Hair Care is not Only an Art but a Science
/By Liliya Barss
Today I am going to talk about understanding your hair. As I mention to my clients I was a teacher prior to becoming a hairdresser - and as a teacher my mind always goes to “why”. I need to understand the reason or science behind the action. I believe in the importance of educating my clients, helping them to understand what is important for THEIR hair and why. Every day in our salon we cover one subject or another. We hear such expressions as “I don’t know what to do with my hair”, “How do I style my hair?”, “My hair is so oily or dry or brittle”, “I am losing my hair” and many more. So here we, your stylists, become hair counselors, experts that understand the science of hair.
On our blog I am going to cover different aspects of healthy hair. It is a very big subject, so I will cover it one by one, starting with the elementary, but not a simplistic subject - shampooing our hair.
If you want to keep your hair healthy and that hard earned color intact – upgrading your shower essentials is a must. Now – why?
Here comes the science. The pH of skin and hair is 4.5 to 5.5, which is slightly acidic. The neutral pH is 7, and everything from 7 to 10 is alkaline. In 1960s beauty pioneer Jeri Redding revolutionized the salon industry by being the first to market pH-balanced shampoos. He went around the country staging demonstrations that showed how acidic shampoos outperformed alkaline shampoos. Acid hardens the hair by closing the cuticle and keeping your hair strong. Alkali softens the hair by opening the cuticle, thus making your hair brittle and prone to damage. Professional grade shampoos are tested and have a pH that ranges from 5 to 7. Most drugstore shampoos are alkaline and filled with waxes and animal fats. At this point you might as well be washing your hair with baking soda, which has a pH of 8.4.
The other big difference between a drugstore shampoo and a professional one - is the molecule size. Shampoo might contain all the right ingredients for our hair, but if the molecule size is too big to penetrate into a hair shaft, then it all goes down the drain. This is when it comes to good technology to reduce the particle size of ingredients. To give you an example: we know that essential oils are good for our hair and skin. But let’s say you put coconut or olive oil on your hair and skin, can you stand that greasiness?! The reason why it is so greasy is that the molecule size is so big that it can’t be absorbed and it so it just sits on top. Thanks to modern technologies the particle size can be reduced and become absorbable!
Nowadays we hear about the importance of using sulfate-free products. What are sulfates and why we should stay away from them? Stay tuned - that’s what I am going to discuss in the next blog post!
