Baby Shampoo

Baby

Shampoo for infants and young children is made so that it is less irritating and usually less susceptible to produce a hurtful, burning sensation if it were to get into the eyes. This is accomplished by one or more of the following preparation:

• dilution, in case product comes in contact with eyes after running off the top of the head with minimal further dilution;
• adjusting pH to that of non-stress tears, approximately 7, which may be a higher pH than that of shampoos which are pH adjusted for skin or hair effects, and lower than that of shampoo made of soap;
• use of surfactants which, alone or in combination, are less irritating than those used in other shampoos;
• use of nonionic surfactants of the form of polyethoxylated synthetic glycolipids and/or polyethoxylated synthetic monoglycerides, which surfactants offset the eye sting of other surfactants without producing the anesthetizing effect of alkyl polyethoxylates or alkylphenol polyethoxylates.

The distinction in 4 above does not completely surmount controversy over the use of shampoo ingredients to mitigate eye sting produced by other ingredients, or of use of the products so formulated.

The considerations in 3 and 4 frequently result in a much greater multiplicity of surfactants being used in individual baby shampoos than in other shampoos, and the detergency and/or foaming of such products may be compromised in so doing. The monoanionic sulfonated surfactants and viscosity-increasing or foam stabilizing alkanolamides seen so often in other shampoos are much less common in the better baby shampoos.