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The Hair Care Trend
Regardless of your genetic makeup, women all over the world are looking for the hair products that have quality ingredients and are made to either grow hair or strengthen it.
The natural hair care market is no different. You can find the word “natural” across every product in the ethnic hair care aisle because it is on trend and what sells. The natural hair customer is interested in products that aren’t only naturally derived but organic. With more and more women experiencing the woes of female pattern baldness and various other forms of alopecia, organic hair products, particularly shampoos give the customer an added sense of security. It is almost as if “natural hair products” translate to consumers as “natural remedy” or medicinal. And this is why we got to investigating!
If we think the ingredients will perform a miracle on our hair we will invest a lot of money on different types and potentially waste our resources. This is especially true when we don’t know what we are using. Unfortunately, the ingredients label on a lot of hair care products are in code. Looking at some of the top shampoos in the natural hair care world, almost all of the ingredients are under a chemical name or compound.
And what’s even more frightening is if there is a hint next to an ingredient in parenthesis. The parenthesis means that the ingredient is only telling half of the story. Keep reading to see what we discovered when diving into the ingredient lists from favorite natural hair shampoos including JASON, Shea Moisture, and TGIN.
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- Deionized Water
Deionized water is water that has been treated to remove all of the ions or mineral salts. Treated meaning the water is exposed to electrically charged resins that attract the salts
This water is exceptionally pure and has been filtered to remove any inorganic materials. Then it is put through reverse osmosis to get rid of any contaminants. When this process is over, it goes through the process of getting rid of any charged non-organic particles to make it deionized.
Deionized water is good to have when it comes to your hair products because the damaged parts of your hair have a negative charge. If the water that you are using in your hair is not pure will contain minerals that bind to the negatively charged areas of your hair.
Those minerals will create a barrier for the products that you are using and make it impossible for the shampoo to penetrate the hair shaft.
Consequently, it would not benefit your hair in all of the ways described on the bottle.
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- African Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter)
Butyrospermum Parkii is a vegetable fat that comes from the African shea tree.
This product is traditionally used to condition the skin, but it also forms a barrier to trap water in and retain moisture. This is preferred over a lot of other fatty oils because it doesn’t turn into soap when alkali comes into play. Instead, it stays a moisturizer and keeps its original properties.
However, it still able to keep bacteria out and stops any types of irritation while still regenerating the skin and acting as an anti-inflammatory. Shea butter contains cinnamic acid esters which act as anti-inflammatories, reducing swelling and redness and are therefore useful for the scalp. This is advantageous because scalp inflammation is one of the root causes behind alopecia.
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- Decyl Glucoside (Coconut Oil)
Decyl Glucoside is a natural, non-ionic surfactant. It is used to give your product a foaming or lathering property.
A surfactant is necessary because it helps to lessen the surface tension between water and dirt or grease. If you have it in your product one side of the surfactant will attach onto water while the other side will attach onto the dirt and break it up so that you can wash it away
.Decyl Glucoside is considered natural because it can come from corn or coconut. It is also biodegradable and it does not dry out the skin, making it ideal for your hair when it needs to go through a gentle cleansing.
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Panthenol is A derivative of Vitamin B. When it comes to hair you know that anything in relation to vitamin B helps brittle hair fight against breakage.
Whenever you wash your hair with a product that has panthenol inside of it, the panthenol penetrates the hair shaft and promotes moisture retention. Note, if you have hair that naturally holds moisture and has good elasticity ou could experience build up around your roots.
Meaning, Panthenol can make your hair greasy, but panthenol is water soluble so that you can wash it out.
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- Caffeine
Caffeine in your shampoo is beneficial to those who are experiencing extreme shedding and hair loss in the form of a receding hairline or thinning at the crown of the head.
Caffeine is a DHT blocker. DHT or dihydrotestosterone is thought to cause hair follicles to miniaturize and forms from testosterone. Miniaturization happens when DHT binds to receptors in your hair follicles and causes them to shrink, weaken, and die.
Now before you go order your next cup of coffee, realize that for your scalp to get the benefits it needs you would have to drink over 600 cups of coffee. So, to avoid your heart stopping on that last sip you should try to find a shampoo with caffeine already in it. Topical applications of caffeine are the best way to block the DHT and stop the miniaturization of hair follicles.
Knowledge Is Power
We didn’t cover everything in a lot of “natural” shampoos, but these five ingredients are ones you should know when researching the next shampoo brand you are looking to use.
Don’t let the long names of different chemical compounds intimidate you. We challenge you to look at the back of your shampoo label and learn about what is impacting your hair! Educate yourself on what is really helping you to retain not only length but healthy hair strands.
Once you know what is benefiting you, get more of that and avoid what you don’t need. These things may be what is irritating your scalp and stopping you from having a healthy head of hair.
What are some of the ingredients on the back of your shampoo bottle? Drop ingredients and definitions in the comments below!
Discerned Soul 
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