Patent ID: 7449511

Claim:
A method of treating a substrate selected from human skin, human hair and human nails, the method comprising applying to the substrate a thickened oil composition which is free of water and which comprises (1) an oil, and (2) dispersed in the oil, a side chain crystalline (SCC) polymer which (a) has a crystalline melting point T p , and an onset of melting temperature, T o , such that (T p −T o ) is less than T p 0.7 ; (b) is soluble in the oil at temperatures above T p , (c) has been dispersed in the oil by a process which comprises (i) dissolving the polymer in the oil at the temperature above T p , and (ii) cooling the solution to crystallize the polymer in the oil, and (d) is substantially free of fluorine atoms, carboxylic acid groups, carboxylic acid salt groups, sulfonic acid groups, sulfonic acid salt groups, amido groups, pyrrolidino groups and imidazole groups; and the composition being at a temperature T s which is below T p , wherein the SCC polymer consists essentially of (i) 70-99% by weight of repeating units derived from at least one n-alkyl acrylate or methacrylate ester in which the n-alkyl group contains 16 to 22 carbon atoms, (ii) 1-30% by weight of repeating units derived from at least one acrylate or methacrylate ester in which the ester group contains a hydroxyl-substituted alkyl group containing less than 12 carbon atoms, and (iii) 0-29% by weight of repeating units derived from at least one acrylate or methacrylate ester in which the ester group contains an unsubstituted alkyl group containing less than 16 carbon atoms.