Detergent gel compositions in hexagonal liquid crystal form

Claim 1

A detergent composition comprising a gel wholly or predominantly in hexagonal liquid crystal form, said gel comprising: (a) from 15 to 70% by weight of a surfactant system having a Krafft point below ambient temperature, said system being incapable of forming hexagonal phase spontaneously, and consisting essentially of: (i) 30 to 100% by weight of an anionic or cationic surfactant, having a polar head group and one or more linear or branched aliphatic or araliphatic hydrocarbon chains containing in total at least 8 aliphatic carbon atoms, the polar head group being positioned non-terminally in a single hydrocarbon chain or carrying more than one hydrocarbon chain; or two or more such surfactants of the same charge type; and (ii) 0 to 70% by weight of a further surfactant selected from surfactants of the same charge type as (i) but having a polar head group positioned terminally in a linear or branched aliphatic or araliphatic hydrocarbon chain containing at least 8 aliphatic carbon atoms; nonionic surfactants; and mixtures thereof; (b) from 1 to 45% by weight of an additive which is a water-soluble non-micelle-forming or weakly micelle-forming material capable of forcing the surfactant system (a) into hexagonal phase, said additive having at most 6 aliphatic carbon atoms and being selected from the group consisting of aryl or alkylaryl sulfonates, ammonium salts, amides and mixtures thereof, the additive being nonionic or of the same charge type as the surfactant (a) (i); and (c) at least 20% by weight of water.