What is the difference between professional products and those that you can buy at the drugstore such as Suave, Dove, Pantene, or Garnier?​​​​​​​​​​ It is Glo's recommendation to stay as far away from drugstore and Sally Beauty Supply products as possible. Along with drugstore products, Sally Beauty Supply products are readily available for consumers and not considered professional grade products. Products such as Pantene and Garnier have very convincing commercials, but not so convincing ingredients. ​

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Know your ingredients.​​​​​​​​​​ Sulfate, most Alcohol, and Sodium Chloride are what you want to avoid. Sulfate is a cleansing ingredient, it is what creates the suds and lather shampoos. Although sulfate does a great job at cleaning, your hair thinks it does too good of a job! Sulfate is a harsh chemical that strips your hair of good and bad oils, leaving it brittle, weak, and prone to tangling. Because it strips the good and bad oils of your hair, your body will start to overproduce scalp oils with extended use. If your hair seems to get oily in one day or less, sulfates in your shampoo may be why. Alcohol is usually added in these products as a swelling agent. Have you ever gotten a drop of rubbing alcohol on your skin and realized it a few minutes later? You'll notice your skin feels sensitive and almost puffy or swollen. Alcohol does the same thing to your hair in a smaller dose. It opens up the cuticle of the hair in order to penetrate the product throughout the hair. The only problem is that once your cuticle is open, it never fully closes again. And the more you open it, the more it dries out. Sodium Chloride AKA table salt is a very drying ingredient added to shampoos also as a cleansing agent. Over time it will slowly suck the moisture out of your hair as if you put salt on a snail!

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​My shampoo says sulfate free on the front, but when I look at the ingredients in the back, there are all different types of harmful sulfates in the ingredients. How is this legal? Currently, manufacturers are not required to disclose all their ingredients on labels and can even flat out lie about their product. The FDA has no power to supervise the use of toxic chemicals in cosmetics . Americans are left in the dark about harmful mystery ingredients in personal care products; consumers deserve confidence that the products that they use will not hurt them.

June 24, 2011 introduced a bill called the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2011, which would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to ensure that personal care products such as shampoo and cosmetics are free of harmful ingredients. Existing law, which has not been updated since 1938, has loopholes that allow chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities and other illnesses in products we use on our bodies every day. The bill has not yet been passed and has a lot of room to grow, so make sure until it's passed you read your ingredients on the bottle and online. You can read more about it here.

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Extremely common ingredients to avoid​​​​​​​​​​
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate
Ammonium Laureth Sulfate
Ammonium Xylene Sulfonate
TEA Lauryl Sulfate
Sulfur (in dandruff shampoos)
Selenium Sulfide (in dandruff shampoos)

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Less common ingredients to avoid​​​​​​​​​​
Magnesium Sulfate
Sodium Thiosulfate
Sodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonate
Alkyl Sodium Sulfate
Alkyl Benzene Sulfonate
TEA-Dodecylbenzene
Sodium C12-15 Alkyl Sulfate
Sodium Dodecyl Sulfonate

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After looking at this list, you'll notice it's sort of interesting to see what shampoo brands are completely lying to their consumers. Check out the ingredients in ​

Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal:​

Water, Ammonium Laureth Sulfate​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​, Sodium Chloride, Dimethicone, Glycol Distearate, Cetyl Alcohol, Cocamide MEA, Panthenol, Panthenyl Ethyl Ether, Lysine HCl, Methyl Tyrosinate HCl, Histidine, Fragrance, Polyquaternium 10, Sodium Citrate, Hydrogenated Polydecene, Sodium Benzoate, Disodium EDTA, Trimethylolpropane Tricaprylate/Tricaprate, Citric Acid, Ammonium Xylenesulfonate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone

 

Alcohol in products 101:

At Glo Salon we offer our clients O'right shampoo and conditioner which do not contain sodium laurel sulfates. Some of the conditioners contain Behenyl alcohol, Cetyl Alcohol, or Cetearyl Alcohol, which are actually beneficial. These larger alcohols are typically derived from natural sources, and have 12 or more carbons per molecule (typically 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20). This higher amount of carbon content makes these molecules oilier (also referred to as ‘fatty’). For this reason, they are often used as an emollient in skin and haircare products. They give a smooth, soft feeling to the hair shaft by helping the cuticle to lie flat on the surface of the hair. However, if used in excess, fatty alcohols can combine with the natural sebum found on the scalp and form a sticky substance that makes the hair look greasy.

Another function these fatty alcohols typically perform in shampoos and conditioners is as thickeners and as nonionic surfactants and emulsion stabilizers.  In fact, a fatty alcohol content of 4-5% is very common for this purpose; especially in products where there is a need to keep the price lower than that of a formula containing an expensive polymer that could achieve similar results. Benzyl alcohol is a non-volatile alcohol used as a preservative in products. It should not impact the texture or feel of your hair. Propylene glycol is most often used as a humectant, because it has a hydroxyl group at each end of the molecule. This makes it much more hydrophilic (water-loving), so that it can attract and hold water to the hair.

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Now that you know what we know, we'd like to introduce O'Right! Click here to learn more about the O'Right difference!

Choosing The Right Shampoo

Brands With Ingredients to Avoid....

With Sulfate and Alcohol

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​Alterna
Aussie
Avalon Organics
Aveeno
Biolage
C Booth
Circle of Friends Bonita's Banana
Curls Unleashed

Dove
Generic Hair Products
Gud
John Frieda
Kerastraight
Liquid Keratin
L’Oreal
Roux

Suave