sade087

©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 I’ve wanted to post this for a while, but it makes me feel a bit subversive because I’m going to tell you that what you think you’re doing with hair conditioner is a wee bit wrong. This is my "ingredient-based" perspective. Not so many years ago, women washed their hair with bar soap. Many of them knew if they used water from their rain barrels (rainwater) that their hair would shine – because rainwater is soft water so there is less soap scum left on hair. People did not wash their hair often. Nor their bodies. Especially in winter. Now that so many of us shower daily and have hundreds of soaps and shampoos to choose from, it’s easier to over-cleanse the hair. Enter the “cream rinse.” A cream rinse is the ancestor of modern conditioners. – in the U.S. it was Breck and Wella Balsam that led the pack with fairly simple formulas that helped detangle hair which was dried out from frequent shampooing or damaged by teasing or hairspray and a multitude of ...

You know it’s coming. Winter. If you live in the more Northerly latitudes, especially away from the oceans, this means cold, dry air, indoor heating and generally a desiccated time for your skin and hair. Itchy skin, rough, cracking hands, chapped lips, windburn… ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 Dry, rough skin on feet This is going to be similar to the “sensitive skin” post because dry skin is sensitive skin – it’s more vulnerable to tearing and injury, loses more water, you want to scratch the itch which damages skin. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013 The ability to respond to dry environments is where skin and hair diverge. Skin can try to respond to this but hair cannot. The stratum corneum (upper layer of skin) contains “Natural Moisturizing Factor” a blend of lipids and humectants (fats and water-attracting chemicals) which attract and hold water - the key ingredient that keeps skin soft, flexible and moist (as opposed to cracking, peeling and flaking). When the air gets dry, your skin starts b...