Lifestyle Choices

What Kind of Shampoo is for You?

Taking into account the things already said, you can choose the cheapest one you like the smell of, since your hair will carry the scent in it of your shampoo for a day or so afterward. But there are certain kinds that are particularly good for certain kinds of hair.

Lemon: These shampoos are especially good for oily hair, because they help remove the oil without leaving the hair lackluster and lank.

Balsam: This is a good ingredient to choose if your hair is very fine or lacks body. Balsam is a resinous substance from the bark of certain trees. In a shampoo, it coats the hair shafts, lending them thickness and strength.

Camomile: This is an excellent ingredient for blond or light brown hair, since this flower has mild bleaching properties. If you use a camomile shampoo regularly, it helps keep light hair bright and shiny.

Herbs: “Herbs” added to a shampoo doesn’t mean a great deal, for many herb formulas (unlike camomile) have no real action on the hair and are created only to appeal to women’s back-to-nature feelings. Some, however, such as white nettle, can be useful for dandruff.

Protein: Protein shampoos come in two types; both can be useful for hair. The first type contains a simple protein made from eggs, milk, soya, gelatin, beef (or an exotic vegetable called tong bean), which helps to coat the outer layers of the hair, making the hair look thicker. Most protein shampoos are of this type. The second type does far more. Called substantive protein, the protein it contains is hydrolized and of the correct molecular weight and size to be absorbed into the cuticle, strengthening it at the same time as aligning its scales and thickening the shaft. This kind of protein shampoo is particularly good for use on treated, damaged, or fine hair. It is not so valuable on strong and healthy hair, for hydrolized polypeptide proteins are absorbed more rapidly by damaged hair than by a relatively compact keratin structure, which does not really need them.

When buying a shampoo, don’t worry too much if it does not give much lather, since this is more a measure of the sequestering agent it contains than of its cleaning ability. It should have a good conditioning action, to leave your hair soft and gleaming, and your hair should be easy to comb out afterward. It should also rinse out easily.

How often you shampoo depends on you and on the type of hair you have. If it is dry, not more than a couple of times a week is best. If it is normal or oily you can shampoo every day if you like, provided you use a pH-balanced shampoo. However often you do, you need only lather once, unless your hair is really grimy. More than once strips away too much of the hair’s natural oils from the cuticle.

Getting Hair into Condition

A good conditioner can put right a number of hair problems. All cream rinses, conditioners, and treatments are on the acidic side of the pH scale. They are intended to close up the imbrications of the cuticle after shampooing and to shrink it back to normal size. In addition, a cream rinse should contain ingredients such as quaternary aluminum salts to separate the individual hairs and make them easy to comb out and to protect against static electricity. Finally, they should coat hairs with an ingredient such as protein or balsam, which will give more body and protect the cuticle from moisture loss.

Some conditioners contain a large quantity of oil. They are fine for dry hair but will make normal and oily hair into a lank mop that needs to be washed again the next day or so. If you ever have this trouble with a conditioner or cream rinse, then try one of the oil-free ones. They do just as good a job as the others in adding body and protecting hair, but they don’t cause lankness.

Protein packs or concentrated treatments left on the hair for from five to twenty minutes (the hair will take up all of a substance it is going to in twenty minutes, so there is never any reason to leave it any longer) are excellent as an occasional treatment for hair of all types (say once a month or every six weeks) and exceptionally good for colored, permanent-waved, and damaged hair, used once a week. They will strengthen and protect the hair and leave it soft and shiny.

Styling and Setting

Because the keratin that makes up hair is a protein, like all proteins it can be treated with heat to change its shape. This makes it possible to curl, uncurl, shape,, and mold your hair into a particular style by blow-drying it, by setting it wet and allowing it to dry, or by using heated rollers or a curling iron on dry hair. The protein of hair consists of molecules arranged in organized patterns held together by two kinds of chemical bonds: hydrogen and sulfur. The hydrogen bonds are the weaker of the two. When you set your hair on rollers, or blow it dry while easing it into a particular shape, you break, then re-form, these hydrogen bonds to create a temporary new structure. But it is a tenuous one, for water, heat, lots of brushing, and time can break the hydrogen bonds again so that your hair returns to its former structure and you lose the new shape.

Sulfur bonds are strong. They can be broken only by strong alkaline solutions such as those of permanent waves, straighteners, and coloring products. Sulfur bonds are broken and then re-formed when you have your hair waved, and the new structure formed through these changes lasts far longer.

The problem with breaking either hydrogen or sulfur bonds and then re-forming them is that most of the things used to style a head of hair, such as heat and alkaline solutions, are potentially damaging to it. They have to be used with care.

Blow dryingis an excellent way to style straight or curly hair, provided you have patience and strong arms and provided you don’t do it too often. Once or twice a week, yes. Every day, no. Hot air can cause progressive, cumulative damage to the cuticle and, finally, to the cortex and medulla, too. Choose a dryer that is not too high in watts (1,000 is enough), as a high wattage may do the job faster but your hair will suffer if you are not extremely careful to keep the dryer far enough from the hair or to use the lowest setting. If your hair is heated above 150 degrees Fahrenheit (66 C), you can do irreversible damage to it, making it brittle, dry, and scorched. There are some protein-based lotions that you can spray on your hair to help protect it from the intense heat—these are specifically designed for blow dryers, and most of them are very good. But you still need to be careful.

Do your hair in two stages: First use the dryer on its own to get the hair almost dry all over, then begin styling with the dryer in one hand and your curved or round brush (made specially for blow drying) in the other. Keep the dryer six inches from your hair and constantly moving. Section your hair into the sides, the back, the side back, and the top front, clipping each section and then letting it down as you need it. Begin on the underneath of one side and then work around the whole head, drying the hair section by section. Do the back first, the front always last, brushing and drying the hair against the direction in which it grows. This creates volume. Do the underneath layers first. When they are dry, bring down another layer from above to work on, constantly twirling the brush in the hair to get the curve and the shape you are after. Last of all, do the front or the fringe, brushing it back and then curving it over the forehead and finally brushing it into place. The art of blow-drying your hair yourself is something that takes time and a great deal of practice to learn, and it is important before you begin styling that your hair be almost dry or you will exhaust yourself in the process.

Setting your hair can be done wet on rollers or dry on heated rollers or the hair can be curled dry on a curling iron. A wet set will last you longest, provided you dry it thoroughly under a dryer or in the air. Heated rollers, like blow drying, are something you should not use every day, for they tend to damage the ends of the hair, making them dry and brittle. This can be avoided somewhat by wrapping each roller with a piece of tissue paper or toilet paper before putting it into your hair. Never use heated rollers on wet hair—they won’t work. And never use a curling iron on wet hair, or you may damage it badly. Always section your hair carefully when you are putting rollers in—the more rollers you use and the less hair on each the better and longer-lasting will be the set you get. A useful technique is to blow-dry the hair and then put in a couple of heated rollers at the front to give it extra swing and shape. However you style your hair, always let it cool before brushing out, or you will ruin the new structure of it.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
The Craft of Hair Care Part 2

• The Craft of Hair Care Part 1
• The Craft of Hair Care Part 3
• Hair Health and Beauty From The Outside
• Hair Care and Hair Rinses
• Hair Removal and Unwanted hair
• Hair Problem Solving Part 1
• Why You Have The Hair You Do
• Hair Loss, Baldness; does Hair Transplant really help regrow Hair?
• Scientific Skin Care from Hair to Scalp
• What Type hair are You?
• The Three Layers of a Hair