Are we harming our hair with the amenities with love?
 

I'm getting a keratin treatment on my hair today. My stylist mentioned to be sure I don't use shampoos with sodium in them as it will wreck my hair long term and cause the treatment to not last short term.

She told me I most likely don't use shampoos with sodium as it's in the cheap ones.

Well, I went through all my "upscale" shampoos from hotels in recent months and each one, including Bulgari, has sodium. If you read about the effects they aren't good. I think I'm going to stay away from my fancy-in-name-only hotel shampoos and stick with ones from people who make only hair products and not watches too. Anyway ...just found it interesting how the name and price led me to believe I wouldn't find the cheap ingredients.

Be careful with getting a keratin treatment. Even in the nicest of salons, it can be a disaster. Thanks for the warning about the sodium. I had no idea and have never looked at the ingredients.

I was completely oblivious to sodium even being in shampoo, let alone it causing a problem.

did she mean Sodium Lauryl Sulfate?

I asked a bit more about all of this. With the keratin the big problem seemed to be the formadehyde in some of the products. What I'm getting is formaldehyde free.

The sodium problem seems mostly to be sodium chloride (I was finding all sorts of sodium in shampoos so figured it couldn't be all of them). And sulfates are the other problem, including the one Missy mentions, which I found in some of my 'upscale' hotel shampoos.

l'etoile, I believe your hairdresser may thinking of the harm sodium C14-16 olefin sulfonate and sodium lauryl sulfate can do to hair. Both are drying detergent cleansing agents. (BTW, sodium LAURETH sulfate is fine.) Sodium C14-16 olefin sulfonate and sodium lauryl sulfate can fade color treated hair.

Sodium chloride (table salt) is used primarily as a binding agent in skin-care products and occasionally as an abrasive in scrub products. If sodium chloride is used as a binding agent in hair care products, it should be safe.

Thanks try2cook. What I'm reading about sodium chloride is that it also can strip color and products from your hair. I guess what I'm gathering from this is that if you use products with sodium chloride you may be decreasing the time your expensive color or straightening treatments would last. Does that seem logical to you? That seemed to be what my stylist concluded.

This thread is fascinating. I highlight my hair 3-4 times per year and I've noticed that my shampoos and conditioners for color-treated hair have all kinds of sodium products.

So, if I'm reading try2cook correctly, sodium chloride (table salt) and sodium LAURETH sulfate are safe for highlighted hair?

Ditto.

And I've got to imagine the folk who make shampoo & conditioner especially for color-treated hair would be aware of any substance that would cause the opposite effect of what they're hoping to achieve and not include it - unless of course they're trying to sell more of the stuff ;)

Cheers.

THe problem I found with using SodiumLaurylSulfate-free shampoo is that my hair felt quite lank - even on the day I washed it (wash every 2nd day). Generally the shampoos aren't very sudsy so I never felt that my hair was really clean or had any body. It's really difficult to get a good shampoo without it so would be delighted to hear of any options.

If I end up disliking a shampoo's effect on my hair and skin, I use it to wash my shower :D A bit of baking soda, shampoo, and an old scrubby poof works decently and even better if the shampoo is a cheap cleansing type. That some shampoos clean the tub decently might be a cause for concern...

Otherwise if I like the smell but it doesn't play well with my scalp, sometimes it gets relegated to "cleansing cycle shampoo" or body wash.

Right now I'm using the giovanni line and while it doesn't foam up, is better for my scalp which can get dry with sulfate shampoos and traditional alcohol based conditioners.

Now to find a use for lotion I end up disliking. It's usually for the smell over the consistency, but some lotions are just hopeless on the moisturizing front.

If you just keep in mind that the nice people who are doing your hair are the same nice people who failed high school chemistry class and ultimately didn't make it in college, you'll avoid worrying about "stuff" like this.

How much did the fancy shampoo not containing the mysterious "sodium" cost, I wonder? It's my belief that if the shampoo doesn't explode while it's hanging out in your grocery basket, then it probably doesn't contain "sodium." It may, and probably does, contain sodium lauryl sulfate, as another more tactful poster pointed out, but so what? If you have oily hair, then I'm guessing you'll be sorry to do without that ingredient...

If my hair ever actually looked any better as a result of going to the salon, I might put up to listening to some moron with a pair of scissors in her hands yap about stuff she knows nothing about. But it never does. I give the personal "Top Idiot" prize to the stylist who claimed that my straight hair could be fixed with vitamins. No, you dummy, straight hair is genetic. It can be fixed with a perm -- with chemicals. It can't be fixed by taking a pill. Sheesh. But I'm sure she made a nice side income selling worthless pills to the desperate.

I had a Brazillian Blowout done and I love it. I will do another one when this one is about 12 weeks old. They will last longer after you have had more than one done, at least that is what my stylist told me. There are different types of Keratin treatments. I chose the Brazillian because it was the only one where you didn't have to wait 3 days to wash your hair or put it in a pony tail or behind your ears. I use Wen cleansing conditioner and it doesn't fade my hair or make the keratin wear off quicker. Regarding the formadehyde, I don't think any of the products include that in the ingredients any longer. I also think the keratin has made my hair stronger, it doesn't have as much breakage. My hair is long but fine textured and I used to get split ends, now they are noticably fewer.

That's pretty funny, but not a bad thought.

Table salt (sodium chloride) is great at taking out red wine, so it makes sense to me that if it can strip red wine out of fabric and carpet easily, it probably strips things I paid to have applied to my hair just as easily.

Savi424: Today ends my three days. My hair is thick and on the dry side so it can take three days without a shampoo easily, but I'm not sure I've had a good night sleep since as I keep thinking (illogically) that I'll put some dent in my hair overnight. Looking forward to shampoo and a good sleep tonight. :)

This additive makes hair very electric in the winter.

Bobette

Sodium itself is merely a bystander in aqueous chemistry. So sodium chloride, if it's in a water soluble product, will rinse completely out of your hair. As far as I know, there is no mechanism for sodium chloride to change your hair color, salon treated or not. In fact, salt is sometimes used to set dyes in textiles and fabric.

So, in answer to Analise's question: sodium chloride (table salt) and sodium laureth sulfate should be safe for highlighted hair. I love my hairstylist, but I've had some amiable arguments about hair care products with her.

The field of shampoos and conditioners is actually a rather boring one. They all have virtually the same ingredients.

I was told to use Global Shampoo and conditioner after my Keratin straightening & conditioning treatment. Seems fine. No sodium chloride.

This was in today's news and is food for thought for those who want to get the Brazilian keratin treatments. Wearing ventilators because of toxic fumes? Check out the picture in today's NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/fa..._r=1&ref=style

I just checked my bottle of Kerastase - the Bain Miroir line, for "Very Sensitised Colour-Treated Hair" - and the second product in the ingredient list is Sodium Laureth Sulfate. I read through this thread three times before determining whether or not to flush it. :)

Really interesting story. I was assured the product used was formaldehyde-free, but now I wonder. I wonder how much it would be to have the product tested.

I guess what I'm a bit skeptical about is that when I have spilled red wine on fabric, salt lifts the wine stain out amazingly well. It seems it would be easy to conclude then that salt would lift color out of my hair. Wrong conclusion?

I just had the Brazilian keratin treatment done by my stylist using a new formaldehyde free formula from Cadiveu. Here's my experience:

During actual application, the product has no chemical smell, just a pleasant perfumy scent.

This all changes once heat comes into play. Applying the hairdryer and flat iron results in clouds of acrid smoke which are extremely irritating to the eyes and throat. Mine felt very off after we were done. My stylist confirmed that it was nowhere as bad as the old keratin treatments like the Brazilian Blowout, but that it definitely bothered her if she got a face full of it.

The actual results are nothing short of stunning on my hair. I have a bit of wave and a fair bit of frizz in my very thick, very long hair. It came out looking like the pictures on the Cadiveu site - sleek, super smooth, and not a bit of frizz to be seen. Time will tell if it lasts, though I did pick up their product line as a safeguard to prolong the style - I travel too much to bother running around trying to find the "right" shampoo and conditioner right now, so it was worth the $$$.

Speaking of $$$, wow. I almost had heart palpitations in the salon. The standard treatment uses 1.5-2 oz of product and takes 90 minutes. Due to just how much hair I have, it took 3-4x the amount of product, and 4 full hours start to finish, with a junior stylist helping out on some parts. The tip ran as high as most salons charge for the service on short hair :P

Was it worth it? Right now I'd say yes. My hair is perfect, gorgeous, shiny, straight, and amazingly mobile, falling perfectly to just past my waist, and it was achieved using finger blowdrying after the final rinse, and no major brush work. If it stays like this for the promised 3-4 months I will have no problem plunking down another obscene amount of cash when the time comes.

Wow - Not a fair comment to make
 

That's an insensitive blanket statement that is offensive to hairdressers. My stylist graduated from Stanford but found her love working with people and styling hair.

You shouldn't judge someone's character or intelligence just because they take a path that's different than yours.

I read about all of you using hair straighteners and I would kill for curly hair. Not only is it beautiful, it also hides a multitude of sins. You don't need to get it colored as often since it isn't that obvious. If you overslept and don't have time to wash it, no one notices. Yep, I'd love curly hair.

It's just the opposite for me - when I wear my hair curly I have to wash it daily since it's a disaster when I get out of bed. When I get my hair straightened I still have the option to wear it curly.

phedre: I was assured the product in my hair also did not have formaldehyde, but after reading that story in The New York Times linked above it makes it pretty clear that it's just about impossible to know for sure unless you have the product tested.

Ok, I draw the line at having products tested. I love my hair, but still...

Cheers.

The curly-tops want straight hair, those with the dead straight hair want curls...

I'm so glad my hair has grown out enough for braids or up do's! A brush, a few pins or a clip, and I'm good to go. :D

So True! Heck, I don't even own a hairdryer. Every once in a while if I'm staying at a hotel I'll use one.

+1 We actually had to borrow a blowdryer from my neighbor for my son's science experiment last week.

And, ladies, if you're worried about what keratin does to your hair, pause to consider what chemotherapy does and be glad you don't have to worry about those side effects. :) I'm very grateful to have hair again.

Then how do you dry your clothes? ;)

(Seriously, if I spill some water on a shirt I'm wearing the first thing I reach for to dry it is the blow dryer. It's good for warming up shoes to stretch them out too if they're tight.)

CDTraveler: Point taken. Hurrah for braids and quick up-dos. :)

related >

What a weird way to phrase it "chemical free". Everything listed on those websites ingredients lists are 'chemicals' - water is a chemical, vitamin c is a chemical, Glyceryl Stearate is a chemical - they are all natually occuring, but are still chemicals.

The fact something is natural does not mean it is safe either - the worst 'chemical' burn I have ever experienced was when I was accidently exposed to neat lemon essential oil - completely natural and organic, it really blooming hurt!

Two very good brands that make mild, healthy hair care products are Aesop and Jurlique. Both brands are from australia, and use high quality and mostly "natural" ingredients.

As mentioned in the above list Dr. Huaschka is also a good brand.

I can especially endorse Aesop, as I have been using it for years and love the stuff.

Hair is dead.

So is my coffee table. But you will still harm it if you put a beer bottle down on it without a mat!

Is it completely? Hair is both alive and dead.

Part of the issue is that the skin under the hair (scalp) is not and so exposure to carcinogen (formaldehyde) can lead to cancer. Health Canada has banned the keratin treatments because of this.

The other issue is if you just paid a fortune for products to be applied to your 'dead' hair, it's kind of nice to not be using shampoos and conditioners ghat are rapidly stripping those products off.

I pretty much stopped using hotel shampoo except for bliss. I take home the shampoo if I love it and use it as body wash (Blaise Mautin, for example). I usually carry a travel size of my kiehl's shampoo.