Ashland has commercially launched Advantage 4910 polymer, a hair fixative with a long history of use in hairspray formulations. The legacy polymer is included in more hairspray product launches than any other hair fixative. With the addition of Advantage 4910 polymer to its portfolio of hair styling, conditioning and fixative products, Ashland now offers hairspray manufacturers all of the major polymers required to produce formulas desired by consumers.
‘Aerosol hairspray as a styling format dates back more than 60 years, yet it remains the most popular,’ says Dennis Hublitz, sales director at Ashland Specialty Ingredients. ‘The product category continues to advance and diversify to meet changing consumer and regulatory needs. The Advantage 4910 polymer, a technology available for 30 years or more, delivers all of the consumer benefits one would expect in a traditional hairspray. Including this within our major portfolio of polymers for hairspray, allows us to deliver a dynamic set of solutions to manufacturers of spray products.’
Ashland tested the performance of Advantage 4910 fixative polymer on hair at its Bridgewater, New Jersey, materials science laboratory. The company developed an evaluation tool, Dynamic Hairspray Analysis, which measures the impact of mechanical and environmental stress applied to treated hair fibre assemblies. Additional tests, such as dynamic mechanical analysis, high humidity resistivity evaluations, trained panel evaluations and salon evaluations, also revealed insights that Ashland’s technical and marketing teams will use to support formulators working on the next generation of styling products.
