First of all, don’t believe all the urban legends about SLS causing cancer or being bad for you because it’s used in garage cleaners. We’ve debunked this myth in chapter 10. Most people can use sodium lauryl sulfate or ammonium lauryl sulfate shampoos without any problem whatsoever.
But, some people do find that SLS can dry out their scalp. Those people should consider SLS’s milder cousin SLES (short for sodium lauryl ether sulfate) or they should consider using sulfate-free shampoos.
ARE BABY SHAMPOOS GOOD CLEANSERS?
Baby shampoos are good examples of sulfate-free formulas. Instead of SLS, they contain materials known as amphoteric surfactants, which are less drying to skin and milder to the eye. (Hence the “no more tears” claim of many baby shampoos.)
The downside to these types of formulations is that they don’t clean as well as the stronger detergent systems. While SLS is a very good cleansing agent that can remove sweat, dirt, styling product residue and scalp oils, baby shampoo formulas are not so effective.
WHY NOT BABY YOURSELF?
Is this a problem? It depends. If you’re using a ton of styling products, you might have to shampoo your hair multiple times with baby shampoo to get it as clean as with an SLS-based product. That’s not such a bad trade-off if your scalp is really dried out.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Sulfate-free baby shampoos can clean hair adequately enough for most adults. They are less drying and irritating but will not foam as well, so you might not think they are working. If you’re curious, we recommend trying baby shampoo for a week or two to see if you like the effect. If not, you can always switch back.
CAN YOU REALLY REBUILD YOUR HAIR?
Amanda asks: What is the deal with “restructuring” treatments for hair? I get that the vague concept is to “restore proteins” to your hair or some gobbledygook, but isn’t hair essentially dead? Can a restructuring treatment really force-feed amino acids or whatever into our manes?
The Beauty Brains love Amanda’s skepticism, because the idea of being able to slather on a hair restructuring treatment to actually re-form hair is ridiculous. True, hair is made of amino acids and putting them on hair may provide some minor benefit. But it won’t restructure, restore or rebuild the hair. This would be a bit like trying to repair a weather-worn Kate Spade bag by pouring a basket of thread and fabric on it. Sure, the stylish sack is made of thread and fabric, but you can’t just randomly put them on the worn bag and expect to get a new purse.
RESTRUCTURE HAIR?
It’s the same with hair and amino acids. To restructure the hair, the amino acids would have to be chemically arranged in a specific way. This arrangement can only be done in the hair follicle when the hair is growing. After that, nothing can be done except coat the hair with a good conditioner that mitigates some of the signs of damage. So what are these restructuring treatments? In essence, they are just glorified rinse-out conditioners.
Let’s take a look at the ingredients in a “restructuring” conditioner: purified water, glyceryl stearate, PEG-100 stearate, stearamidopropyl dimethylamine, cetyl alcohol, propylene glycol, stearyl alcohol, dimethicone, triamino copper nutritional complex, hydroxyethylcellulose, panthenol, aloe vera gel, soydimonium hydroxypropyl hydrolyzed wheat protein, hydrolyzed keratin, citric acid, methylparaben, fragrance, disodium EDTA, propylparaben, peppermint oil, tocopheryl acetate, cholecalciferol, retinyl palmitate, vegetable oil, FD&C Blue 1, D&C Red 33.
The rules of cosmetic labeling require that ingredients be listed in order of concentration above 1 percent. In general, the more of an ingredient in the formula, the greater the impact it has on the product. The ingredients near the end of the list are just put in there to make a nice marketing story or are color, fragrance or preservatives.
In this formula, some of the main working ingredients are stearamidopropyl dimethylamine, cetyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol and dimethicone.
But then take a look at the ingredients list in a regular rinse-out conditioner: water, stearyl alcohol, cyclopentasiloxane, cetyl alcohol, stearamidopropyl dimethylamine, glutamic acid, dimethicone, benzyl alcohol, fragrance, panthenyl ethyl ether, EDTA, panthenol, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone.
Notice any similarities? The main working ingredients here are stearyl alcohol, cyclopentasiloxane, cetyl alcohol, stearamidopropyl dimethylamine and dimethicone.
THE BOTTOM LINE
A restructuring conditioner will not rebuild your hair any better than a standard rinse-out formula. And it certainly won’t rebuild your hair better than thread and fabric would rebuild a worn-out Kate Spade bag.
DO YOU REALLY NEED TO PUT PROTEIN ON YOUR HAIR?
Debbie says: I’ve been told that hair needs protein and moisturization to stay healthy. So for protein I use Mane ‘n Tail and for moisturizing I use hair cholesterol products (like Le Kair, Queen Helene) and coconut oil. Is this good for my hair or could I be causing any kind of long-term damage?
These conditioners won’t damage hair. You might find that your hair is weighed down if you’re using them all at once, but other than that they won’t do anything bad to your hair. So if you like the way these conditioners make your hair feel, then keep using them any way you like. The real question here is does hair need both protein and moisturizer? The answer is yes and no.
YES, HAIR NEEDS MOISTURE
That just means you need to keep your hair from drying out, which is the whole idea behind conditioners. You can moisturize by adding water (which doesn’t really stay in your hair very long) or you can moisturize by fighting the effects of dryness. That’s what any good conditioner does. Conditioners, like Le Kair and Queen Helene, work by smoothing the outer layers of your hair, the part called the cuticle. If you don’t keep the cuticles “glued down,” they tend to come loose and fall off. Whenever you’re doing anything to your hair (including washing, drying, styling or coloring), you are causing some degree of damage to those cuticles. What a good conditioner does is smooth the cuticles, forming a protective layer over them so they don’t become as damaged.
NO, HAIR DOESN’T NEED PROTEIN
Although hair is made of protein, it’s dead. So putting protein on top of the protein in your hair doesn’t make it “healthy.” But the right kind of proteins used at the right levels can act as conditioning agents that form a protective film on the hair. So it’s not that your hair needs protein, it’s that it needs something to form that protective layer.
Proteins will do it to some extent, but there are other ingredients, like fatty quaternium compounds or silicones, that will work even better. So protein conditioners like Mane ‘n Tail are good for your hair, but not necessarily because they contain protein.
THE BOTTOM LINE
There are many, many great hair conditioners on the market that will moisturize your hair. Mane ‘n Tail, Le Kair and Queen Helene won’t do anything bad to your hair. The important thing is to find the products that feel right for your hair and that you can afford. But don’t worry too much about special ingredients like proteins. And by the way, coconut oil has an added benefit. It penetrates through the cuticle to strengthen the inside part of the hair called the cortex. See page 7 for more about this.
HOW MUCH HAIR LOSS IS NORMAL?
Janelle asks: Every time I shampoo, I tend to