Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Update to Penetrating Oils Post

This is the original post, with the updated list. I've done a little more research and this may be more accurate. Because all these oils have not been tested side-by-side using the same technology, it's a little tricky to guess which ones actually will do what is predicted.

And of course, your hair will be the best judge of which oil may work best for you.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Different Porosity, Same Hair

It's fairly common to have hair that is porous on the ends, but not at the roots. That means different parts or your hair require rather different care. How easily your hair becomes porous with just normal wear and tear and weathering depends on a lot of things. In fact, the kind of porosity your hair accumulates can be very different from person to person.

How can the ends of your hair become porous? The ends of your hair are the oldest - they have had the most time to accumulate damage. While you up to 11 layers of cuticles covering your hair, if your hair is long there may be few layers left on the ends.  Brushing, combing, detangling, sleeping, wearing hats and collars, blowing around in the wind, wearing ponytails and braids and barrettes; these activities cause cuticles to chip or break away completely. Even more dramatic is over-washing the hair (especially if using strong or concentrated detergents), bleaching, highlighting or lightening the hair, permanent dyeing the hair (when they dye includes ammonia and/or peroxide), chemically relaxing or permanent waving the hair. Spending lots of time in the sun causes cuticles to shrink so they cover less area. Using high heat hair styling tools can cause cracks that increase porosity.

Hair that curls or has kinking (or both) "wears" or weathers more unevenly than straight hair because there are certain areas which accumulate more friction than others, so it is more likely to become porous. Anything that sticks out can be broken off easily - and that goes for cuticles on your hair where it kinks and curls.

Fine and medium hair is more flexible than coarse hair and tends to become porous more easily because it bends around things (like other hairs) readily and therefore accumulates more surface-contact with objects and that means more friction!

What's the problem with porous hair?
Porous hair loses water more quickly than low porosity hair. Think of the function of the cuticle of low porosity hair as a plastic bag. Not very porous. Water doesn't get in or out easily. But if you punch holes in a plastic bag or rip tiny cracks, water can get through. When your hair is porous, water gets in and out easily. So when you put your hair in water, it takes on water and swells. Swelling is bad for hair because it creates stress within the hair. When porous hair gets wet, it can lose soluble proteins to the water. Bad news - because those proteins in the outer portions of your hair help keep it hydrated. When porous hair is dry (dry meaning not wet), because it has no tight barrier against the environment, so it can lose more moisture than is good for it when the air around the hair is drier than the hair itself.

Hair may grow out of your scalp with low porosity. It may not stay that way for long, depending on what you do to it and what your hair is like.  For whatever reason hair becomes porous, porous hair becomes dehydrated easily and dehydrated hair is more brittle and prone to breakage, less shiny, does not hold a curl as well, frizzes easily.

What to do
Low porosity hair is water-repelling. Not as much as  the back of a duck - but it does not swell with water quickly when wetted and it does not lose water very readily to the environment around it when dry. Because normal-porosity hair is so resilient to the environment, and because it tends to stay resilient, it's a good idea to encourage more-porous hair to act like less-porous hair. Water-repellant hair does not swell in water, accumulating more stress and more damage. It resists damage. It does not become dehydrated quickly! It does not absorb humidity rapidly and frizz immediately. We want our hair to repel water somewhat.

If your hair is porous on the lower portion, what can you do to balance out your hair's porosity?
  • Pre-shampoo (pre-cleansing) oil treatments on the porous areas - ends and probably the top layer too. Especially with oils like coconut, sunflower, grapeseed, avocado or olive oil. Enough oil to add shine - or enough to make your hair look greasy - that's up to you. Oils will repel water during cleansing to prevent the swelling that can cause further damage. You'll know you used the right amount when your hair, post-washing does not look frizzed out and extra-poofy, nor greasy and lank when dry. If just your ends are porous - use this treatment only in those places.
  • Condition-wash-condition. Pre-shampoo conditioning also buffers hair from shampoo and water, but conditioners can build up in a way that liquid oils do not. If the idea of using oils in your hair make you say "yuck," this method can give you wonderful results. The conditioner before washing can be applied to wet or dry hair. 
  • Use shampoo, conditioner or styling products which contain proteins or amino acids or film-forming humectants. This link has a list of products based on film forming humectants. Proteins and amino acids are hydrating to hair and can help hair that tends to be dehydrated, hold on to moisture. Film forming humectants (flaxseed gel, okra gel, aloe vera gel, pectin, celluloses) are not especially affected by ambient humidity and can seal in moisture all day to keep porous hair hydrated. 

How can you prevent your hair from becoming porous?
  • Comb, don't brush. Or skip the comb entirely and just use your fingers. Brushes are great for shredding cuticles of your hair! A wide-tooth comb will get the job done. If you have tangly hair, detangle starting with your fingers, then a wide-tooth comb and work from the ends, up. Don't tug or yank on hair! Once you over-stretch a hair, it's damaged forever.
  • Use ammonia-free and peroxide-free or low-peroxide, semi-permanent hair dye or plant dyes like henna.
  • Shampoo only when your hair needs it. Switch to "sulfate free" shampoo or dilute your shampoo to make it more gentle to the hair.
  • Use lower-heat hair styling tools.
  • If fabric touches your hair and your hair becomes porous easily - make sure it's silk or satin or at least slippery-feeling fabric.
  • If you use henna in your hair - make sure it has plenty of lubrication because henna increases friction in hair.



Sunday, September 8, 2013

More About Protein

In the realm of protein and hair-care, there is a lot of gray area. Some protein ingredients are beneficial for managing porosity and elasticity in hair, but there are a lot of unknowns for consumers. I think there are some guiding themes not so much in your hair's thickness or density or curliness - but in the effect you want and the composition of the proteins themselves. Given the variabilities in the raw materials and individual hairs, there isn't a "mix and match" guideline, but at least you'll have more information to explain your hair's reaction.  ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Cosmetic proteins - broad size classes: The font-size indicates the size of the protein molecule:
Hydrolyzed protein, Peptide, Amino acid.

All of these can be found in hair-care products.  Hydrolyzed proteins are made from raw ingredients (wheat, oats, etc.) that have been treated with enzymes or acid or alkali to break down the proteins. The proteins aren't lost - but they are broken down into smaller pieces. Like kicking a LEGO tower.

The more we process and filter and process again, the smaller pieces we can isolate.


Proteins condition your hair.
First of all, protein is regarded as a conditioning ingredient in two respects. One in that it can in some cases bond to hair and also that it can soften, reduce static and improve the feel and luster of hair. Being oil-free and not waxy nor oil-based makes proteins well-suited conditioners for hair which is easily weighed down. Protein is a hydrating conditioner. Oils and "fatty alcohols" and creamy conditioning ingredients that are the base of most conditioners soften and create flexibility and may prevent water loss. But protein grabs water and hangs on to it. Protein doesn't release water quickly, either. That doesn't mean, "hair that takes forever to dry" - it means, "hair that doesn't get dehydrated as easily."Well-hydrated hair is shinier and less frizzy and more flexible. Not bad. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Whose hair needs the extra boost protein can offer? 
As a generalization: ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
1) People whose hair is losing more water than it should - porous or damaged hair. 
That means: 
Bleached or highlighted hair
Chemically relaxed or permanent waved hair
Hair that has been frequently brushed
Hair you take swimming frequently in chlorinated pools or salt water
Hair that spends several hours each week under the full sun 
Some hair that tends to be dry no matter how much oil and conditioner you use
Hair that has been styled with high heat - flat irons, curling irons, hair dryers on "hot."

Active people who like to be outdoors - we're making our hair more porous. But at least we're having a good time doing it.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

People who have kinking in their hair sometimes (not always!) have slightly increased porosity for 2 reasons. First is that the kinking areas are uneven, the cuticles cannot lie quite flat. When a cuticle does not lie flat, it sticks out and cuticles that stick out are likely to be broken off! Broken cuticles equals more porosity. Kinking hair suffers far more damage from daily life than non-kinking hair - it is more likely to become porous as a result. Curly hair also presents an uneven surface in that it "wears" unevenly against other hairs, your collar, your pillowcase. If this is the hair nature gave you - you have to fight your hair's tendency to become porous. It probably grows non-porous and pristine from your scalp. And then life happens. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

No matter why your hair is porous, it will lose water more rapidly than is good for it. Protein fills up those gaps for a while, and it does it in a water-grabbing way that is good for your hair. An oil or silicone or "fatty alcohol" conditioner just blocks the gaps and softens the hair - they may prevent water loss to some degree, but they do nothing in the way of improving hydration. As a side-note, porous hair also loses proteins from the cuticle layers when it gets wet because the cuticle cannot seal them in - another reason to use both proteins and pre-cleansing oil treatments on porous hair.
Porous hair - see the jagged cuticles
on the left side.
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

2) People whose hair needs conditioning, but cannot take a lot of added weight. That's you, fine-to-medium-haired people, or anybody with silky, soft hair. Protein can bulk your hair up a little and add strength. 

Who needs to approach protein with caution?
If your hair is quite coarse (wide hairs), it may not tolerate protein very often. Or it may tolerate the smaller proteins and amino acids.
Coarse but porous hair may tolerate (and benefit from) protein more than coarse, lower porosity hair.

What does protein do to your hair?©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Protein is most substantive to hair (it bonds to hair the best) when it has a molecular weight of about 1000 daltons or less. At this size, they are weakly cationic and bond to hair. Smaller than 500 daltons can penetrate into the hair. Substantivity is what defines a conditioner - something that bonds to the hair to reduce friction and static. So proteins are conditioners! Protein in a shampoo or conditioner or styling product can work, and recently I've become a fan of protein in shampoos after seeing my husband's fragile hair become very healthy and breakage-resistant from using a protein-enriched shampoo.

Protein will bond best to hair between pH 4 and 7 (around pH 5 is best). In fact protein has pH-dependent charges, at lower-than-neutral pH, it has a positive charge to help it bind to your naturally negatively charged hair. So proteins are most effective in products with a pH around 5 or 6.
Same porous hair, blue in-
filling represents hydrolyzed
protein filing in porosities
and also forming a light surface
film.
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
The larger proteins have more of a coating-glossing-moisture-hugging film effect that is present during use (for example oat protein or jojoba protein in a styling product). For porous hair, these fill in the gaps as well as lightly coat the surface. For not-porous hair and fine hair, they are mostly forming a film and providing a little extra body. For coarse hair, too much extra body might not be a good thing and protein needs to be used judiciously - though a little can be a great help.©Scien
Lower porosity, fine hair with blue
representing hydrolyzed protein
forming a film on the surface.
ce-y Hair Blog 2013
Proteins are made of amino acids. Hydrolyzed proteins are the source-protein which has been broken down with acid or alkali or enzymes into smaller pieces (no longer a whole protein). 

Within that hydrolysate product, there are various-sized "fragments" of the original proteins. Some smaller, some larger. The amino acid content of a hydrolyzed protein may make it better-suited for some hair-care needs.
 
Your hair has many amino acids within the cuticle layers that attract water to keep hair hydrated so it doesn't break too easily. Hydrated hair is great - it has more shine, it is more flexible, in hair with waves and curls, the curl pattern has better definition when hair is well hydrated because there is less frizz.  So take a look at the amino acids in the outermost surfaces of your hair.©

Amino acid content of human hair (first column containing letter x), and of hydrolyzed proteins; and typical molecular weight of hydrolyzed protein additive (bottom row): 
Click to enlarge this table.  Amino acid content in these hydrolyzed proteins is indicated as "xxx" is the largest quantity, "xx" is medium to high quantity and "x" means the amino acid is present in smaller quantities.

Science-y Hair Blog 2013
If hair is very damaged - it might make sense to try to supply it with proteins that contain the amino acids naturally present in hair. Products containing combinations of protein might work better than single proteins for some people's hair.  
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Refer to the table above for a visual aid to accompany the information below:
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Collagen is one of the few proteins to provide a lot of Proline, one of the more abundant amino acids in the cuticle - good for improving elasticity in hair that snaps and breaks easily and feels mushy when wet - like wet fabric instead of wet fiber. It is a hydrating protein, small to medium size and substantive. Collagen amino acids are smaller still. 
Gelatin is partly hydrolyzed collagen and therefore contains medium to large protein constituents and is both hydrating and film-forming. It contains the same amino acids as Hydrolyzed collagen - but because it's not as highly processed, it may behave quite differently for your hair.

Wheat provides abundant Cystine - but it is not necessarily the same Cystine as in hair. If it can function similarly to the cystine in hair, wheat protein is superb. Hydrolyzed wheat protein is fairly large and therefore more of a film-forming, porosity-filling protein. 

Oat protein is both hydrating and conditioning and also film forming and porosity-filling.  Some versions of hydrolyzed oats are engineered to be medium-sized, but you cannot always know if that is what is in your product. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Soy protein. Even though soy protein is a medium-size protein, it may not have the hydrating power of the other proteins. It's amino acid complement is more abundant in amino acids which are not as abundant in human hair. Soy protein is a small-medium size for conditioning.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Corn protein is often combined with other proteins. Corn protein has small-medium size for conditioning and hydrating.

Keratin  Human hair-source keratin is even more similar to the protein in your own hair. Keratin is a small-to-medium protein so it has hydrating and conditioning potential and 6 amino acids naturally abundant in the cuticle of your hair.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

 Silk protein is a smaller protein and mostly hydrating and conditioning.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

So what's the take-home message? ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Protein can do a lot of great things for hair - it can condition, soften, or strengthen and provide support, promote hydration for good elasticity and bounce and shine. The higher molecular-weight proteins are more likely to quickly strengthen and provide support. 

If you like to analyze things deeply, looking at the amino acid content of the hydrolyzed proteins (table on this page) can inform you on how well they match the amino acids naturally present in hair - which might be extra-helpful for porous hair. 

My tables can be a pretty deep dive - but they work for me to make the mental juggling of variables a little more - visible. If I have stressed my hair with heat or sun and need porosity-control, I'm going to lean towards multiple proteins in a single product to try to mimic hair's natural moisture-retaining property. But if my hair feels mushy and flyaway and is snapping when I handle it, I might lean towards the larger-molecular weight proteins instead for the biggest boost of support and strength. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013


Sources:
Hair and Hair Care. Johnson, D. 1997
Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair. Robbins. 1994, 3rd Ed.
Various sources from ingredient manufacturers and suppliers.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Update to Hydrolyzed Protein List

I have been updating my list of hydrolyzed proteins by weight, you can find the new list in this old post.

I also learned that hydrolyzed collagen and gelatin (partially hydrolyzed collagen) contain significant concentrations of amino acids which are beneficial to hair strength - many of which are found naturally in high concentrations in the cuticle of hair, already serving a functional role. Those include Proline (not found in most other hydrolyzed proteins), Glutamic acid, Valine, a little Cysteine and Histidine.
© Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Hydrolyzed collagen adsorbs (temporarily bonds to) hair, increasing it's resistance to breaking under tension. The more concentrated the collagen in a formula, the more will bond to hair - at least up to a point. The smaller the collagen molecule, the better it bonds to hair - so hydrolyzed collagen will bond to hair better than and longer-lasting than gelatin you can buy over the counter. If your hair is damaged (on the ends, for example) it will bond with more collagen protein than un-damaged hair.

So if you like the gelatin protein treatment recipe on this blog and you want it stronger, increase the gelatin without increasing the water. If you want it less-strong, decrease the gelatin and keep the water the same, or increase the water and keep the gelatin the same.
©Science-y Hair Blog 2013
Collagen binds water to your hair - not just attracting it like a humectant, but holding it there. And it does that better at a pH of 5 than a neutral pH.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

You may note I have altered the gelatin protein treatment recipe because as it was written initially, it was too acidic. I strongly encourage you to invest in some pH test strips when adding acids to avoid damaging your hair.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013


You can get a boost of collagen protein from the shampoos and conditioners on the "Product by Category" page - scroll down to the list of protein-containing shampoos and conditioners. The shampoos listed are "sulfate-free."