Perry Romanowski - Can You Get Hooked On Lip Balm?

We think this idea is kind of silly but we’ll avoid the temptation to just tell you to get a new hairdresser and instead we’ll try to present both sides of the story.

It’s more damaging to blow-dry or towel-dry your hair than it is to let it air-dry. It’s as simple as that. That’s because heat from blow-dryers can mess with the natural lipid distribution in your hair and degrade the intercellular cement that holds the hair’s protective cuticle in place. And the physical abrasion from towel-drying not only loosens healthy cuticles but can actually wear them away! So if you dry your hair a lot, you’ll end up with less shine and more split ends.

We assume a hairdresser would argue that blow-drying keeps your hair sleek and smooth and that air-drying makes it frizzy. At least this is what the hairdressers we have worked with think.

It looks like the answer to your drying dilemma could come down to this: What’s more important to you—avoiding damage or fighting frizz? Less damage is better for your long-term hair health, but nobody wants frizz. Only you can decide which to choose. But, hey, if you’re that worried about frizz, you can always use a good smoothing product after you dry your hair. You can buy a few bottles of an effective frizz fighter, like John Frieda Frizz-Ease, for only twenty bucks!

Fran is feeling flaky: What’s your opinion of Burt’s Bees Feelin’ Flaky Shampoo? Checking out the ingredients list, it looks as if the formulation does a good job of avoiding skin irritants (except for the tea tree oil), but since it all gets washed off after a few seconds, I don’t know how much good it could do. The ingredients are vegetable glycerin, lemon fruit water, sucrose cocoate, decyl polyglucose, willowbark extract, peppermint leaf extract (organic), willow leaf extract, burdock root extract, nettles leaf extract, yucca schidigera extract, cedar leaf oil, tea tree oil, lemon oil, rosemary oil, juniper oil, peppermint oil, xanthan gum (natural thickener), glucose, glucose oxidase and lactoperoxidase.

This is one of the shampoo issues that really make the Beauty Brains mad—false and misleading antidandruff claims. Some companies make it appear as though their products will control dandruff, but they really won’t. The way companies do this may not be strictly illegal, but it certainly is unethical in our opinion. Let’s look at this Burt’s Bees product as an example. While we believe Burt’s Bees generally produces high-quality products, the way they market their anti-dandruff shampoo is questionable.

According to drugstore.com, the full name of the product is Burt’s Bees Doctor Burt’s Herbal Treatment Shampoo with Cedar Leaf & Juniper Oil. Doctor Burt, huh? We know that the reference is tongue-in-cheek, but that sure sounds medicinal to us! Strike 1.

Below the name it describes the shampoo as Feelin’ Flaky? with a question mark. In the context of cleaning hair and scalp, flaky is generally the term used to describe a symptom of dandruff. (Itchiness is another symptom.) Hmmm. Strike 2.

And finally the directions: “Wet hair, lather, rinse, then lather and rinse again. Shampoo at least three times a week for maximum effectiveness.”

Maximum effectiveness? Again, sounds like they’re promising some kind of sustained effect. If they’re not talking about dandruff, what effectiveness are they talking about? Just getting your hair clean. That’s lame—Strike 3!

While this product, and others like it, don’t overtly claim to control dandruff, they seem to be making that implication.

The truth is antidandruff shampoos contain active ingredients that treat the physiological causes of dandruff. How can you tell if a shampoo is really effective against dandruff? In the United States, look for active drug ingredients like zinc pyrithione (ZPT) or selenium sulfide. In Europe and a few other countries, look for octopyrox on the label. If you don’t see some kind of legitimate active ingredient listed, it’s not an effective antidandruff shampoo. Don’t believe everything the cosmetics companies tell you!

You ask “how much good” this product will do for you. Well, it will certainly get your hair clean. The primary surfactants (sucrose cocoate and decyl polyglucose) will see to that. And it won’t dry your scalp out, either—those are pretty mild cleansers. But that’s about it. It’s not a medicated shampoo so it won’t do anything to control dandruff.

Nancy needs to know: WEN is a line of cleansing conditioners created by Hollywood hair stylist Chaz: Dean. Dean believes that sulfates in most shampoos can be very damaging and stripping to hair, so he created these cleansing conditioners to clean hair without stripping it. Nancy wants to know if hair can really be better off in the long run by cleansing with a conditioner. And if it does work, would a regular drugstore conditioner produce the same effect?

First of all, the idea of cleansing your hair with conditioner is not new and was not invented by Chaz. And no, he’s not using any kind of revolutionary technology. Let’s take a look at the ingredients:

water, glycerin, cetyl alcohol, rosemary leaf extract, wild cherry fruit extract, fig extract, chamomile extract, marigold flower extract, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetearyl alcohol, stearamidopropyl dimethylamine, amodimethicone, hydrolized wheat protein, polysorbate 60, panthenol, menthol, sweet almond oil, PEG-60 almond glycerides, methylisothiazolinone, methylchloroisothiazolinone, citric acid, essential oils.

Looking at just the functional ingredients (leaving out extracts, preservatives and pH adjusters) leaves the following:

glycerin, cetyl alcohol, behentrimonium methosulfate, cetearyl alcohol, stearamidopropyl dimethylamine (SADMA) and amodimethicone.

These are very common conditioning ingredients. Here’s what they do: Glycerin can provide moisturization in a leave-on product, but it doesn’t do anything for hair when it’s rinsed out. Cetyl and cetearyl alcohol are thickening and emulsifying agents used to make a conditioner rich and creamy. Because they’re oil-soluble they could, in theory, help lift some of the sebum off your hair and scalp. Behentrimonium methosulfate, SADMA and amodimethicone are very effective conditioning ingredients because they deposit on the hair.

Could you clean your hair with this product? Sure, if your hair isn’t very dirty, this could work pretty well. But so could any basic conditioner. In fact, we’d look for a conditioner that doesn’t have any silicone in it, just to make sure it leaves as little on your hair as possible.

But what if you have greasy hair, or if you use hairspray, mousse, gel or putty? Then cleansing conditioners are not a very good idea. They don’t have enough cleansing power to remove gunk from the hair. Chances are that cleansing with conditioner will leave your hair feeling dirty and weighed down.

If you’re really worried about drying your hair out by overshampooing, there’s nothing wrong with skipping your shampoo and just rinsing with conditioner once in a while. But you don’t need to spend $28 on a special product. A nice inexpensive drugstore brand like Suave or VO5 will do the same thing.