The Weight of Hair: How Products Effect the Outcome

The first thing we need to do is get to know how a hair shaft is put together and what gives it more or less bounce on it’s own. The basics are:

1. The hair shaft is made up of three layers that wrap around each other. The center of the hair shaft itself has the protein links. The next layer contains the color and the outer layer is called the cuticle and it is the protection that holds all the stuff in.
2. The protein links in the hair are what makes up the firmness of the hair shaft. That would mean that people who have hair that seems to always stick out from their head have stronger links in their hair and people with hair that seems to lay flat will most likely have weaker ones.
3. Another factor that makes the hair stand up or lay down are cowlicks. I have people ask me all the time what they can do about their cowlicks. I tell them there isn’t really a lot you can do besides stop fighting it. Cowlicks are caused by growth patterns and you can’t change your growth pattern. You can perm your hair and change the hair shaft, but you can’t change the way it grows out of your head, short of surgery or a major trauma to the head. Sometime after chemotherapy people will have a change in their hair that might include changes in their growth pattern, but still in the long run it seems to always come back.
4. The layer of your hair that contains the color also helps with how large the hair shaft is and whether it stands up or lays down. You can kind of think of the hair shaft as being full or empty. The darker the hair, usually, the more it stands out because it takes more color molecules to make it dark and fewer to make it light. Grey hair is just hair with no color, however, it is pretty stand-outish, but that is due to other changes in your body. If you get grey hair fairly young, late teens, early twenties, then grey hair is not quit so stubborn.

Now that you know a little about how the hair shaft itself is built lets go back to those protein links. Think of the links as looking like a ladder. The hair shafts that stand out would have a nice aluminum ladder and the hair shafts that lay down would have an old wooden one that may need repair before it’s useable. If you were going to stand on a ladder to get to your roof which one would you rather use? Of course most people would say the aluminum one. Most people would probably prefer a hair shaft that stands up too so that they could bet the body and bounce to their hair. It is the same thing with products. The stronger the hair shaft the more products you can load on it before it starts to lay down. If you have grown up with coarse, thick, stick out hair then you probably completely understand. You need the strongest gel ever and a ton of hairspray to get it to move at all. With fine, limp, lay down hair you put anything on it and it falls. It is because of that weak ladder.

So what can you do to get that ladder to hold the weight? You could rebuild it internally from the inside of your body with vitamins, but be careful, adding too much protein to your hair will just make it brittle and dry. You need a good balance of protein and moisture to make the perfect hair shaft.

Another way to get that hair shaft rebuilt is by using exterior products that contain penetrating vitamins. If you have limp hair you have probably been told that a good deep conditioner would be good for your hair. Be careful again because too much moisture in that conditioner will make it even harder to left. What you need is a good Protein conditioner with a molecule that is small enough to penetrate that hair shaft. Just putting something on the outside is not going to work. You don’t want any more weight on that weak ladder. Most conditioners these days have tried to move away from waxes due to the amount of flack they get about using it and with a well educated public, they are loosing business. They have switched to silicone products, which are ok, but you still don’t have penetration. However, with silicone conditioners that sit on the outside of the hair shaft it does offer you more protection from the elements which is like putting a new coat of varnish on the old ladder, but the weak points are still there and you need to remember that. There are products on the market that have proteins that will penetrate your hair shaft, without mentioning names(Joico) let me tell you a little about them. They actually use hydrolyzed hair to make up their conditioners. That means that they take real hair and boil it, turn it into a powder and use it in their conditioners. A lot of newer products are starting to follow suit. These are the kinds of conditioners you want to use to rebuild the hair shaft.

As far as products, your shelves are probably full of stuff that didn’t work. Right now we are going to head back to that silicone. Your styling products should sit on the outside of the hair shaft. They are there as temporary little helpers to hold that ladder for you while you crawl up it. Silicone products are very pliable when they are warmed and then harden as they cool. Therefore you can style with your dryer or iron, then cool. Make sure to keep the hair in the somewhat the same position as you want it while it cools. Think of them like the wax. When it is hot it melts and drips and when it is cool is very hard and is shaped to what ever position it cooled in. Your hair can do the same thing. But don’t overload it. Don’t use too much product. When you first buy a product use a small amount and learn what is good for your hair. You can always add more. But don’t give up either if you put in too much, just use less next time or wash out what you have in.

Speaking of washing it out, I need to let you know that products do build up on the hair. If you start to feel like your hair is getting too heavy again, take a little baking soda and mix it with a little shampoo in your hand them shampoo with it. If you need to you can leave it on for a few minutes then rinse it out. Vinegar will work too, it just smells. Both of these will remove build up, but be sure to use a conditioner afterwards because they can cause dryness. Too much product can dull the hair too and this simple wash can help with that. You color is seen as the light passes through the hair shaft so if it’s dull then the light is not getting through.

Hopefully these little tips will help you with your hair and understanding the weight you put on it. If you have any questions you can email me, leave a comment or look me up on the net and I will reply as soon as possible. May all your days be good hair days.