The Ecocert accredited sweet blue lupin peptide ingredient is “prepared from isolated and purified lupin proteins found in the Sweet Blue Lupin plant and retains hair dye colour-fastness for 30 washes [achieving] equivalent performance to many synthetic products”, Cark Maunsell, Oat Cosmetics MD told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com.
“The ingredient is a very light straw colour to ensure it does not impact on the finished formulations [and] imparts no colour to the hair”, he added.
Independent testing
Maunsell stated that the testing of the hair care ingredient and the claims made were carried out by an independent laboratory specialising in hair processes.
Testing included validating hair penetration, hair conditioning and colour-fastness claims. According to the company the peptide coats and penetrates the hair shaft in one application, resulting in increased strength, less breakage through brushing and virtually no build up.
Hair penetration testing was carried out using normal unbleached light brown hair with fluorescamine as the labelling agent. This test showed that the ingredient penetrated the hair in a single application.
Also, the testing found that there was no build up of product in the hair after a single application containing the ingredient and virtually no build up after 10 applications.
Colour-fastness testing consisted of using peroxide bleached hair dyed using L’Oreal Preference Auburn Red with one per cent dilute Lupin peptide.
After ten wash cycles, a 24 per cent improvement in colour retained was seen as opposed to treated hair without the sweet blue lupin peptide ingredient. After 30 washes, there was a 13 per cent improvement in colour-fastness.
“The best generic synthetic colour binder normally has figures of 14 per cent at best and thus the sweet blue lupin peptide is equivalent to synthetic products”, Maunsell said.