#1) Know Your Hair’s Needs
Before heading over to the hair product aisle, assess your hair’s current condition. Are you experiencing dryness, product build up, or breakage? Asking yourself simple questions like these helps to focus on what your hair may need and guide you toward the right products.
For example, if you are experiencing a flaky scalp then looking for a shampoo treatment with Tea Tree oil that focuses on reducing dandruff may be best or if dryness is a challenge a moisturizing shampoo would be better than a clarifying one. This helps make sure you are getting what you want out of your hair regimen.
#2) Hair Porosity
Your porosity determines which products will work the best. Lower porosity hair types need products that are lighter and cause less build up. Higher porosity hair may require products that help strengthen weakened strands. Medium porosity hair types benefit the most from products balanced in protein and moisture.
Hair Porosity does matter. Find out yours by taking this hair porosity QUIZ !
#3) Ingredient Knowledge
It’s a great idea to begin looking for products that are sulfate-free. Here’s why, sulfates are added to shampoos to create a lather and strip the hair of unwanted dirt and oils. That can become a problem when sulfates do their job a little too well and strip natural oils away as well. The natural oils (called sebum) are your hair’s natural moisturizer and without it, excessive dryness of the scalp and hair can become a problem.
The other product ingredients you should generally try to avoid are: Diethanolamine (DEA), Triethanolamine (TEA), Benzene, Isopropyl Alcohol, Methylisothiazolinone, mineral Oil, Petroleum, Parabens, Phthalates, Retinol, Synthetic Colors, Retinyl Palmitate, Toleune and Formaldehyde (released through certain preservatives).
If you’d like more great label reading advice there’s a great article written by ESSENCE called How To Read Intimidating Hair Product Labels that will help you further decode your products ingredients. I also highly recommend Curlsbot.com and the Think Dirty App, they make searching for what’s in your products and choosing safer options easy.
#4) Be Aware of Product Hype
The global hair care market is expected to grow to 102 billion dollars by the 2024. Which means, more products flooding the aisles, claiming to be the answer to all your hair problems. Trying new products that offer great results and solve hair problems are always needed but cautious of new trends. Using a new product should be to meet a current hair need (see #1), it is possible to create unwanted hair and scalp conditions with the misuse of products.
#5 Finding What Works
That feeling when you finally create a hair routine that gives you amazing results every time! The sweet spot! When you find it, you know. Getting to this point involves consistency. When trying a new product for the first time I like to note the results over a period of two wash days or about 3 weeks. However, experiencing allergic reactions or serious unwanted results is a reason to immediately discontinuing the use of a product.
The goal is to be consistent enough to see positive hair changes. Once the desired results are achieved, continue to use the same product or those similar to it. Knowing how your hair responds to different ingredients and products is necessary to daily maintenance and growth of healthy natural hair.
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