Choosing Quality Shampoo and Conditioner

The Truth About Lather…And Quality Shampoo

If you are using a professional quality, non detergent based shampoo, you won’t get a lot of lather when you are washing dirty hair. This is good! The huge amount of lather that you get from using cheap drugstore shampoos happen because they are full of fillers, animal fats, etc. These shampoos work by stripping your hair, while a professional quality shampoo bonds to dirts and oils and pulls them out. If you want strong beautiful hair, you need to make the decision to treat it well. Choose professional quality shampoo and conditioner! If you treat your hair like a value meal, what do you expect the quality of your hair to be?

Qualities of A Good Shampoo

What do you look for when you choose a shampoo? The most common thing people look for is a good smell. They also consider how the packaging looks, the pricing, how it feels (does it lather), and if it gives you good results. However, these are not really the best way to judge.

Detergent based shampoos are designed to compete in drugstores, they tend to be inexpensive. Many of them use ammonia to clean by stripping the hair, destroying your pH balance, causing tangles and frizz. Do you have frizzy, easily tangled hair? If so, you’re probably using the wrong shampoo.

Most professional or high quality shampoos are surfactant based. Many are sulfate free. They are made to attract dirt and oils like a magnet, washing them out with water. They also contain high quality humectants, which are derived from plants. You can’t get these in drugstores, because professional brands only sell to authorized retailers (salons and hairdressers). If you do find them therein a drugstore, they are likely expired, watered down, or otherwise unfit for use.

Moisture and Non Moisture Shampoos

Moisture humectants attract humidity. This is great for coarse hair, permed hair that is worn curly, or natural curly hair. It will help your curls looking nice throughout the day. This is commonly mistaken as a shampoo to use to treat dry frizzy hair. Don’t make that mistake! Using a moisture shampoo will draw in moisture and make frizz worse. It will also contradict any styling you do such as curling or straightening with an iron.

Non moisture humectants repel water. Remember water breaks bonds that hold our hair in a certain shape. These are good for fine hair and hair that you want to style such as with a blow style, straightener, or curling iron.

Getting the Best Bang For Your Buck

Often the biggest objection to using a professional quality shampoo is pricing. However, when used correctly, in the long run they are less expensive. When you follow good practices with using a professional quality shampoo and conditioner, you will be using a lot less product than your drugstore shampoos and conditioners. Not to mention your hair will be in much better shape, so you will not need as many treatments, it will be easier to style, maintain better color, grow longer, stronger, and overall give you the beautiful hair you desire.

Better Use of Shampoo

If you are used to a shampoo that lathers a lot, you will feel like you need to use a lot more when using a professional quality shampoo because they don’t lather on dirty hair. If you are getting lots of lather with a high quality shampoo, you are using too much. For average long hair, using the size of a nickel for shampoo will be plenty. Remember the focus is to clean your scalp, not scrub or lather up your hair. Your hair will still get clean. If you are using a lot of product or otherwise getting lots of stuff on your hair it might take more. You can always shampoo a second time with a smaller amount to see if it is clean or if you desire more of a lather/massage. It will lather the second time if your hair is clean.

Quality Conditioning Habits

Generally we tend to use a lot more conditioner than shampoo because we want that feel good shiny smooth silky feeling. However you really only need a nickel size at most. Start applying the conditioner on your ends and bring whatever remains up towards the top. You can gently scrunch the bottom of your hair up onto the top if you run out too soon. If it isn’t going far enough, try gently squeezing out more water before applying, or get it slightly more wet after applying to spread it out more.

When you leave your conditioner in for a few minutes to let it do its job, it will feel more noticeable. Using less conditioner can also help you go longer between shampoos and have less of an oily scalp. If you follow these good practices with professional quality shampoo and conditioner, you will be using a lot less product.

The longer your hair is the more you may need, but only increase by a tiny amount at a time so you don’t waste!

Make the Commitment

If you truly value the quality of your hair, you have no other choice but to make the commitment to treat it well. Use a professional quality shampoo and conditioner! You cannot expect to have luscious locks if you are not willing to take care of them properly.

As always, please leave a comment and tell me if you’re willing to commit to quality hair products and any questions you have.