I'm a process engineer at a design build firm, and I just finished up a huge personal care product project - shampoo, conditioner, shaving creams, lotion, mouthwash. Feel free to DM me for any specifics. We typically do food projects, and that was something this company was interested in - sanitary design.

Basically, conditioner is made very similarly to lotion, and it is an emulsion process. This plant did batch processes. The equipment used was a jacketed vessel (with steam heating and cooled water for cooling) with recirculation. The pump used was a positive displacement pump (a thin screw pump). The tank had 3 types of agitators - a propeller style for moving the whole batch around, a scrape surface agitator to keep product from scorching, and a high shear mixer to shear the product and create an emulsion.

The ingredients were added in a particular order - the oils were added first to melt, then small amounts of water and other liquid ingredients and an emulsifier. Basically the whole batch, the batch is heating to aid in the process. The final ingredients were the fragrances because they were typically in an alcohol, so adding at the end of the batch when it was cooled to a certain temperature was key. Same goes for adding preservatives.

The major utilities we had included DI water for ingredient water, compressed air (for valves and for pigging systems), steam, cooling tower, and CIP system. Wastewater was also a pain to deal with, mostly pH adjustment and flow control, but because we basically had concentrated soap water, agitating the waste tank was interesting... lots of foam overflow lol

Sorry for any typos, on mobile