How to Formulate an In-Shower Body Lotion

Consumers today are shifting from routine-based purchases to experience-driven choices—especially in beauty and personal care. With fast-paced lifestyles and a growing demand for convenience, people are rethinking their self-care rituals. They’re no longer satisfied with products that simply “do the job”—they want sensorial, enriching experiences that elevate the everyday. Body care stands out as a prime category for this transformation.

In an article in Cosmetics Business, Alomgir Ali, Senior Application Scientist, spotlights in-shower body lotions as a standout innovation. These products are designed to be applied to wet skin after cleansing and rinsed off—offering a quick, effective way to hydrate without disrupting the flow of a busy day.

Formulating an innovative in-shower lotion can be challenging, as it requires a balance between sensory, performance and stability. Poorly formulated lotions can be perceived by the consumer as cheap, ineffective or gimmicky based on factors such as viscosity, sensory profile and texture. Moreover, the lotion needs to deliver effective moisturization, without leaving a sticky or greasy residue on the skin or the shower floor.

Aside from emollients, the standard conditioning ingredients for in shower lotions are cationic polymers, which are macromolecules that bear positive charges, allowing them to bind to the negatively charged skin surface and form a thin film that moisturizes and smooths the skin. However, most of the cationic polymers currently available in the market have drawbacks that limit their use and performance when creating products, such as issues of turbidity or the requirement to neutralize, disperse or hydrate. Most cationic polymers tend to increase the viscosity of a formulation, which becomes especially difficult when trying to find the perfect sensory as well as an appropriate amount of conditioning. Apart from these drawbacks, cationic polymers can have further issues, such as non-biodegradability, irritation or strong, fishy odor.

To address these challenges, IFF has developed a novel, readily biodegradable conditioning polymer, AURIST^TM AGC, using the proprietary DEB (Designed Enzymatic Biopolymers) technology. This platform uses enzymes to create new-to-the-world ingredients from renewable polysaccharides, based on specific unmet needs or gaps in the market. AURIST^TM AGC (INCI: Water (and) Alpha-Glucan Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride (and) Propylene Glycol) aims to break the tradeoff between performance and sustainability that incumbent materials currently suffer with.

With regards to formulation, it is a pourable, amber liquid and therefore does not need to be dispersed with high shear and can be added at any point in the formulation, with no requirement to hydrate or neutralize. It is widely compatible with most personal care ingredients and it also has no effect on the viscosity of the formulation, which is why it can be used to create interesting formats, such as sorbets, gels, or mousses, without compromising the texture or sensory.

To demonstrate the potential of AURIST™ AGC, we’ve formulated an in-shower body lotion with a sorbet-like format.

In-shower Sorbet Body Lotion – IFF Body Care Formulation Collection