conditioner is not new and was not invented by Chaz. And no, he’s not using any kind of revolutionary technology. Let’s take a look at the ingredients:
water, glycerin, cetyl alcohol, rosemary leaf extract, wild cherry fruit extract, fig extract, chamomile extract, marigold flower extract, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetearyl alcohol, stearamidopropyl dimethylamine, amodimethicone, hydrolized wheat protein, polysorbate 60, panthenol, menthol, sweet almond oil, PEG-60 almond glycerides, methylisothiazolinone, methylchloroisothiazolinone, citric acid, essential oils.
Looking at just the functional ingredients (leaving out extracts, preservatives and pH adjusters) leaves the following:
glycerin, cetyl alcohol, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetearyl alcohol, stearamidopropyl dimethylamine (SADMA) and amodimethicone.
COMMON CONDITIONER
These are very common conditioning ingredients. Here’s what they do: Glycerin can provide moisturization in a leave-on product, but it doesn’t do anything for hair when it’s rinsed out. Cetyl and cetearyl alcohol are thickening and emulsifying agents used to make a conditioner rich and creamy. Because they’re oil-soluble they could, in theory, help lift some of the sebum off your hair and scalp. Behentrimonium methosulfate, SADMA and amodimethicone are very effective conditioning ingredients because they deposit on the hair.
DOES IT WORK?
Could you clean your hair with this product? Sure, if your hair isn’t very dirty, this could work pretty well. But so could any basic conditioner. In fact, we’d look for a conditioner that doesn’t have any silicone in it, just to make sure it leaves as little on your hair as possible.
But what if you have greasy hair, or if you use hairspray, mousse, gel or putty? Then cleansing conditioners are not a very good idea. They don’t have enough cleansing power to remove gunk from the hair. Chances are that cleansing with conditioner will leave your hair feeling dirty and weighed down.
THE BOTTOM LINE
If you’re really worried about drying your hair out by overshampooing, there’s nothing wrong with skipping your shampoo and just rinsing with conditioner once in a while. But you don’t need to spend $28 on a special product. A nice inexpensive drugstore brand like Suave or VO5 will do the same thing.
WANT SHINY HAIR? AVOID THE DULLING DOZEN!
Naturally shiny hair has a cuticle that’s smooth and flat; it’s plumped up with water (about 10 to 15% by weight) and it’s rich in natural oils that keep the whole thing “glued” together. Unfortunately, you’re stealing shine from your hair every day and you probably don’t even realize it. If you want good gloss, you should avoid these twelve things that can rob hair of shine. Or as we like to call them, the Dulling Dozen:
Even “harmless” water can be a shine stealer. That’s because too much moisture swells the hair shaft and causes the cuticle to buckle. The more frequently you wet your hair, the less shine you’re likely to have.
Scrubbing bubbles seem cute but that rub-a-dub-dub lifts the cuticle even more. Using a conditioning shampoo can help because the hair shafts won’t snag against each other when you’re lathering up.
OK, we don’t all need to condition every time we wash our hair. But if your hair is dry to begin with, it’s much more likely to be damaged during and after styling if you skip conditioner. You’re just giving shine away!
So now your hair is wet. What do you do? Blot, don’t rub! A rough towel can cause an amazing amount of damage on wet hair.
Don’t fall for that old myth that you should brush your hair 100 strokes every night. While brushing does temporarily help by distributing natural oils, in the long run it strips off layers of cuticle and weakens hair.
Heat is the natural enemy of shine. That’s because high temperatures damage the natural lipids (fancy word for oils) that help keep hair flexible and shiny. If you do decide to heat-style, use protection, like the silicone-containing TRESemmé Thermal Creations Heat Tamer spray.
Yes, you do need to use heat protection, but be careful what you wish for. Some leave-in creams and gels leave behind a dulling residue.
Chemical coloring is very damaging because it breaks down the inner structure of hair protein. Even if you use the special conditioner that comes with the coloring kit, your hair never fully recovers.
Permanent waving is another chemical process that’s highly damaging.
Twisting and playing with your hair is a dangerous habit as far as shine is concerned. That’s because the torsional forces (fancy word for twisting and bending) loosen the cuticles.
Wearing your hair in a ponytail may seem like a hassle-free style, but if you pull it back too tightly you may be creating microfractures in the hair that will reflect light unevenly and cause loss of shine.
And with the sun comes damaging UV radiation that can wreak havoc on natural hair lipids like 18-methyl eicosanoic acid. Without these lipids, hair dulls quickly. If you can’t stay out of the sun, make sure you’re protecting your hair with a good conditioner.
ARE HAIR EXTENSIONS KILLING YOUR HAIR?
