Lets talk Shampoos & Conditioners and products!
"What shampoos and conditioners should I use?" is probably one of the biggest questions I get. Following that question is “Well why can’t I use drug store products?”. In this blog post I’m going to go over what chemicals found in shampoos and conditioners you should STAY AWAY from and also why buying them at our favorite local bargain store is not good.
If you are one of my clients you know I’m blunt and honest. If you are new now you know! When I talk about products, I’m extremely passionate about it. The reason why I always recommend products is not to make money (i make pennies off of selling products), its because YOU spend a lot of money for me to make your hair beautiful and I want each and every one of my clients to love their hair, NOT just when they leave the salon! So what it comes down to is that your hair is an investment, you have to spend a little more money on good products to keep it healthy.
S I L I C O N E
So lets start first with my favorite bad chemical found in drugstore shampoos and conditioners.
Silicone is similar to plastic or rubber and is a mineral. Silicone has many different names, so if you see a chemical ending in cone its most likely just a different name for silicone. It gives hair the APPEARANCE of looking shiny and healthy. When in reality if your shampoo/conditioner has silicone in it you are coating it with a plastic like substance instead of healing your hair with proteins or moisture. It is also known to weigh your hair down and create a build up in it. So if you feel like you have a shiny build up texture in your roots (that never gets clean feel) its most likely because of this chemical. Having that build up in your hair results in you “washing” your hair more than is actually needed, which dries out your hair, which is then leading to extra damage, which is then not being repaired because you are putting this chemical back into your hair. Vicious Cycle.
Ill give you guys an example, I have a client who we are going to call Silvia (see what I did there LOL). Silvia started coming to me a few years ago when her previous hair dresser wasn’t making her as blonde as she wanted. So we started with balayage. After about 20 minutes of processing, her hair started to smoke and I started to panic. I rushed her over to the sink to rinse her out and thats when the detective in me started investigating. At that point I knew that drugstore shampoos and conditioners were bad but I didn’t know why. So I started doing my research. I asked her to bring in the shampoo and condoner she was using to soon learn that one of the biggest ingredients in it was Silicone. She had told me that she washed her hair everyday because her hair is greasy and she’s been using the same exact shampoo/conditioner for 15 years. Thats 15 years of build up! So I clarified her hair a few times did a deep conditioner and sent her home with R&CO Dallas shampoo and Atlantis conditioner. A few months later she came back and told me that she now can go 2-3 days in between shampooing and we were able to get her hair to the color blonde that she had wanted.
M I N E R A L O I L
Mineral oil has believe it or not been linked to hair loss. Need I say more? It is known to clog pores which results in hair loss. It also contains carcinogens and toxins and is found in petroleum and is a cheap lubricant. Once again meaning that it gives the APPEARANCE of shiny/healthy looking hair, but is not healing it.
S U L F A T E S
Commonly known as sodium lauryl sulfates, which is a foaming surfactants. Sulfates can actually strip your hair of the good natural oils that help moisturize and repair your hair. It also helps maintain your color for longer because it doesn’t strip the glaze or single process out of your hair.
P O L Y E T H Y L E G L Y C O L
This chemical helps moisturize hair, but not good moisture. Often times this chemical is polluted with arsenic, cadmium, lead, nickel, cobalt and iron. And it actually strips the hair of natural moisture. Then to add to that it is linked to CANCER. They have been proven to attack the nervous system developed and may cause kidney and liver organ toxicity.
P A R A B E NS
Parabens have the ability to mimic estrogen and cause breast cancer. Research has found that paragons and mineral oil can cause damage to hair and scalp.
D I S C O U N T S T O R E S & 2 - D A Y D E L I V E R Y R E T A I L E R S , ETC.
We are all looking for a good deal, I get it. But when you are buying products not through a salon for a few bucks cheaper are you actually getting a deal? I have my infamous story of a client that went to Harmon and bought Bumble and Bumble Tonic. A few months later she came in with the product and said that her hair smelt bad, felt gross, and her scalp was itchy. When I looked at the product which is normally clear, it was beige with green specs floating in it. Those green flecks were actually mold, and the beige fluid didn’t even smell like Tonic so only god knows what it actually was.
If you ever pick up a bottle of salon professional hair products it usually says in bold letters “ONLY SOLD BY SALON PROFESSIONALS”. That means that if the place you are buying it from doesn’t have salon chairs with licensed cosmetologists working there then they are not permitted to sell them. So why do they need to be permitted to sell them? First of all whenever we bring on a new product line we are thoroughly trained on how each and every product works and who it works for that way you are not only paying for the product, you are paying for our professional opinion. Also, companies that aren’t salon professionals can’t actually buy the products for wholesale price to then mark them up to make money off of them. So most of the time they are selling either counterfeit products or expired products (YES! Products can actually expire! They contain moisture which can eventually grow mold). This is known as DIVERSION.
Business Insider recently wrote an article on how certain 2- day delivery online retailers are selling counterfeit hair care products that have traces of rat feces and cyanid in them. Now we all have that occasion itch on our scalp which might cause a scab, imagine then washing your hair with a product that has rat feces in it. Is it worth it saving those few extra bucks?
As I said earlier, I make pennies off of selling products. But I do it so you have the beautiful, gorgeous hair you’ve always wanted.
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