HONEYCOMBED, Part. 1: Breaking down hair-care basics

Natural hair care products are picking up steam in today's beauty market. To keep you up-to-date on what's out there, City Paper's Cassie Owens is spearheading a weeklong series that highlights locally based natural product manufacturers. Today, she starts with a few basics.

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HONEYCOMBED, Part. 1: Breaking down hair-care basics

POSTED: Monday, July 25, 2011, 2:00 PM

➤ Repairing hair? Hair is dead. And no, not vampire dead — I mean dead, dead. Your hair isn't Eric Northman, it can’t just heal. Products can cover your hair, but they can’t undo what’s been done. Damage to the cuticle is inevitable and irrevocable, and a slew of things can damage it — from brushes to sun exposure. If a brush can damage hair, there’s no use pretending that dyes and relaxers don’t. A more realistic goal than repairing the hair would be keeping it clean and properly moisturized. (And yeah, it’s possible to over-moisturize.) pH balance can make a huge difference. This video describes why and how.

➤ Don’t be scared when you see hair in the drain. Put simply, you are a mammal. Hair is your fur. Hair and fur shed. It’s a perfectly natural and expected stage of your hair’s growth cycle. At any given point, 11% of your hair is shedding.

➤ When you find yourself coveting the lustrous shiny locks from advertisements, stop. Shiny locks are an illusion created by light reflecting off closed hair cuticles ... and Photoshop. And unfortunately, in hair care, there isn’t always truth in advertising.

➤ Not everything you read on a shampoo bottle may be true, and a lot of the time, that’s perfectly legal. The FDA doesn’t regulate “aesthetic claims,” so a label can promise a laundry list of qualities without delivering them. A product can read “hypo-allergenic” or “all natural” and be far from it. “Cruelty free” can mean the product hasn’t recently been tested on animals, not that it never was. No way? Way. The FTC expects claims to have a study to back it, but the study needn’t have status or support from an academic institution. The FDA does mandate that companies list ingredients. If you want the truth, read the ingredients listing. Don’t know what menthoxypropanediol is? Check out this site.

➤ A lot of the facts out there on sulfates are scary. But if it’s any consolation, they’re not carcinogenic. The truth is, not all sulfates are the same, and the sulfate-free alternatives out there are pretty copacetic.

➤ A lot the cheapo brands are very similar to their expensive counterparts. Don’t waste your money, hon. Again, read the ingredients.

➤ Hair care is not one-size-fits-all. People who use more products need a cleaning agent strong enough to rid the hair of excess buildup. People with dry scalps need to be careful to not overwash. Curls and coils are naturally more breakage-prone. Hair varies too widely from person to person for the same regimen to work for everyone, so darling, know thyself.

(cassie.owens@citypaper.net)

See Also:

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