A lot of naturals are guilty of mindlessly buying hair products based on the recommendations of natural hair influencers on YouTube, only to find that the products don’t work for them. This has caused many people to spend a lot of their hard-earned coins on hundred of products that are now collecting dust in their hair box that all black girls know and love.
This problem stems from a lack of understanding.
When picking hair products for your natural hair it is important to first understand the needs of your hair and then to know which ingredients will help to address those needs. Keep reading for the basic must-know tips on which ingredients to look for specific hair needs! This blogpost will help you to pick out products based on the basic hair needs, such as moisture, strength, slip, and cleansing.
Disclaimer: This post may contain some affiliate links through which I may earn a commission if a purchase is made using the link.
Why you shouldn’t focus on hair type / what to take into consideration when choosing hair products
Contrary to popular belief, your curl pattern is only a small fraction of what defines your true hair type and plays an even smaller part when deciding which products to use. For example, if you have fine hair with a rough surface texture you may find that your hair is very prone to tangling up so products that have a lot of slip will be very useful.
When looking for which hair products to buy, consider elements such as porosity, lifestyle, density, surface texture, hair hydration, curl diameter and the style you wish to achieve.
Follow where each ingredient lies on the list
At the back of each hair product, you should find the list of ingredients. The higher up the list an ingredient is, the more concentrated it is, with the first 5 ingredients being in the highest abundance.
This can help with understanding the role of each product.
Which ingredients are moisturising
Moisture is fundamental for the health of natural hair. If you want healthy natural hair you better take notes from this section…
If you don’t already know, the moisture that our hair so desperately needs is water. The main source of water that our hair receives is during wash day as we shampoo and condition our hair.
In short, shampoo raises the pH of the hair to open our cuticle to let moisture in whereas conditioner aids with the deeper penetration of the hydration and seals our cuticle to lock the moisture in by lowering the pH of our hair.
Once you have washed and styled your hair, water will inevitably escape your hair as your cuticle is not an impenetrable layer. No matter how many products you layer onto your hair to slow down the water loss,it will happen. This is the process of dehydration, and it is completely normal.
Therefore, in addition to looking for products that have water as the first ingredient, you can also look for ingredients that draw water from the environment into your hair. As you probably know, an example includes humectants. There are different kinds of humectants. Most people are familiar with the normal humectants such as honey and glycerin that draw moisture from the air to your hair. These can be helpful to ensure the hair remains hydrated but can be counterproductive in dry climates…
Humectants work by drawing water from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration. In dry climates where there is likely a lower concentration of water in the air than in your hair, then water can actually move from your hair to the environment and thus dehydrating your hair faster. This is an example of how your lifestyle or environment can affect how a hair product works in your hair.
The 2nd type of humectants are film-forming humectants. They are more molecularly complex than your regular humectants and so not only do they draw more water from the air, but also form a film around your hair that will reduce the rate of water evaporation from your hair.
Which ingredients are good for maintaining moisture
Getting water into your hair is easy if your hair is clean. Keeping that water in is a whole different story for many naturals e.g. those with high porosity hair.
Don’t worry though because your products can actually help with this!
If, and only if, your hair was well moisturised during wash day, conditioning ingredients such as silicones and oils form a barrier around the hair shaft that can help with slowing down the rate of evaporation from inside your hair.
Remember to regularly shampoo your hair to stop these ingredients from building up on your hair and preventing water from getting in, which is another problem to add to your dry hair situation (clown or dead emoji).
Products containing regular humectants and film-forming humectants again helping getting the water into your hair and/or maintaining it in.
Which ingredients are good for adding/replenishing moisture?
When in search of moisturising products it’s important to look at the composition of ingredients, in other words, where an ingredient lies on the ingredient list.
Truly moisturing products will contain water as the first ingredient followed by humectants and film-forming humectants towards the top of the list. These will slowly replenish the level of water in your hair shaft.
If a product claims to be moisturising and is mainly composed of oils and butters, which are also found at the top of the list, then the product is more for sealing and lubrication as well as adding softness. They will slow down the rate of water loss from the hair shaft but not necessarily replenish it.
Which ingredients are strengthening
As you probably already know, your hair is made of protein. The protein found in your hair is called keratin, and it’s responsible for the strength and structure of your hair. Therefore, if you’re finding that your hair is weak and limp, find products that contain hydrolysed protein such as hydrolysed wheat protein, hydrolysed keratin etc. These temporarily fill in small gaps within your hair cuticle which are missing due to basic grooming activities e.g. styling and washing.
Proteins are not the only thing that determine your hair’s structure. The bonds between the proteins also play a huge role in your hair’s strength, elasticity and curl pattern. These bonds include hydrogen bonds, ionic bonds and finally, disulfide bonds. Let’s take a closer look at what each bond does…
However, the proteins in your hair are not the only thing that maintains the structure and strength of your hair. In fact, there are several bonds between different parts of your hair that work together to make your beautiful and healthy curls, coils and kinks.
Alternative bonds
Hydrogen bonds – These are relatively weak interactions and temporary that affect your hair’s strength and most importantly, elasticity. These bonds help change the shape of your hair when broken or formed with the use of water and heat. In short, once you add water or heat to your hair, e.g. during heat styling, you’re breaking the hydrogen bonds, causing your hair to take on a new shape. The drying process of your hair, i.e. the loss of water, forms new hydrogen bonds and locks your style into place.
Ionic bonds – These are the forces of attraction between the positive and negative charges in amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and play a role in strengthening your hair.
Disulfide bonds – These are the strongest type of intermolecular interaction and are responsible for your curl pattern and contribute to strengthening your hair. The more disulfide bonds you have between amino acids in one strand, the curlier your hair will be. Disulfide bonds are broken by chemical treatments such as relaxers, perms and keratin treatments.
These intermolecular bonds mean that you can strengthen your hair without protein.
Yes, low porosity naturals you heard that correctly!
(Quick side note, if you believe you’re protein sensitive, you’re not. It’s just that you have sufficient protein in your hair and you are adding more than you need, and too much of something is never good, hence why your hair starts to feel brittle, etc… This is especially true for low porosity naturals)
What to look for to build these bonds
The first of these magical ingredients is creatine, which is believed to help strengthen your hair and reduce breakage. (find reference for this)
The next group of magical molecules are called ceramides. These are lipids found on the cuticle layer that help the hair cuticle stay together and lay flat. As these protect the outermost layer of the hair, ceramides inevitably help maintain the internal health of your hair, such as ensuring your hair is strong, able to retain moisture, maintain elasticity and so many more factors.
The final molecule is called bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate.
Wow okay that was hard… I know.
These help temporarily form alternative, artificial disulfide links when they’re broken by factors such as heat styling, chemical treatments and UV rays. Bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate therefore helps in temporarily restoring the strength of your hair and curl pattern.
Here are some products that contain bis-aminopropyl diglycol dimaleate
So you don’t always have to look for proteins to give your hair a little boost.
Which ingredients are good for slip if you struggle with detangling
This is where silicones come into play.
Silicones are a group of synthetic polymers that coat the hair shaft to add smoothness and lubrication, which helps make hair easier to detangle.
Before all you die-hard fans of the curly girl method click off this blog, hear me out…
The most damage that silicones can cause to your hair is build-up, which can be easily fixed by regularly using shampoo as you should already be doing.
Are you looking for a strong or gentle cleanser?
In case you didn’t already know, there are different kinds of shampoos. There are clarifying shampoos that thoroughly clean your hair and then there are the gentler, moisturising shampoos.
Clarifying shampoos are shampoos that contain strong cleansing agents such as sulfates and are only meant to be used when needed to remove heavy product build-up around once a month. However, if you regularly use non-water soluble products such as silicones and raw oils and butters, then try using these bi-weekly.
Now the moisturising shampoos are what you need to use regularly, such as on a weekly basis. You can identify these shampoos by checking for conditioning ingredients and a lack of sulfates with gentler cleansing agents such as Decyl Glucoside or Cocomidopropyl betaine and Sodium c14-16 Olefin Sulfonate.
Lifestyle and environmental factors
If you need to wash your hair more regularly than once a week due to lifestyle or personal reasons, you may consider using a co-wash.
Co-washes are conditioners that are formulated to contain gentle cleansing agents. These are not meant to be your sole cleansing product, especially if you use many non-water soluble ingredients.
If you live in a hard-water environment, the calcium found in hard water adds forms some build-uo on your hair, which can be difficult to remove without the ingredient EDTA.
What ingredients to look for when in search of curl definition?
In this case, look for curl defining products that add/replenish moisture into the hair like discussed above.
In case you have already forgotten, these are products with water and water attracting ingredients at the top of the list. This is because hydration helps with curl clumping. This is why it’s crucial to do styles such as wash n gos on soaking wet hair if you want to maximise definition. Such water based stylers will also offer the best hold.
If you see that a defining product is mainly composed of oils and butters then let me tell you now to ditch that product if you’re looking for a strong hold. Such products will add softness and little to no hold.
Final words
Natural hair care is very personal, hence it is important to cater your hair care products to your needs. This starts with education so I hope this blog post has helped you become a little bit more informed 😉
Make sure to read my other blog post teaching you what products you actually need in your haircare routine herehttps://type4onamission.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-picking-hair-products-for-curly-coily-and-kinky-hair/