Unlocking Healthy Locks: A Guide to Haircare Ingredients, Scalp Detox, and My Top Picks for Non-Toxic Brands ✨ Ep. 51
Jan 16, 2024
Wendy Kathryn
Transitioning to non toxic haircare products can be one of the hardest clean living swaps for women. I am sharing all my secrets so you can embrace natural haircare and still love your hair. You'll be left wondering why you didn't do it sooner!
Today we are talking about
The toxic ingredients found in haircare that you really should avoid ,
New research showing the health impact of your haircare routine
My best tips for detoxing your scalp and getting through the awkward transition period
My 'Wendy approved" Top 5 Picks for truly toxin free haircare that WORKS.
Transitioning to non toxic haircare products can be one of the hardest clean living swaps for women. I am sharing all my secrets so you can embrace natural haircare and still love your hair. You'll be left wondering why you didn't do it sooner!
Today we are talking about
The toxic ingredients found in haircare that you really should avoid ,
New research showing the health impact of your haircare routine
My best tips for detoxing your scalp and getting through the awkward transition period
My 'Wendy approved" Top 5 Picks for truly toxin free haircare that WORKS.
Post a screenshot and what you loved and and tag me on instagram @wendy_toxinfreeish
Want to ask me a question to get answered on the podcast? Leave me a voice message here.
Speaker 1:
Now let me ask you a question have you tried to shop for hair care that isn't full of toxins? And one of these two things happened you either found what you thought was clean, but it wasn't actually clean they just had really good marketing. Or it was clean, but you tried it and you hated what it did to your hair. I'm here to tell you that you are not alone. Making the transition to natural hair care can be super confusing and, believe me, super frustrating at times, but today's episode is going to help. I will explain why you should ditch conventional hair care for the sake of your health and your hair, and what ingredients are actually causing you the most harm. And then I'm going to share a simple hack to transition your hair through the detox period quickly. And then I'm going to tell you what actually clean brands make the top of my clean list. You're listening to the Detox Dilemma podcast, where clean living meets real life. I'm here to help you toss the toxins and embrace real, lasting health. My name is Wendy and I'm an environmental toxins attorney turned clean living coach, and since 2015, I've helped over 800 families to clean up the toxins. My mission is simple to show you how to create a toxins free ish home that you actually love and also fits into your real crazy busy life. If you're ready to clean up your hair care, stick around, let's dive in. So here's the thing about hair care, and don't get me wrong, I've been through this myself. I am speaking this from direct experience, but also from working with clients and customers and having hundreds of women try to do their very best to find a clean hair care product that they actually really love, that works with their hair, and it's not a simple process. Of all of the things that you can swap out of your house and go more natural and more toxins free, there are two that are the hardest. One of them is deodorant, and that's a topic for another podcast, and the second one is hair care.
Speaker 1:
There's a few reasons for that. Everybody's hair is different, everybody's water is different, and the thing that conventional shampoos and conditioners do really well is their universal, so it doesn't really matter you know your hair type or your water coming out of your shower. They use really harsh surfactants called sulfates and it strips your hair. So you get all of this foam and you're like this works so well, it's foamy and my hair feels really, really clean and then the conditioners use products like silicones and saloxanes and acrylates and what it does is it lays on top of your strands and on top of your hair and it makes it feel glossy and it untangles it and it feels soft and slippery.
Speaker 1:
So you get this temporary feeling of your hair feeling amazing, but what nobody tells you is that over time, those sulfates are going to damage your scalp. You're going to get dry skin, you're going to get flaky skin, it's going to irritate your scalp and eventually can lead to hair thinning. And then all those silicones that are on your hair they're going to build up over time and when that happens it suffocates your strands and so they're not really hydrated, they're just coated, but underneath they're getting really brittle. And this is one of the reasons why brand new shampoo and conditioners you love. In the front you change them out and you're like, oh, this is amazing, but then over time you feel like, oh, this doesn't really work anymore, because that whole process that I just explained is already in motion. So what happens when you get rid of all of those harsh chemicals and those silicones and you switch to natural shampoo is that you have to create balance on your scalp again, the sebum, the oil that's being produced by your scalp. It needs to get used to the fact that it's not going to be stripped off every time you wash it, because you're not using a harsh surfactant anymore and all those silicones and things that used to be in your hair care. It's going to take time for that build up to disappear. So when you very first start using a natural shampoo, it's not going to lather very well and you're going to wonder why hey, I'm not getting any suds in my hair. Your hair is not going to feel super clean and that's because you're still going to have build up on it.
Speaker 1:
So here's some things you can do to get through the transition period, and a lot faster than what it normally takes. It will normally take about four to six weeks. So when you switch to natural products, you got to give it like a good go and just stick with it. Throw a baseball cap on, style your hair, just get through those first four to six weeks and I promise you on the other side you're going to find you actually love your natural hair. So a couple of things that works really well. One is do a detox of your scalp and of your hair. Things that have charcoal or clay in them are really good. Intersense Organics makes a great detox product that I love. Another thing you can do is use a scalp massager. So when you wash your hair and you always want to wash your hair twice with natural shampoo, use a scalp massager to make sure you're getting in there and you're physically removing the buildup from your scalp.
Speaker 1:
Another really important thing to do is look at your water. Do you have a whole house water filtration system or water softening system? Because natural products don't have these harsh surfactants in it, the contaminants and the chlorine that is in your tap water that's coming from your shower, or those hard minerals. They're not going to do your hair any favor. So if you want your natural shampoos and products to work really well, either get a household filter with a softener for your entire house or you can get a filter on your shower head, and those are much more cost effective.
Speaker 1:
I will link to my favorites in the show now. The last tip for transitioning is invest in a really good bore bristle brush. That way, when you're brushing your hair, you're massaging the scalp, so you're stimulating your follicles for hair growth, but you're also taking that oil that's naturally on your scalp and you're spreading it all the way down your strands. So I know what you're thinking that, wendy, that sounds like a lot of work. Why would I want to do that? And while I already told you it is for the longterm health of your hair, it is also for your longterm health in general. So I'm going to walk through five of the worst toxins that you're going to find in conventional hair products and why it's so important for your health to avoid them.
Speaker 1:
But before I jump into those ingredients, let's think a little bit about what happens in your bathroom. Some of the ingredients that I'm going to talk about I've talked about on other podcasts as ingredients you really want to avoid in your cleaning products or your laundry detergent. But imagine yourself in your bathroom with a hot, steamy shower on, and then the chemicals that are in your shampoo are getting into the air and you are in a tiny room that is not well ventilated. My bathroom is not well ventilated I don't know if yours is, mine definitely is not and it's sitting in the air and you're just inhaling it, and the higher the temperature, so the hotter your water right, the more it's sitting there and the more, you're inhaling it. So when we talk about exposure, there's actually a big difference between, you know, using a cleaning product that has a little bit of something in it in a huge great room to clean your inhalation risk there is a lot different than if you're in a steamy shower in a non-ventilated room and you're inhaling. And the same is true for dry shampoo, and while I'm not going to talk about dry shampoo, I'll do that in another episode. You are spraying dry shampoo and aerosol and all of these things in a closed bathroom and that inhalation risk is really the highest health risk.
Speaker 1:
The first ingredient is not going to surprise anybody who listens to my show or follows me on Instagram or listens to anything I say ever. Artificial fragrance is the one ingredient that it's got to go. The word fragrance or perfume on a label literally means nothing. It can be over 3,800 hidden ingredients in that one word. And while there are a bunch of ingredients that are problematic, there are two that are found in artificial fragrance that are the most problematic. One of them is diethyl phthalate and the other one is lilyl, and these things are hidden in fragrance. These companies don't have to tell you the only reason why I know the companies that are using lilyl not all of them, but some of them in their products is because in 2022, the European Union and the UK banned its use in all of their products and right around the same time, the state of California told anybody selling products in California if you're using reproductive toxins in your fragrance, you have to register them with the state, and then the state took those registrations and they posted them online and I read them. So lilyl is a reproductive toxin that has been linked to birth defects and other reproductive issues, and companies like OGX and Got2P haircare are still using it in their fragrance in their products. So if you're using any of those two brands or Bateastrye Shampoo, it's also in there. Those got to get out of your house. There are over 2,000 products being sold in California that we know of that have this in it, and there are a ton of hair companies on that list.
Speaker 1:
The other chemical, diethyl phthalate, is connected to a host of undercurrent disrupting, hormone disrupting issues. It is linked to everything from infertility issues, endometriosis, thyroid disorders, increased risk of breast cancer, negative birth outcomes, higher risk of preterm birth. Literally, the data goes on and on and on, and if you want a deep dive on this particular topic fragrance and infertility in ingredients. Episode 46 is a deep dive so I'll leave that link in the show notes so you can go listen to that episode.
Speaker 1:
Unless you know the brand that you are buying, completely disclosed everything that's in their fragrance and there's nothing of concern, or it's nothing but an essential oil or it's just a pure botanical, and you just have to know your companies. So look for the companies that are being transparent and they actually tell you what is the natural fragrance. They list an actual essential oil and then they don't just say natural essential oils, they actually tell you oh, this is peppermint and here's the Latin name. They're actually being transparent. Okay, so, number one fragrance. That is the number one most problematic ingredient. Number two parabens. Luckily, most conventional hair care. I will say most because I feel like when I shop in grocery stores or I'm at Target or I'm doing my reviews, I actually don't find a lot of hair products that are still using parabens. So I do feel like this one is on the out and companies know that people like you, consumers, that are buying products even if you don't know all the toxic ingredients to avoid, you probably know you should avoid parabens.
Speaker 1:
Not only are they known hormone disruptors, they've been linked to breast cancer, allergic reactions and actually some potential concerns about interfering with gene expression. There was actually a recent study that was done I believe it was last year or earlier this year where they took women and they said okay, avoid any products for 28 days that have both phthalates in them. So they avoided artificial fragrance as well as parabens in their personal care products only. They didn't touch their food products or anything else where some of these ingredients can be, but they just took them out of their personal care products and they actually tested their breast tissue to find out the expression of high risk of breast cancer and found a 73% reduction in the genes that were expressing risk for breast cancer. That is incredible 28 days that's all it took was 28 days. So, if you do anything, avoid artificial fragrance and avoid parabens.
Speaker 1:
The next ingredient you for sure want to avoid is called D5-siloxane. Now, d5-siloxanes are basically silicones, so, just like I said earlier, they make your hair feel slippery, they detangle them. It's something that goes on top of your hair. Purdue University recently discovered that during a typical hair care session, a person can inhale between one and 17 milligrams of these chemicals, of these siloxanes, and this exposure was super alarming In laboratory animals. D5-siloxane has been shown to have adverse effects on respiratory tract, liver and nervous system. Interestingly, the study also showed that when you use high heat so think about hair straighteners or curling iron so you have this conditioner or this product where you put D5-siloxane on your hair and then you use a curling iron or a hair straightener and it temperatures at around 210 degrees Celsius. Emissions of that chemical increased by between 50% and 310%, and then those emissions they hung out in the house and then they impact your air quality. So remember I told you before you're inhaling them when you're in the shower. You're inhaling them when you're in your bathroom, but then they go through your vents and they start making their way through your house.
Speaker 1:
There's some debate about whether or not these siloxanes are actually endocrine disruptors and I will say that I've looked at some of the science and I found both sides, so I'm not gonna sit here and say these are for sure endocrine disruptors. There's an argument that they don't get absorbed into your skin because they're too big and they kind of sit on top of it, and I think the jury is still out on that. We may find in a couple of years that actually this ingredient is an endocrine disruptor. Either way, it should be avoided. Okay, number four.
Speaker 1:
The next ingredient is actually a class of ingredients. They're called ethoxylated ingredients and these are probably the most common. I would say if you're shopping and you're purposely looking for cleaner products, you know products that maybe you're greenwashed a little bit where they're better but they're not quite clean. These are the ingredients you're gonna see the most of. So things that end in S like Lorethe, lorethe 7, sodium, lorethe, sulfate you'll see those. You'll see PEG or PEG those letters followed by a number usually and you're gonna see polysorbates that's another one, and Phenexylethanol is also another one. So all of those are considered ethoxylated ingredients and all that means is that they're manufactured with ethylene oxide and in the manufacturing process it can result in toxic contaminants linked to breast cancer, which are ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane. Now, typically, you're going to find small amounts of this contaminant.
Speaker 1:
The biggest issue with these is that they're in everything. So you can have one product, like a shampoo, that has Lorethe 7 in it, but you can also have 25 other products your lotions, your makeup, your detergents, your cleaners, like it's in everything that builds up and accumulates over time. So thoxylated ingredients are definitely something I avoid in hair care. And lastly, anything that is a formaldehyde releasing product so mostly preservatives is where you're going to see this where they actually can release formaldehyde. I mean that's crazy, right. Why the heck would we have products that are allowed to emit formaldehyde? I just can't with that. Anyway, there's a group of them that are more popular than others Quantumium 15, dmdm, anything that ends in urea. So you are EA. There's actually an interesting study that showed that these ingredients can release formaldehyde, but if you let them sit in a hot warehouse and you leave them in storage for a long time and then you put them on store shelves, the amount of formaldehyde they release actually increases the longer that it sits, and you don't know how long these things sit on store shelves or in warehouses, and so by the time you buy a product, it could be you have been sitting there for two years and you don't know Now if this whole section on ingredients to avoid overwhelmed. You don't worry, I got you covered.
Speaker 1:
I have a free ebook. It's linked in the show notes. It's called Happy New Hair and it actually walks you through and has a list of each one of these ingredients and I even linked the studies that I talked about in this episode. So you can hop down. It's free. It's an ebook, you can just download it. There's also some really fantastic stuff in there. It talks about hair dyes, it talks about hair growth, all things natural hair care. So now you know what ingredients are not so great for your health and not so great for your hair and you know to avoid them.
Speaker 1:
But here's the fun part of the episode where I get to tell you the clean products that I love the most. I'm going to give you my top five legit, clean but work amazing brands. But if you want a full and complete list of all of the clean ones that are available that I have personally reviewed for ingredients, you can go over to my talks and free shopping guide. It's at wwwtalksandfreeshoppingide and you just click on the hair category and everything will be there the best hair serums, the best shampoo, the best for curly hair. If you want to see all the categories, you can hop down. The link is in the show notes. But here is my top five.
Speaker 1:
My favorite clean brand hands down is Rawa. It's actually spelled R-A-H-U-A. This is a fantastic company. Everything is not just ridiculously clean, but full botanical based. It's luxurious, it's a little bit on the higher end of a price point, but they have a full line of products. So I use their hair serum, I use their volumizer spray, they have styling products, they have dry shampoo, they have shampoo and conditioner for all different hair types. So it is truly like a full line where every single thing they make is completely clean, and if you're somebody who loves convenience, you can find them on Amazon as well.
Speaker 1:
My second favorite brand is Innersense Organics, and you'll find this brand at a lot of high-end, cleaner salons that carry more toxin-free products. It's a fabulous line, just like Rawa. They have everything you could possibly want, from scalp care to. They're actually the ones that make that hair detox that I told you about, for detoxing your hair during your transition. Something that I really love about Innersense Organics is that they do a lot of lobbying to try to change the laws, to try to help get some of these ingredients off of shelves and out of products Like, let's make it illegal, let's ban some of these ingredients, and so I really love their efforts there, their advocacy. They also have a purple shampoo that everybody raves about. So if you're somebody who is blonde and you use purple shampoo, their purple shampoo is fantastic. It's not something you should use every day. It will be drying for your hair, but if you're using purple shampoo, like once a week, it's the perfect option.
Speaker 1:
My third favorite brand is a little bit lower on the price point list and people really love this brand because it performs a little bit more like a conventional hair care product shampoo product. The company is called Evolve. There's a discount code on my shopping guide for this brand. I work with them. They're phenomenal. Now, the reason why their hair care tends to work for a lot of people in general universally is because they use an ingredient called coconut-approval beating.
Speaker 1:
Now, usually I would avoid this ingredient. The problem with that ingredient is it's a skin irritant. But it's not the ingredient. That's the problem. It's what it's contaminated with, and Evolve sources that ingredient from a place where it has no contamination and so that ingredient acts a little bit harsher than some of the natural surfactants. So you're going to get a little bit. It's not going to be like esophage, but it is going to give you a little bit more of a clean feeling, and so some people really like that. It does take longer to detox, but the detox period isn't as immediate and hard and stressful like some people report.
Speaker 1:
Again, a little bit of a lower price point. They have a huge line of products from Scalpel. They even have styling products and they have a curly line that women who have really curly hair really love. The fourth brand that I love is loved by moms everywhere. So Carina Organics. They have a much smaller line. They mostly just have shampoo and conditioner. They also have an option for babies. It is a super affordable, really clean, nourishing shampoo line that just in general, people love and, again, super convenient. You can get it on Amazon. So if you're looking for something that is a simple and the price is right, you're going to want to try Carina Organics.
Speaker 1:
And lastly, number five, the company Under Luna. It's a family run haircare company. They mostly have shampoo, conditioner and an amazing hair serum. All of their products come in glass. It's a fully sustainable company and every single ingredient is meticulously picked. It is, I mean, just glorious, it's the only word I could think of. It's luxurious, it's amazing. It is a little bit higher on the price point end, but it is a super fantastic product and if you want all of the clean options. It's all there on my Toxin Free Shopping Guide. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please screenshot it, share it on your Instagram, tag me over on IG. I am a Wendy underscore Toxin Free-ish. I love to be tagged. I'll take it. I will post it myself, let me know how it goes. And if you're swapping to natural shampoo and you're working through that detox period, please hear my encouragement, stick to it. You've got this. Thanks for listening and I hope your life is getting just a little bit less toxic.