Ingredients are what make your hair products work effectively. Of course how you apply them is just as important but you can apply the best ways possible and still cause damage if what’s in the bottle is crap in the first place.
It is sometimes confusing about what your hair needs, couple that with deceptive marketing and you can be confused at best and disillusioned at worst.
Not every company is trying to deceive you but they do what you to buy their product so they use tactics such as pretty packaging, key words we gravitate to (natural, organic etc.) and even natural hair stars we follow. It can be overwhelming to some if you do not know what to look for in a product.
Product junkies are the worst at this because they are in love with the hunt for the newest, latest and the greatest. They thrive off of the packaging, the claims and the key words but if they are not turning that bottle around and checking the first five ingredients then they are doing themselves a massive disservice.
As a matter of fact anyone who does not turn the bottle around will be doing themselves a disservice because the meat and potatoes are at the top of that product.
Manufacturers will say what is in your product but they never actually say how much? Not so much. They love to pull out those ingredients our eyes and brains have been trained to hone in on like Shea Butter*, Olive oil*, or Argan oil* but if you are not looking at the ingredient list you wont know how much of the good stuff is in there.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires skin and hair care products ingredients be listed in the order of highest to lowest concentration.
Ingredient labeling became a “fact of life” for the cosmetic industry in the early 1970’s so the consumer could make informed decisions and to alert consumers who has allergies to certain ingredients. It was ground-breaking during it’s time but many of us have overlooked this highly precious requirement in recent years.
First of all the vast majority of cosmetic products are water-based. This is why you can really go by the first six ingredients if water is the first one. This includes:
Emulsions – oils* mixed with water like hair conditioners
Surfctants- cleansers