Making Hair Gel
We are going to make a gel in the laboratory that you can then turn into a marketable product: hair gel.
You will have to make the gel and then design a product before producing a marketing campaign for the hair gel. We will make the gel on Friday. You will have till the following Wednesday to work on your marketing campaign.
Making the gel:
1. You will receive pre-weighed 1.5 grams of the polyacrylic resin. Be careful with this – it can get everywhere and make a terrible mess. If inhaled it can block up your airways.
2. Add it little by little to 500ml of distilled water stirring all the time to make sure it is properly dispersed and there are no lumps. Mix and test the pH using Universal indicator paper. It should be acid.
3. Add Triethanol Amine (TEA) drop by drop stirring all the time and regularly testing with Universal Indicator Paper until the pH is neutral (7). This not only neutralizes the gel but also makes it swell up!
SAFETY: TEA IS QUITE A NASTY CHEMICAL. WEAR GOGGLES AND MAKE SURE YOU ADD JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT: TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE AND YOUR HAIR GEL WILL EAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD.
Scent, colour and packaging. Decide on these to make your gel an attractive product.
Note: essential oils will destroy the gel if you are not careful. Use no more than 2 drops of essential oils. A greater volume of alcohol based perfumes can be used instead. Food colourings are best to give colour as you know they are totally harmless. The name, bottle, packaging and label etc. say a lot about your product. Give them careful thought.
Calculate the cost of producing 100 Kg of it.
1 kg of polyacrylic resin is $526
18L of distilled water cost $50
1 Kg of Sodium hydroxide costs $300
Labour costs are $25 per hour
Packaging costs depend on what effort you make. You must calculate them.
Calculate the unit cost.
Marketing strategy
In a brief report, say who your target market is: sex, age and income group. Say how your product is designed to appeal to this part of the market. Say why you think it will be a success. Produce an advert (video or poster to advertise it)
Add your report on costs below.
Rubric
Marks / Product / Cost / Marketing strategy / Advertisement1 / Too runny / None / None / Mentions product
2 / Ok but no colour or smell / Some costs considered / Can name who it is for / Confusing
3 / Colour or smell but poor consistency / Total cost calculated / Clear idea of target market / Boring but make sense
4 / Mostly fine / Correctly calculated per unit / Links features of product or cost to target market / Fun
5 / Gel is of good quality, attractive colour and satisfactory smell / Correctly calculated per unit
Including packaging / Fully links product´s features to target market. / Entertaining and informative congruent with marketing strategy
To be ready for Wednesday 6th November´s lesson.