What the patents actually claim

The earlier parts looked at how much, who and where. This final part looks at what. Each patent in the study was categorised against the dry shampoo taxonomy, covering application, area of use, type of composition, ingredients, dispensing form, purpose and after effects. Together these categories show where inventors concentrate their effort and where gaps remain.

Application, area and composition type

Mostly shampoo, mostly for hair

Of the three application types, shampoo compositions dominate with 227 patents. Cleaners (62) come second, and application devices a distant third with 32. The balance shows that innovation is concentrated in the formulation itself and relatively little in the tools used to apply it.

The area of application is even more concentrated. Hair accounts for 194 patents, far above foot care (35), pets (15), rugs and carpets (6) and clothes (5). Dry shampoo is thus overwhelmingly a hair product, although the small numbers for pets, textiles and carpets show that the same chemistry is being tried on other surfaces that cannot easily be washed.

Chemistry leads

Type of composition	Patents
Chemical	112
Herbal and chemical combined	37
Herbal	28
Waterless	19
With water	14

 

About 53% of the compositions are chemical formulations. Herbal compositions are present but form a smaller group, and hybrids that mix herbal and chemical ingredients exceed purely herbal ones. This split matters commercially. Natural and plant-based positioning is popular with consumers, yet most protected inventions rely on synthetic or processed materials for reliable performance.

Ingredients and components

Inside the formulations, the patents most often disclose a base or main component (115 patents). Next come perfume or deodorising agents (56), solvents (50), starch-based materials (41), plant components (40) and propellants (39). Oils (33), emulsifiers (17) and germicidal agents (14) appear at moderate frequency, and a long tail of specialist additives follows, including medicating agents, gelling or stabilising agents, preservatives, foaming and conditioning agents, insecticidal agents and hair-stimulating agents.

The ingredient mix gives a recognisable picture of how dry shampoo works. A powder base, often starch, absorbs oil. Perfume masks odour. A solvent and, in sprays, a propellant carry the active material. Plant components add a natural positioning or soothing effect. The small number of patents on hair-stimulating, foaming, accelerating and pigment-related agents suggests these are niche enhancements rather than core inventions.

Dispensing forms: the aerosol era

Dispensing form	Patents
Aerosol	86
Powder	45
Cream / lotion	20
Sheet	13
Agent / ointment	5 each
Dentifrice	2

 

Aerosol is the most protected format, with 86 patents. Among these, spray aerosols are by far the most popular, at 59%, followed by powder aerosols (22%), combined powder and aerosol forms (14%) and aerosol or non-aerosol hybrids (5%). Traditional loose powder, with 45 patents, remains an important second. Sheets and wipes (13) offer a cleaner, more portable alternative that has seen fewer patents.

The preference for aerosols connects back to the classification data in Part 1, where US subclass 510/120 (package, solid or gas-propelled compositions) was one of the largest subclasses. For brands, a fine spray gives even coverage and a pleasant user experience. It also brings design challenges, such as nozzle clogging, particle suspension and propellant choice, which explains why so many patents address them.

Purpose and after effects

Detergent action is the core purpose

When the study classified why a dry shampoo is used, detergent action came out on top by a wide margin (135 patents). Toilet preparation and odour removal followed with 49 patents. Other recorded purposes were treatment (22), aesthetic benefits (20), antiseptic and anti-dandruff or anti-seborrhoeic uses (17 and 16), conditioning (about 17) and anti-itching (13). Smaller groups included smoothening, safety on sensitive skin, biodegradability, nutritional supplementation, keratin removal and volumising.

Among the detergent-action patents, 44% concern general cleaning or stain removal. The rest address sebum removal (19%), oil removal (18%), grease or wax removal (13%) and fat removal (6%). These figures describe the target soils: the patents are largely about lifting scalp oil, but a good share also target heavier contaminants, consistent with the cleaner and non-hair uses mentioned earlier.

What users should notice afterwards

Among after effects, glossiness and conditioning lead with 24 patents. No residue or white marks follows with 15, and ease of removal with 13. Soft hair (11), colouring effect (7), fluffiness or volume (5) and stickiness prevention (5) are less common. In practice this reads as a list of consumer complaints turned into engineering goals: dry shampoos should not leave a powdery cast, should brush out easily and should leave hair looking glossy rather than dull.

Other aspects and application units

Of the less obvious technical parameters, particle size is the most frequently discussed (12 patents), which is natural for a product that depends on fine powders. pH (8), shelf life (3) and coefficient of friction (3) follow. Application units are a small area. Hair brushes, puffs or applicator pads, and caps appear in three patents each, and anti-corrosive containers and material compositions in one each. This suggests room for development in applicators, which have received less attention than the formulation.

How the technology has moved over ten years

The study also tracked how these categories changed between 2007 and 2016. Three patterns stand out:

• Application type: shampoo compositions dominated, with the number rising sharply in 2013 and 2014 (24 and 26 patents). Cleaners picked up in the later years, reaching their highest counts in 2014 and 2015, while application devices stayed in single digits.
• Area of application: hair applications grew from a handful per year to 23 in 2013 and 26 in 2014 before dropping to 13 in 2015, which is partly a publication-delay effect. Foot, pets, clothes and carpets remained marginal throughout.
• Composition type: chemical compositions peaked at 19 patents in 2014, the highest single-year category count. Waterless, herbal and hybrid compositions were present but smaller.

The common thread is the 2013 to 2014 surge already seen in Part 1. The growth was concentrated in chemical, hair-focused shampoo compositions, not in new product categories or tools.

A semantic view of the field

The study also ran a semantic analysis of the patent text using topic clustering. The map groups patents by the concepts in their titles, abstracts and claims, with each patent coloured by owner. The strongest clusters centre on dry shampoo itself and on cosmetic compositions, with neighbouring clusters around fatty acid, carbon atoms, effective amount, citric acid and lactic acid. Smaller clusters include non-woven fabric (consistent with the sheet and wipe format), silicone resin, and rice starch or other powder materials. Colour coding shows that L’Oréal, Kao, P&G, Kanebo and Mochida each sit in different regions of the map, which suggests that they approach the problem with different technical vocabularies.

Conclusions and opportunities

Taken together, the three parts describe a field that is young, fast-growing and concentrated. Several conclusions follow from the data:

• Growth came from filing surges around 2013 and 2014, driven by large personal-care companies and Japanese chemical firms.
• Innovation is concentrated in chemical, aerosol, hair-focused shampoo formulations whose main job is oil absorption and cleaning.
• The US is the most important filing market, and Japan is the most productive source of inventions.
• Relatively few patents address applicator devices, shelf life, pH, natural or herbal-only formulations, or non-hair uses. These are the less crowded areas and may offer room for new inventors.

Companies planning new products can use these findings to find white space and to judge freedom to operate. Researchers can use them to see which technical problems have already been addressed. One caution: this landscape is technical rather than legal, and any decision about infringement or patentability needs professional legal review. The data also covers filings only up to 2016, and the market has changed since then. Regulators and manufacturers later paid closer attention to the safety of some aerosol products, for example, so a current search would be needed for an up-to-date view.

 

Note: figures are drawn from the Effectual Services sample landscape study. This analysis is technical in nature and does not constitute a legal opinion.