As any beauty conscious man or woman will know, your hair requires a litany of products to produce the styles your look commands. While this may leave you feeling as though you have to resort to a storm of chemicals, that is not necessarily the case. It is possible to use plant-based shampoos to care for your hair, thus combating the effects it will experience when it comes into contact with styling products.
Why Plant-Based Shampoos?
Using a plant-based shampoo is not so much about what the product contains, it is what it doesn’t contain. If you have ever wondered why your usual shampoo smells so great, it should come as no surprise that it is laden with artificial perfumes. Artificial fragrances may smell great, but they are drying your hair out. Your hair needs all the moisture it can get, which means depriving it of the sebum that your scalp produces can lead to split ends and a lack of shine.
Plant-based shampoos are also free from laurel sulphates. Lauryl sulphates are classified as being mildly hazardous, and are used in industrial cleaners to detoxify household surfaces. Naturally, you may not want to put a product on your hair when it contains a chemical compound you would happily use to combat diseases like salmonella.
Fortunately, your hair doesn’t need these products to get clean. The hair is pretty much self-cleaning, but in a world where years of product use has made reaching that self-cleaning stage an arduous process, it is easier to use plant-based shampoos to do the work instead. Rather than focusing on stripping your hair of oils, plant-based shampoos boost them. Usually, these shampoos contain moderate amounts of jojoba oil, sunflower oil, and carrot oil. These oils support the hair repair process, and reduce the amount of damage it will encounter as you clean it. In addition to this, a nice little dose of these oils can give your hair some TLC after a day of styling.
How do Plant-Based Shampoos Clean?
It is all well and good giving your hair a dose of oil to make it shine, but the whole point of using shampoo is to clean it. To clean your hair, you do need to modify the pH and remove unwanted grease in the process. Usually, a plant-based shampoo will achieve this by using natural ingredients that can achieve the same effect as chemicals. This usually means making the most of citrus fruits, which modify pH and remove the grease that can leave your hair looking lack lustre. The end result is that your hair gets to shine thanks to the plant oil repair, and it does not suffer from clumping as a result of grease build-up.
Getting the Most Out of Your Shampoo
Once you make the change to a plant-based product, you need to take the right steps to make the most of it. One of the best ways to do this is to not use it every day. While the need to wash your hair may vary according to your skin type, avoiding doing so on a daily basis allows you to make the most of your naturally occurring oils without stripping them too often.
If you do use styling products, which you can rarely find in a naturally occurring form, using a plant-based shampoo removes them and supports your hair. It is therefore a good idea to use one in place of a standard shampoo if you use styling products and tools on a regular basis. That way, you can make the most of both worlds and encourage your hair to shine naturally.
