So let’s talk natural hair…
For starters, I thought I should let you know that I’ve become a total natural hair geek and I refuse to ever use non-natural products in or on my hair, ever again. What brought this about? Well, for about two months I’ve been really working on getting my hair healthy – it gives me something besides length to focus on. In so doing, I’ve been diligent in deep conditioning my hair weekly, not using any products containing sulfates and only co-washing when needed. I’ve been moisturizing my hair w/ a spray bottle mixture of water, tea tree oil, Giovanni leave-in and EVOO. My curls have never popped more, I have ZERO frizz, crazy thickness and mega shine.
What ultimately made me decide to leave all non-organic / non 100% natural products alone was a combination of two things:
1) Naptural85’s YouTube vlog, and
2) The fact that I was using a highly recommended deep conditioning treatment alleged to be “all-natural, 100% organic, amazing, blah, blah…”
Ok so I use it, over half of a 20 oz. jar of it, deep conditioning my hair over the past several weeks and all the while, believing the hype. My hair was softer, shinier and in a way my curls were more manageable. Last week I had some downtime and decided to start at the beginning of Naptural85’s hair journey on YouTube and watch every single video she’s ever posted. Fast forward a year into her journey…she was really getting going at that point and came across the ingredients to the allegedly 100% organic Trader Joe’s Nourish Spa Conditioner she had been using since big chopping. She found out that there were parabens in her “organic” CONDITIONER. Now, for obvious reasons she was furious and anyone making that discovery would be as well. Her on camera revelation prompted me to go home and check out my deep conditioner ingredients. The topic of this blog should tell you what I found…
Well, the worst of the ingredients are the bulk of the product, content wise. The worst of them are Paraffinum Liquidum (Mineral Oil), Behentrimonium Methosulfate, and Cetearyl Alcohol – That’s right, Mineral Oil, Sulfates and Alcohol.
I honestly wanted to cry. No, I’m serious – I wanted to cry! I cannot begin to describe to you the love and care I’ve been giving my hair only to realize that my deep conditioning hair mayonnaise contained products that were COATING my strands and giving off the APPEARANCE of healthy hair... It is a disguise and I encourage you to read all of you product ingredients carefully and if you don’t know what something means, Google it.
I was so bothered by what I found my deep conditioner to contain that I have decided to retire all shampoos and use the only USDA certified hair cleanser on the market, which isn’t a shampoo or conditioner but actually a mud/clay that you use to clean you hair and scalp. I will be doing the Terressentials detoxification beginning this weekend (posts to follow) and then once my hair is completely detoxified in a week or so, I will be continuing to do the Terressentials once a month along w/ my weekly co-washes, hot oil treatments and homemade ALL-NATURAL products. A lot more to follow so stay tuned!
