HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW:
HAIR Finding a Good Conditioner
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The conditioning ingredients in a
conditioner are the same ones you’ll find in a conditioning
shampoo.
See SHAMPOO section
for a list of those ingredients with
some suggested
shampoos that contain those ingredients. If you use a
conditioning shampoo, you don’t
need a conditioner. This list is the
same list as in the SHAMPOO section
but without the
product
recommendations.
1. Proteins – amino acids, hydrolyzed proteins,
keratin. (Eggs contain a protein that hair
CANNOT absorb and adds
no value to a product other than as a marketing tool.) This is
good for
the hair shaft.
2. Milk – for its protein, nit its fat. Good for split
ends or damaged hair.
3. Balsam – excellent when combined with proteins.
Adds volume by coating the shaft. The
quantity of balsam in the shampoo
should be based by the kind of hair it will be used on –
straight,
wavy, curly..
4. Vitamins – Panthenol found in B5 is absorbed into the
shaft and helps strengthen it.
5. Moisturizers – lactic acid, lecithin,
urea. Especially helpful for dry or over-colored hair.
6. Oils and waxes
– avocado oil, coconut oil, wheat-germ oil. Provide a coating to retard
water evaporation and the coat makes the hair look shiny and smooth.
Beeswax and
spermaceti also protect against water evaporation but
aren’t as oily as the other oils.
7. Lemon – citric juice. Good was to
strip accumulated oils and dirt for oily hair.
8. Allantoin – from the
comfrey root. Good conditioner, increases the shaft’s water retention,
is antidandruff, dissolves excess kerotin on the scalp or shaft.
9.
Silk – coats the shaft and make it more reflective, and thus look
shinier.
10. Sunscreens – will add minor protection from the sun, but
don’t assume it does for your
hair what it does for your
skin.
11. Polymers – almost all shampoos and conditioners have this and
it’s a nice coating that
adds volume, strength to hair. But it attracts
moisture in the air and makes hair feel kind of
sticky. It shouldn’t be
a large measure of the ingredients in the shampoo.
Things that do not
help in a conditioner:
1. Eggs contain a protein that hair CANNOT absorb and
adds no value to a product other
than as a marketing tool
2. Carrot
oil – used for aroma and color, not for hair health.
3. Aloe – aids healing
in burns but is only effective in living skin, not hair.
4. Vitamin E – this
is a nutrient. Your hair doesn’t eat.
5. Malt – appears mostly in men’s
shampoos but isn’t the most effective protein option.
6. Vitamin – only B5
helps because it contains panthenol.
7. Birch and all other herbs – birch is
good when dabbed directly on an oily scalp for its
astringent
properties. All herbs effectiveness are totally lost when mixed in a
shampoo.
8. Honey – does nothing to hair and is totally water soluble, so it
gets rinsed out.
9. Jojoba – yes, it’s good while it’s on your hair, but it’s
also water soluble, so it gets rinsed
out..

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