Wednesday, October 16, 2013

What's Cookin': Oil Blend Recipe for Hair

Science-y Hair Blog Oil Blend or SHB Oil Blend Recipe

This natural oil blend is a pre-shampoo treatment, a sealer, a frizz-controlling shine pomade/serum, can be added to your conditioner for a deep conditioner. This oil blend adds softness and flexibility to your hair. It helps your hairs align with each other for gloss and definition. Adds weight to control frizz or reduce the volume of "poufy" hair.
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This mixture is blended to be similar the fatty acid component of the oils from your scalp, but still using oils that are fairly easy to find. It works differently than any single oil alone.
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Recipe: (makes about 1/4 cup)

Extra Virgin Olive oil              2 1/2 teaspoons (12 ml)
Coconut oil                             1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons (7.5 ml to 10) (1 1/2 tsp if liquid, 2 if solidified)
Shea butter or Cocoa butter *    2 1/2 to 3 well-packed teaspoons (12 to 14.75 ml): for cocoa butter, see *      
Jojoba oil **                            1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5 ml)
Grapeseed oil                         4 teaspoons (20 ml)
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Essential oil or fragrance oil (optional)
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* If you use cocoa butter, you may want to use just 2 teaspoons or even 1 1/2 teaspoons. Cocoa butter is harder than shea butter and may be more likely to cause build-up. If you know your hair loves cocoa butter - go crazy! Otherwise, use caution.
** If jojoba oil makes your hair static-y and flyaway and you want to use this on dry hair, replace it with canola oil or use more olive and grapeseed oil.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Measure oils into a double boiler or a heat-resistant bowl which you can place over simmering water or in a pan of hot water. Allow the shea or cocoa butter (and coconut oil if yours has solidified) to melt and blend for a few minutes.

Remove from heat. Store in the refrigerator. This will become semisolid in the refrigerator, but will melt in your hand. Refrigerating the mixture helps prevent rancidity. Alternatively, keep a small amount in a squeeze bottle at room temperature in a cool-ish, dark place (not in your bathroom). This oil blend should stay reasonably fresh (not rancid) for 2-3 months, depending on how the oils you used to make it were stored. Wipe the bottle to remove drips and keep water out.

Each oil adds something special, mainly they were chosen for their lipid profile. Olive oil contains squalene, and is a good lubricant and shine-enhancer. Coconut oil penetrates the hair shaft for softness and flexibility and helps porous hair resist swelling in water - swelling stresses your strands. Shea butter or cocoa butter soften hair from the outside and add "weight." Jojoba oil is a wax chemically speaking and waxes are a natural part of your skin's sebum, it's in this recipe for shine and lubrication. Grapeseed oil penetrates the hair somewhat, softens and lubricates. As with oils from your scalp, this blend is not made for heavy-handed use unless you know your hair can tolerate lots of oils and butters without unhappy side effects.
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Ingredients prior to melting.
Here is a link to a post with more about the oils.

How to Use SHB Oil Blend:

Pre-shampoo: Apply oil to dry hair before shampooing (or conditioner-washing or whatever you do to wash your hair). If your hair is fine, thin or silky or not very porous, use just enough to make it shine. If your hair is dry and rough and static-y, use enough to make it feel good and greasy. Leave it on for anywhere from 15 minutes to overnight (protect your pillow)! Then cleanse. 
This oil blend does not leave a high shine after shampooing, hair should have luster and feel soft and pliable. Experiment with how much to use - your washed hair should not feel overly oily when wet or dry. 

Sealer: Apply this oil to damp hair or over a leave-in conditioner to
All oils melted and blended.
trap moisture and control frizz.
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Serum/Pomade: This oil blend is heavy. Applied to dry hair and smoothed through, it will add weight, gloss and definition to curls and coils. Works well to control flyaways and shape styles both natural and "set." But it may flatten fine curls or waves. Be warned if you have allergies, oils on dry hair can accumulate dust, pollen and mold spores. Will add shine to your hair, but the shea butter in the recipe can lead to build-up which dulls hair. If this occurs, a gentle shampoo and plenty of warm water should remove the excess oil.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Semi-solid, refrigerated oil blend.
Conditioner enhancer: Add a few drops (or more) of this oil blend to however much conditioner you use, mix well and condition for extra softening and flexibility in your hair. Don't add it to a bottle of conditioner - the oils can go rancid or make the product separate.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Protein treatment enhancer: Add a drop or two (or more) of this oil blend to your favorite protein treatment.
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Removing crunch from hair gels: Use a very small amount of this oil blend (1-3 drops), rubbed in your palms, to smooth over your hair as though you are making a ponytail. Squeeze through to the ends to break up the "crunch" of hair gels for a soft finish.




Monday, October 7, 2013

Polyquat build-up

If you're the kind of person whose hair reacts badly to hair styling products sometimes, often something like polyquaternium is to blame. These ingredients provide hold, may reduce frizz and can condition the hair. But they also bond to the hair and do not rinse or wash off easily. They don't build up for everybody - so I want to show you what it might look like if they build up on your hair.

This is wavy hair on day one with a hair gel containing Polyquaternium-4.
Day one with polyquaternium-containing gel.


The same product was used again for the photo below, probably just rinsing the hair in between.

But the second use revealed the ugly side of polyquaterniums. Everything was done the same as the day before. But the result was quite different. Stringy, crunchy, less volume, dull, less wave definition, kind of sparse and a little frizzy.




Second use of polyquaternium-containing gel.







So now you know. If this happens to you and your hair gel (or shampoo or conditioner or mousse or styling cream) contains polyquaterniums, you might want to avoid them and see if your hair behaves more nicely.

It doesn't always happen on the first or second use, this is a cumulative process. They all build up for me right away. No sleuthing necessary.

To find out more about which polyquats and other similar ingredients *may* build up on hair, refer to this post. 

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Allergens in your hair!

As a result of doing hair physical analysis (shop link on the right), and especially working with my and my husband's hair, I am learning about which allergens stay in your hair and why.
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What do I find the most? Mold. Mold is fungi and fungal spores (the fungal equivalent to pollen) are very small and very "sticky." I'm finding spores that are common mold allergies like Alternaria, but also other species.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

I have seen some weed pollen from plants with air-dispersed pollen (ragweed, lamb's quarters).
I have also seen starches (the foods you touch leave starch on your hands).
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Tree pollen not as much, but it's not tree pollen season here and that is bigger, so it probably won't stick to individual hairs, though it definitely gets caught in your hair as a whole.
Fungal spore stuck to a hair.
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Keeping allergens out of your hair
About those fungal spores and pollen grains - they're sticking the most to hair which has had oil applied when dry. In fact, they're often stuck in visible oil residue. Bad news allergy sufferers! If you're carrying those allergens around all day and taking them to bed with you, you're bound to feel worse all the time.©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

Better to avoid oils as a leave-on during allergy season; conditioners don't seem to attract the mold spores and pollen as much. It helps a lot to rinse your hair daily if you can while your allergies are at their worst. If daily rinsing equals hair disaster - you might get relief from wearing a sleep cap or scarf over your hair so the allergens are not rubbing off on your pillow, to be breathed by you later.

If you have allergies, you've probably heard all this before. But you've probably never seen it. And it's always worth repeating.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

pH Testing at Home

If you mix up your own hair rinses or protein treatments or hair gel, at some point you need to have some pH test strips or paper. You can read why here and here. ©Science-y Hair Blog 2013

There are 2 brands I use. I often buy them online because I can get the brand I want at a good price.
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One is Hyrdion (also labeled as pHydrion). Make sure to look for test strips or paper with a range from pH 0-13. Don't get pH test strips made for urine and saliva testing, the range is not great enough.
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A brand that reads very clearly is ColorpHast with a range of 0-14. There are differently-colored pads on each strip that you match up to a scale on the case. This assures a better match than only one color. That's good for use with indoor lighting or in products with a slight color. While they may seem pricey up front, one package should last a long time unless you get very interested in testing pH and it is better to test pH now than to deal with damaged hair later!©Science-y Hair Blog 2013


ColorpHast pH test strips.
Hydrion pH 0-13 test paper on a roll.
These products should be stored in a dry place, out of direct light. Very old pH strips tend to be inaccurate or at the very least difficult to read. There are other brands out there. These are the ones I buy again.©
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Important Note: When you test pH, test room-temperature liquids. Testing hot liquids is likely to give you the wrong reading.