Shampoos Which Remove: Product Build-Up
This is essentially a recycled and updated post from 2011. Recycling is good, right!? Build-up from hair products is usually 2 things: - Oily residues like actual oils and butters, creamy ingredients like Cetyl alcohol and other emollient ingredients. - Cationic ingredients that bond to the hair. When they're good, they're very good and when there is too much, you feel "build-up." Here I’m referring to 2 classes of chemicals: Quaternary cationic surfactants and cationic polymers. First off, cationic means something has a net positive charge (+). Hair has a net negative charge at the pH environment in which it usually exists (somewhere between pH 4.5 and 5 is average). Opposites attract (positive and negative) when it comes to hair and conditioner. More-damaged hair (the ends, heat-styled, sun-damaged, chemically relaxed, permed, highlighted) has more negative bonds and will bond with or "adsorb" more cationic ingredients. But it also loses them more quickl...