After you use a certain product, your hair tends to have a different feeling. This is because the silicones are causing build up and your hair has a weighted down feeling. What is product build-up and what is that weighted-down feeling you have on your hair? There are polymers found in condition agents (such as silicones and cationic polymers like polyquaterniums) and styling polymers (usually present in mouses and gels). These polymers create a polymer firm around the cuticle. These agents tend to stick to the hair and with repeated use and it can cause build up in the hair shaft. If these polymers are not removed properly from the…

Hair consists of lipids, keratin, and protein. These proteins get damaged due to solar radiation. This leads to dull, frizzy hair, split ends, and brittle hair. It also decreases the strength of the hair. The melanin present in your hair can also protect the hair from UV damage. Light hair colors such as grey/blonde are more susceptible to UV damage. It is because these hair colors have less melanin present in them. Sunlight can also affect the color of your hair. When the hair is exposed to the sun, the natural pigment present in the hair breaks down and the hair becomes lighter. How can you protect your hair? You…

There are two types of products when it comes to making your hair stronger: Bond Repairing products, and Conditioning products Bond Repairing products These products improve the strength and mechanical properties of the hair fiber. They contain ingredients like peptides that can able to restore broken hair bonds which are responsible for providing strength and mechanical properties (elasticity, smoothness. volume, and shine) to the hair. They also contain disulfide bonds which bind the keratin proteins in your hair or peptides which bind to the hair fiber. By using these ingredients, the hair bonds get repaired and brings back the strength and mechanical properties of the damaged hair. Conditioning products These…

Do you shampoo your hair twice because it foams the second time, but what is causing this foam? The ingredient present in the product that takes care of the cleaning is the surfactant. The surfactant is a molecule that consists of a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail. A hydrophilic head binds to the water as it water-loving and the hydrophobic tail binds to the sebum, oil, and dirt because it hates water. Surfactants thus bind to both water and oil and remove the dirt from your hair when it’s washed out. When there is more surfactant than sebum/oil/dirt, the excess surfactants bind to the water and the water-hating part…

You might have heard that washing your hair too often can strip the hair off its natural oil. This causes it to produce more oil. This is not possible because sebum secretion is a natural process. Now by ‘natural oils’ we mean sebum. Sebum is the only natural oil produced in our body and they protect the skin. It is also important to remove excess sebum from your scalp, as sebum can trap a lot of dirt and dust. All of this can lead to an unhealthy scalp. So does washing your hair make it less greasy. The answer is no. This is because the sebaceous glands function to secrete…

Before going into heat styling, we should first know what hair is and what it is made up of. Hair mainly consists out of strands of the protein, keratin. These keratin strands are held together by different types of bonds. These bonds are disulfide bonds (they don’t break during heat styling), salt bonds, hydrogen bonds, and van der Waals forces. These bonds contribute to the shape, strength, and elasticity of the skin. When heat styling, the hydrogen bonds are broken down and reformed. There are other bonds that are not reformed during heat styling, but the shape of your hair will still change as there are many hydrogen bonds. Hydrogen…