Top Secrets to great hair most brands don’t want you to know

The Rapunzel Story

This is going be my first post on hair. However it gave me a lot of headache on what to write about & so searched over the internet & found out the ultimate truth, most people are clueless about how to cleanse hair properly. Indeed, this being the reason, most of us suffer from hair problems & on long term this adversely affects our overall health. I’m very much active on Quora these days, & I find people have various questions about hair health & scalp problems so I sorted them out to make my new blog post.

Warning!!!  You can skip the following paragraph if you want because I may sound like a total MORON thereà

  When I started this blog, I thought I’d only stick to skincare as it’s what my specialization is in. I submitted a project report on the adverse effects of popular skin whitening creams in my BSC Biotechnology final year & during that time I researched so much about skin that it gave me tremendous enthusiasm in dermatology & then as you deeper in a certain subject, you realize that our body has no stand alone organ, everything is so connected that one at its worst can actually affect the overall homeostasis (balance) in whole body & thus, this enthusiasm followed me even after I completed two Master degrees  in Biotechnology & Bioinformatics respectively (although didn’t submit another skin related project in my final years in any) & it keeps clouding my grey matter even now. So I have finally decided to add hair care in my blog.

You are good to go nowà

            The first question that pops up in my mind is ‘How do I clean my hair?’ or even ‘Which shampoo should I use?’ It’s the simplest yet trickiest part of all. Many of us shampoo regularly but end up with damaged, sticky hair & the scalp becomes a small dustbin. Detangling becomes a pain & everyday is a bad hair day. There are certain things you might be doing wrong:

 Time for some science lesson

                                     You’re using just another regular shampoo. See, I’m not against regular shampoos within an affordable price range but the only thing matters is pH. Anything that makes foam is supposed to be in the higher pH range. What is pH? Well, pH is the negative logarithm of H+ ions present in a concentration. Too nerdy? Okay, in simple terms, pH tells you how acidic or how basic/alkaline something is. pH count below 7 is considered acidic & above 7 is alkaline (pH 7 is neutral, neither acidic nor alkaline).So a pH 3.5 is highly acidic (such as popular chemical peel components like glycolic acid, salicylic acid, lemon juice & anything with sour taste etc.) & pH 11 is highly alkaline (Detergents, Baking soda etc baking soda feels sweet to me). Here is the rule of thumb, if something makes foam in contact with water, its most likely alkaline. So, soaps & shampoos that foams, are supposed to be alkaline.

                 Than how does shampoo clean the hair? Because foaming helps cleansing & to make lather, we add a detergent-base in our soaps & shampoos. What are detergent bases? à Sodium laureth sulfate is the most popular detergent base you’ll find in any soap or shampoo, just flip the cover & read the ingredient list, it is probably listed there after ‘Aqua’ (water). Those things that are listed first are added in high quantity & as the list goes on, the quantity added will go down according to the ingredient’s placement in the list of a cosmetic. So, if it mentions; suppose basil oil, at the end, it means it’s the least amount added to this product among all other ingredients.

                         Here, the detergent base should be among the first few ingredients in a soap or a shampoo & these things are main among them who control the pH of a product &higher the pHà higher the alkalinityà more foamy it’ll be à drier your hair will be à drier scalp will send your sebaceous (sebum/oil glands) glands into over-working mode & thus will make more oil à oilier scalp will accumulate more dirt à heavier, frizzier, stickier your hair will be (mostly in two days).

     So the ideal advice would be to steer clear from shampoos that contain harsh surfactants such as sodium laureth sulfate, sodium dodesyl sulfate, TEA lauryl sulfate, Ammonium lauryl or laureth sulfate, cocoyl sulfate etc. But the problem is, more the detergent bases are on the milder side, less effective their cleansing will be & neither all these hard to pronounce names could be memorized before you venture to the market to buy a shampoo.

Going green is big these days. But these shampoos with milder detergents have their own liabilities. They are less effective in cleansing dirt, forget about deep cleansing.

So, how do I deep cleanse my hair?

Clay masks. I am deeply in love with clay masks for the same reason I hate harsh detergents. They are mild, they deep cleanse, they make hair smoother. How? I have discussed already how to they work here but in the context of skin only. I don’t mind repeating. scalp is skin. Clays like Bentonite & Rhassoul work as the best hair cleanser. Sodium Bentonite & Rhassoul clay, both are natural clays & make negative ions in a solution. Like I always say, negative ions would draw out all the positive ions from your scalp build-up, in this case, the toxins & dirt microparticles. Most such external pollutants make positive ions in water & thus sodium bentonite clay (more powerful than rhassoul) draws out all the impurities with such ease. Plus, they are natural & mild.

Then follow up with a mild shampoo. This time it won’t do anything wrong because clay has cleaned up your scalp & hair & shampooing just helps you to remove the clay from your hair. I agree it’s a little messy.

At last you can condition your hair with your favourite conditioner. Just remember, Never use the conditioner on your scalp, it’s just for the hair shaft. Just keep your conditioner away from your scalp & you’re good to go. You can always make your own conditioner at home if you like to go natural. here are my favourite recipes:

Make some tea. strain the leaves & toss them, we need the water. Add 2 tsp of lemon juice in it. Now pour this lemon tea on your hair, rinsing a little after shampoo. This makes an amazing conditioner.

1. 
   

 Simply add 2 tsps of vinegar in ½ ltr water & rise your hair with this.

3.         You can always skip the tea portion & add lemon juice in water along with 4-5 drops of olive oil. This will do it.
  

 Now, the question remains, How often should you wash your hair?

The answer is not simple. If you have oily scalp naturally, with or without much abuse, you will attract more pollutants. So technically more frequent shampooing will be advisable. But since, harsh sulfates in shampoos do more harm than good, you should stick to a milder shampoo. You’ll know it’s mild because it’ll be less foamy & obviously your hair will not feel sweaky clean but rather feel ‘natural’ & ‘comfortable’. If you use clay once a week before shampoo & combine with twice-thrice a week shampooing (1 clay application followed by shampoo + two just shampooing in a week) followed by appropriate conditioning, you’ll do really well even with milder shampoo. Clay will take care of deep cleansing. 

Japanese Technique of Head Cleansing

Apart from homemade conditioners & how frequent you should shampoo, there are other things I’d love to suggest, have you heard about the Japanese belief of cleansing hair? They do it more like a head-cleansing than hair-cleansing & trust me friends, it totally works. It’s your scalp which is harder to deep cleanse than hair because it’s hard to access as it’s tucked inside millions of hair follicles. There are some ‘head massagers’ I’ve seen online & they work fine but according to me, your fingers do the best. In this case, thicker your hair is, harder it will be to reach out the scalp. But even if you take ½ an hour to massage your scalp with a mild shampoo (concentrating less on hair), it’ll be tremendously beneficial for hair in the long term.

This is my first installment on hair care & it’ll be followed by more & there we will be emphasizing more on hair oil.  If you have any complain or suggestion about any of my articles, please let me know in the comment box below & don’t forget to press the blue follow button on the left sidebar. It’ll be really encouraging to a new blogger like me. Thank you for reading.

Cheers!!!