ABSTRACT
Consumers expect many of the personal care products they use to produce foam. Foam generation by products applied to the body is sometimes an undesirable and unwanted side effect but, nevertheless, is demanded by users of numerous specific product categories. Foam is one of the dominant factors that determine the commercial value of such cosmetic products as soap, shampoo, shaving foam, cleansing foam, and tooth paste. Marketers and consumers have imbued foams with descriptive attributes that have become part of the jargon of the technologist. The chapter discusses the contribution to foam characteristics by surfactant classes, and provides a description of specific products in which foams have been reported to play an important role. In order to develop maximum foam, they require “foam boosting” from another anionic surfactant. The diversity of structures and types of nonionic surfactants requires that individual foaming characteristics should be considered before the group as a whole is classified as nonfoaming or poor-foaming.
