Best Hair Care Products

Ooo, please let this product work on my hair!

Hair care among women is very important. Once upon a time, hair was all about style. Women wanted to adorn themselves with nice clothes, shoes, a purse, some exotic perfume topped off with a perfectly coiffed hairstyle or wig. That was back in the day before women entered the workplace, ran for office, became physically fit and so on to name a few. A hair style was an easy accessible affordable luxury that many turned to spruce up or change their image. 

Fast forward to today and hair means something totally different. One thing is for certain and two things for sure, a hair style is no longer about sprucing up. "I am not my hair," a song that many women from all over the world chant, say or simply sing along with the talented singer India Arie. She brought that sentiment to light for many. Women no longer associate femininity with size, skin tone, nails, attire, money, marital status, children or not and of course hair. 

As a matter of fact, a hairstyle is the last thing on most women minds. Regardless the race or texture, women feel they sincerely so much more than a selection between male and female. We can go on for days about the advancement of women and their growth. Now, hair care? That is another thing. Sometime during the turn of the millennium, women became fed up with hair styles and moved over to hair care. No one can exactly pinpoint what catapulted this paradigm shift from hairstyle to hair care. But it did. In my opinion, the internet is solely responsible for the end of hair styling and the beginning of hair care. I also feel that cocky, under trained and under educated hairstylists promoted the choice for many to ditch the hairstyle and the hairstylist who came with it.

The internet opened the world up to individuals who were fed up with incompetent, late and hairstylists with attitudes. Versus being controlled by the images they saw on the little screen, viewers of the internet could do something with the screen that television would never allow: INTERACTION!

While the internet can expose people to concepts from all over with the click of a button and without leaving their chair. In all its glory, it still can't do something humans can do; touch. I obviously like the internet too. If I did not, I would not be a blogger.  The paradigm shift became very visible back in the late 90's when I was a social worker. As a cosmetologist with a degree in social science, I admit I have a bad habit of merging the two together. I do something I call, "social cosmetology." I study the behaviors of people who consume and use hair care products and styling tools...lol

Though there is no such thing as "social cosmetologist," there is something very obvious in the behaviors of both customers and cosmetologists. That one behavior is purchasing. Mintel, a very reputable marketing firm reported "in 2012 hair care sales reached a whopping 864 million.They also reported by 2017 that number will have jumped exponentially to "761 million." 

Yeah, I know we have read those reports hundreds of time. People worldwide want to know, how? How are consumers and professionals spending that kind of money? Well as a "social cosmetologist," I can sum it up for you very quick and simple; purchasing the wrong products.

What if customers were to go back to the store to return all the wrong products they purchased for their hair?  They would get a refund. Those milions and millions of dollars in slaes would quickly be reduced in half. 

I just love the way the economist and researchers throw those million and billion dollar figures around. They report that as if consumers are frivelous in their spending. In reality, most people who purchase hair care products are purchasing them because they are buying what they need. They are buying what they are told will work best and what looks on their hair. Some of their purchasing choices are also make via print and media.  

Again, because things get lost in translation, print and video gives way to what things seem to be versus what things are. Caring for and styling Afro, wavy, curly or combination textured hair has some rules. Rule number one, no heavy products on the hair. Heavy products leave hair feeling stiff, pasty, dull, waxen, sullen, brittle and lack luster. All those guarantee to coat hair, promote hair disorders, scaly scalps, smelly hair, pasty scalps and hair damage. 

Because there is a popular mindset and mode of Operandi that promotes infrequent shampooing, spongy moist hair and shiny hair; people with textured hair flock to these claims like paper clips to magnets. Afro, wavy, curly, kinky and combination textured hair is not meant to feel and look moist, super shellacked and spongy. 

Products that coat hair seem to really be doings something great to hair. They are not. Initially, hair will feel great. However, after using heavy products, over a period of time your scalp and hair will become compromised. I can see how many users do not want to let these products go. But, what they don't tell you at the hair salon is those products can no be rinsed away with water or shampooed out with regular shampoo.

The Wrong Stuff

Coating hair is not the name of the game. Coating your hair will only make hair care more expensive and hair styling more difficult. Coating your hair with heavy products will dull and alter your natural hair color. Using heavy products that coat hair will also defintely alter your texture. Infrequent shampooing regimens such as bi-weekly, monthly and the likes are sure to promote thinning and damage. Infrequent shampooing also promotes build up of yeast that naturally comes from the scalp during the scalps ability to cleanse itself. Using heavy products promotes balding and thinning by clogging the follicle (the little tiny hole that hair grows out of), thus making it difficult for hair actually grow out and it makes the hair grow in thinner. You may not notice just how damaged your hair is until 6 months to 10 years down the line. Depending on how long you have have been using the products. In my experience as a cosmetologist, I find nothing more sad than to see the look on a person's face who is upset about their hair that is severely thinned and damaged. They almost always know the products were the culprit. 

After you shampoo and condition your hair, you should only be using 1-2 products to style your hair. It does not matter if you are twisting, braiding, adding hair, rolling hair, curling hair, straightening hair, pressing hair, locking or wrapping hair. Because your scalp makes it's on oil, you should not be putting anything on your scalp. Products for your scalp should be prescribed or biodegradable. Lastly, you should never apply any kind of essential oil to your scalp or body without using some kind of carrier oil.

Oooh, pick me!

So as you can see, coveting, holding on, clinging to and swearing by heavy products does nothing for the scalp and hair texture. In the beginning things will appear to be making progress. However, as the days and years go on with continued use: thinning, limp, damaged, dull and broken hair is almost always the results. In addition, your money continues to go into a pool of millions that only inflates the pockets of the people, the companies who make them. They go under you bathroom sink to sit and be kicked to the curb like "Woody" in The Toy Story hoping to be selected as the number one hair care product in your life again. 

Be wise. Seek a consultation about your hair. Understand that advertisement, videos, magazine articles and other forms of marketing are just that. Marketing. They are trying to sell you something. And what they are trying to sell you is the thought you have in your head about your hair that was put there by someone else who doesn't even know your hair. They are selling the dream of care free natural hair. NEVER readers. That will never happen. For there is no such thing as CARE FREE hair. 

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You know your hair. And you know you should not be putting all that heavy stuff on your hair.