There is one exception, and it turns out that the best product for your hair costs $10 and is something you add to your food, and ethinic women love to use on their scalp and hair. Coconut Oil.  Your basic coconut oil, as it turns out, has just the right size and structure that it can penetrate into the cortex.  And therefore it can protect hair from the inside out. Good stuff everyone!

One of the most damaging things for hair is a simple wash and dry it because the water swells the hair and messes up the cuticle. Coconut oil prevents water from absorbing into the hair and so reduces the swelling damage. You may often get.

Common sense says that blow-drying is worse, for obvious reasons. It’s a lot of heat right next to your hair. I agree that air-drying is preferable to blow-drying, but I also say that air-drying itself can also cause harm. So either way it gets you.

There’s not a lot of data on this, but some think that air-drying damages hair because the hair remains wet for a longer period of time. That means more time for the water to swell inside the hair and mess up the cuticle. The longer the hair is wet, the more damage happens. But since hair needs to dry somehow, it’s still better to go for the one that doesn’t involve thousands of watts of energy right next to the cuticle.

Protein treatments are a mixed bag. They’re partly a marketing story, because you can’t actually repair damaged hair just by pouring on more protein. The protein doesn’t also get integrated into the hair structure itself to make it thicker, I find out when I use them in the salon it will dry out the hair. And if used to often it will break the hair. Damaged hair needs to be cut off!

To be clear, “purple shampoo” and “color-protecting shampoo” are different things. “Purple shampoo” is for bleached-blonde hair and it works because the purple tones even out the blonde color and keep it from turning orange.  But can also give the hair a grey cast to it and really dull it out. I like to use just shampoo and baking soda to keep out the discoloration you get in very light blond hair. It cleans it well.

But “color-protecting” doesn’t do much. The reason the color continues to shift is because the chemical reaction isn’t perfect for every molecule.  There will be some bigger color molecules, some little pieces, some will wash out, some will not — and that’s why your color will change and fade over time. Most color-protecting products don’t actually keep the color chemicals in the hair any longer. They don’t do much other than provide good conditioning. Which is very important with color treated hair.