
(teacher information)
More on the history of shampoo
Before the advent of shampoos, people mostly used some kind of soap which of course could be irritable to both skin and eyes, depending on the type of soap. If you are familiar with something like naphtha soap, you know how irritable that soap can be! The second issue with using soap is that it does not produce much lather in hard water. Using soap, even today, usually leaves the hair looking dull since soap is alkaline. One of the earliest attempts at developing a better product for washing the hair was done by a Berlin chemist, Hans Schwarzkopf in 1908. His product was Schwarzkopf’s attempt to get beyond the expensive oils and harsh soaps used to wash hair. His concoction was a water-soluble powder shampoo which became very popular in all the drugstores of Berlin. Given that the powder shampoo was convenient to use, it still left the hair dull because of alkaline reactions. But this same business eventually developed the first non-alkaline shampoo in 1933.
In May 1908, the New York Times published a series of steps for shampooing the hair. (Refer to "How to Shampoo the Hair" at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9904E5DA143EE233A25753C1A9639C946997D6CF. The New York Times. Archives. May 10, 1908—only available to subscribers, perhaps your school library?). It is too long to reproduce in its entirety, but the essence of the process of washing the hair included the use of an oil-based Castile soap, applied with a stiff brush. That was followed by rinsing the hair several times. Although the regimen that was spelled out was time consuming, the general recommendation was that people should shampoo the hair as “often” as every two weeks! But they could also wait from a month to six weeks if their hair was in good condition.
The first synthetic detergent shampoo was introduced in the early 1930s but it did not have the good properties of the synthetic shampoos we have today which appeared on the market in the 1960s.
More on the essentials of shampoo
Shampoos are a complex mix of chemicals to perform a variety of tasks when in contact with our hair. The following information about the essentials of shampoo, ending with conditioners, is taken directly from the website, http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/shampoo.html.
The purpose of a shampoo is to clean the hair! The shampoo must not clean too well, or all of the protective oils in the hair would be stripped out. It must not make the hair smell bad, despite the bad smells of the detergents it is made of.
To sell well, the shampoo must look good, must feel thick or creamy in the hands, and must produce a nice feeling lather. It must smell nice, and not be too expensive.
Other selling points might be the herbal extracts currently in fashion, or amino acids from exotic protein sources like silk or the milk of pigmy goats.
Detergents
The most common ingredient in shampoos is also the most common detergent in use in other products, a class of surfactants known as straight-chain alkyl benzene sulfonates. An example is Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, or its sodium relative, or the slightly larger related molecule ammonium lauryl ether sulfate, sometimes abbreviated as ammonium laureth sulfate.
These detergents work best in water that has little calcium and magnesium, as these elements bind to the detergent and make an insoluble scum. So tetrasodium EDTA (ethylene diamine tetraacetate) is used to sequester the calcium and magnesium from the detergent, while keeping them soluble so they rinse away without scum.
Cocamide DEA (or MEA or TEA) is used as a foaming agent, to make the lather. The other surfactants will generate a certain amount of suds, but this foaming agent is added to get the amount just right. Besides its foam stabilizing effects, this agent is also a viscosity booster (it's thick).
Another foam stabilizing detergent is PEG-5 cocamide, which is a foam stabilizer, surfactant, and emulsifier.
The detergent cocamidopropyl betaine is added for several of its special properties. It is milder on the skin than the benzine sulfonates, so adding it to the mix reduces the amount of the harsher detergents needed. It is thicker than the other ingredients, so it can be added to make the mix have the right viscosity. It has anti-static properties, so the hair doesn't generate an electric charge and jump to the plastic combs and brushes used when drying the hair. It is a humectant, attracting moisture from the air, thus keeping hair from drying out. Lastly, it has antibiotic properties that can prevent spoiling of the shampoo.
The surfactant ammonium xylenesulfonate is a hydrotrope, a compound that makes it easier for water to dissolve other molecules. It is added as a thickener, and to help keep some of the odd ingredients added for marketing effect in solution, including perfumes. Glycerol stearate is another emulsifier used for this purpose.
Special effects
The wax glycol distearate is added to make shampoos opaque and pearlescent. It has tiny flakes that mix well with surfactants, and stay in solution. They also add shear-thinning qualities, making liquid hand soaps pump out of the bottle easier.
Sodium chloride (table salt) is used to thicken the mixture if the main surfactants are sodium lauryl sulfates. If the surfactants are ammonium based, then ammonium chloride is used. Salt can make the shampoo harsh and sting the eyes, so more expensive thickeners are used to keep the salt levels low.
Modified cellulose based thickeners are often used, along with the surfactant based thickeners already mentioned.
Glycerin is added as a humectant (draws moisture from the air), as is propylene glycol, which is also a preservative.
There are many additives put in shampoos and conditioners that appear to be there mainly for marketing purposes. Honey, various herb extracts, and similar items might add to the fragrance, but are unlikely to have any effect in the concentrations used. Amino acids can act as conditioners, but the source of the amino acid is not important. Silk amino acids are no different from soy amino acids, except in the proportions of which particular amino acids are contained.
Preservatives
Two widely used preservatives, DMDM hydantoin and imidazolidinyl urea are found in many shampoos, to prevent fungal and bacterial spoilage. They release formaldehyde to kill germs.
Another broad-spectrum biocide is isothiazolinone and the related methylisothiazolinone and methylchloroisothiazolinone.
Sodium benzoate is another preservative used in shampoos. It kills bacteria, fungi, and yeasts, and works well in acidic mixtures.
Another bactericide used is 2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol.