Patent ID: 7855173

Claim:
A personal cleansing and detergent composition comprising one or more detersive surfactants and one or more hydrophobic benefit agent, produced after mixing or diluting a cationic oil-in-water emulsion of the hydrophobic benefit agent with the detersive surfactants present either in aqueous solutions or in powder/granular forms, the said emulsion being produced sequentially following steps (a) and (b): (a) the hydrophobic benefit agent, in the form of either a hydrophobic liquid or a solution in a hydrophobic liquid, to be contained in the emulsified oil-phase of the emulsion, is thickened prior to emulsification using a hydrophobically surface modified smectite clay thickener, wherein, if prior to being thickened, the benefit agent has a solubility >2% by weight in surfactant solutions containing at least 3% by weight of detersive surfactants, then the benefit agent is first dissolved or diluted in a hydrophobic liquid or solvent having a solubility <2% by weight in surfactant solutions containing at least 3% by weight of detersive surfactants, and subsequently thickened using the smectite clay thickener; (b) the thickened oil-phase containing the hydrophobic benefit agent is emulsified in water using an emulsifier system comprising three polymeric components which are added individually in the following sequence to the water-phase of the emulsion, with the first two polymeric components mixed in the emulsion's water-phase under high-shear agitation, prior to adding the thickened oil-phase, and the subsequent addition of the third polymeric component: (i) a surface-active, anionic polymer that is capable of adsorbing at air-water interface or oil-water interface and/or is oil-soluble; (ii) a hydrophilic, cationic polymer with a cationic nitrogen content of at least 6% by weight, that is incompatible with anionic surfactants, being insoluble in anionic-surfactant solutions containing an amount of 3% or higher of an anionic surfactant; and (iii) a hydrophilic cationic polymer with a cationic nitrogen content of at least 0.1% by weight and having a molecular weight of at least 600,000 Dalton.