A personal care conditioning and/or styling composition for a keratin substrate comprising: (A) at least one conditioning and/or styling ter/tetra polymer obtained by polymerizing: (i) about 50 wt. % to 97 wt. % of at least one cationic or pseudo-cationic monomer selected from the group consisting of diallyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (DADMAC), Hydroxyethyl-pyrrolidone-methacrylate (MO6), and/or Vinylpyrrolidone (VP); (ii) about 1 wt. % to 30 wt. % of at least one anionic monomer selected from the group consisting of (a) acrylic acid (AA), (b) acrylamido methylpropyl sulfonate (AMPS), and/or (c) sodium methyl allyl sulfonate (SMAS); and (iii) about 0.1 wt. % to 20 wt. % of at least one hydrophobic monomer selected from the group consisting of (a) polyoxyethylene (PEG)-18-behenylether-methacrylate (BEM) (b) Lauryl-ethoxylated-methacrylate (LEM), (c) stearyl acrylate (SA), (d) Streath-10-allyl-ether, and/or (e) Vinylcaprolactam (V-cap); and wherein said ter/tetra polymer has a cationic degree of substitution (Cat-DS) of greater than about 0.001 units, and wherein the cationic charge density is in the range of about 1 meq/g to about 6.5 meq/g; (B) at least one cosmetically acceptable excipient; and (C) optionally, at least one effective amount of personal care active ingredient. Also, disclosed is a process of preparing said ter/tetra polymer, and its method of use.