Part I dealt with the whys and wherefores of deep conditioning or intense conditioning. Now we're getting into the nuts and bolts.
How deep? It's probably a misnomer to call a rich conditioning treatment or a high-protein treatment "deep conditioning." Most of the things you put on your hair act on the outer surface - the cuticle. Ingredients like oils and emollients and cationic conditioners that soften, add flexibility, seal in moisture, increase lubrication, proteins that form water-hugging films are intense conditioners.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
But some ingredients actually do penetrate into the cuticle layers and may go even deeper than that. Those ingredients include Cetrimonium bromide and Cetrimonium chloride, panthenol, hair-penetrating oils, amino acids and peptides. If your hair tends to get too soft with conditioners - these are ingredients you might want to include in deep conditioners in small quantities or not at all. But if you need extra softness that lasts - look for these ingredients in your deep treatments!
Porosity - The Starting Line: Bleached or quite porous hair takes up more conditioner by adsorption than unbleached hair. Anywhere from 8 to 20 times as much conditioner is adsorbed by bleached hair than by unbleached hair - the larger number is for hair bleached twice.
If your hair is porous (bleached, highlighted, permanent or demi-permanent color) and it feels dry or looks dull often; if it is damaged by swimming or sunlight or high heat hair styling or chemical straightening or curling, then it will adsorb a lot more conditioner than somebody whose hair has not experienced those things. Finer (narrower) hairs tend to be more easily damaged by these exposures than coarser (wider) hairs.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
More porous hair can tolerate a lot more deep conditioning than less porous hair without becoming overly soft.
Before you apply: Apply a (water-based) deep conditioner to freshly washed hair from which you have squeezed excess moisture. Clean hair lets the conditioner have the best contact with your hair for the best end result. Too much water in your hair might dilute the treatment and certainly could make a mess if you're leaving the treatment on for a while.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
Application: Whether you're deep conditioning just the lower portion of long hair or every bit of your hair - you need every hair to have good contact with the conditioner you use. Section your hair - even if it is short you can work in sections. Apply your deep treatment to each section and smooth it in with your fingers. If you've ever made paper mache, you know how to smooth the plaster over the strips. This is how to apply the deep treatment to your hair. Alternatively, you can comb a deep treatment into your hair, but a comb can't feel how saturated your hair is with the treatment, so double-check that no strands are left behind by smoothing your fingers over sections to make sure your treatment saturates every bit of every section. This step is important! Good coverage means a better end result.
Make sure the areas that need the treatment the most, get the most treatment applied to them.
Concentration: Greater concentrations of cationic conditioner (or protein) in your conditioning product equals more conditioner adsorbed to the hair - but you rarely know what actual concentration is present in a product you buy. If you suspect a product has a lower concentration of conditioning ingredients based on your results, you may be right.
That concentration of "active ingredient" determines how much "conditioning" will adhere to your hair, but it's not as simple as: "Product A has 5% cationic ingredients and Product B has 10%, therefore your hair gets twice as much conditioning from product B." Depending on the cationic ingredient in question as well as its concentration there can be just a little more or a whole lot more adsorbing (adhering) to your hair when the concentration of cationic ingredient is higher. And even more if there is cetyl alcohol or cetearyl alcohol or oils in your deep treatment.
Take-away message: Let your hair tell you which product works best for you - even if that product does not work well for other people - or vice versa.
Take-away message: Let your hair tell you which product works best for you - even if that product does not work well for other people - or vice versa.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
Time: Leaving a cationic conditioning ingredient or protein treatment on longer can lead to greater adherence (adsorption) of conditioning ingredients on your hair. 30 minutes of deep conditioning can give you twice as much conditioning for your hair ingredients as 5 minutes can. If your have porous hair or are experiencing lots of breakage, you might want to go the full 30 minutes. If your hair does not soak up lots of oils and conditioner, you probably don't need as much time. But you never know until you try it! This applies to protein treatments as well; some people with porous hair or fine hair can do 30 to 60 minute protein treatments with heat with no ill effects. Others with more coarse hair or lower porosity hair can only use a protein treatment with heat for a few minutes before hair becomes too soft or too rough.
Temperature: 95°F (35°C) temperatures for deep treatments can almost double the amount of cationic conditioning ingredients that adhere to your hair compared to the closer-to-room-temperature 73°F (23°C). 95°F (35°C) is close to body temperature - so wrapping your conditioner-soaked hair with a waterproof cover, then a towel or hat to keep the body heat in might get the job done. That is actually preferable for people who have sensitive scalps because adding much more heat to your scalp can send you into a flare-up of itchy scalp unhappiness. Otherwise - wrap with a warm, wet towel, sit under a hooded dryer on low heat or in the sun. If you're doing a quick deep or protein treatment, just keep your plastic-wrapped hair under the water spray while you shower. Don't wrap your ears in with your hair - that's extremely loud.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
Pre-shampoo oil treatments, a special situation: Here are several rather different scenarios in which a pre-shampoo oil treatment may be better than a water-based deep conditioner, or at least as a supplement to or a prelude to a water-based deep conditioning treatment. Pre-shampoo oil treatments are left on for a few hours or overnight (2-8 hours) before shampooing or cleansing the hair and are applied to dry hair.
1) Lower porosity hair: Maybe everything seems to build up on your hair or regular conditioners just seem to make your hair limp. Pre-shampoo oil treatments have "removal of excess conditioning" built into the technique. They give your hair the lubrication and weight it needs without leaving build-up. You may still need a rinse-out conditioner to detangle.
2) Hair that contract (shrinks) when wet - tightly coiled hair. A water-free oil pre-shampoo will not cause shrinkage that would encourage tangling. It will give your hair lubrication, softness and flexibility and well as resistance to swelling in water and buffer it from the shampooing that follows.
3) Hard water. Conditioning ingredients that have positive charges and shampoos that have negative charges interact with the minerals in your water and may encourage build-up on your hair. For the most part, oils do not interact with minerals in hard water. Oil before shampooing also is a good pre-treatment if you plan to use a chelating shampoo (containing EDTA or citric acid, for example) for hard water.
4) Long hair with normal to oily scalp and dry ends. Pre-shampoo oil treat the ends of your hair only.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
Over-doing it: Over-conditioning is a real possibility. Your hair may become too stretchy, too soft, limp, curls may fall, or you may have a feeling of residue in your hair. Over-proteining can leave hair rough and stiff or overly soft and limp. In either case, you chose products or ingredients that were wrong for your hair, or perhaps were the wrong concentration (too much rich conditioner, too much oil, too much humectant, too much protein), you left it on for longer than necessary for your hair, or you didn't need to use heat if you did.
Under-doing it: On the other hand, if you don't get enough out of your deep treatment, you may need to leave it on the full 30 minutes, or use heat if you did not, increase oils or use more conditioner or more humectant or choose a more balanced conditioner or use some protein.
Summary!
You want the deepest, most intense conditioning:
Use a deep conditioning treatment on freshly cleansed hair with the excess water squeezed out.
Work in sections and smooth the treatment over each section for good coverage.
Add oils or full-fat yogurt or mayonnaise or choose conditioner with oils and humectants like warmed honey. Use protein if it works with your hair.
Leave the treatment on for 30 minutes.
Use heat to keep your conditioner-coated hair near body temperature.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
Your hair is lower porosity or conditioners or oils seem to sit on top or make your hair limp, oils just make it greasy, butters leave tacky residue:
1) Pre-shampoo oil treatments to get around the build-up problem, soften and lubricate your hair, adding a little weight for controlling flyaways.
OR
2) Post-cleansing deep treatments with conditioner: Add hydration-boosting ingredients like warmed honey or protein (protein for fine and medium or porous hair, only sometimes for coarse hair), use oils sparingly or choose a product that is not heavy in oils or butters. Leave the treatment on for 3-5 minutes with heat or without heat if you're afraid your hair will become too soft. Adsorption is also how build-up is born so while your lower porosity hair doesn't grab on to a lot of conditioner, you might want to limit your exposure.
3) Skip the creamy and oily stuff entirely and deep-treat with protein (like gelatin), warmed honey mixed with water, aloe vera gel mixed with warm water and a little glycerin (make sure the pH is 4.5 or 5), get some Hydroxypropyltrimonium honey (Honeyquat) and add 3-5 drops to any of these.
Use a deep conditioning treatment on freshly cleansed hair with the excess water squeezed out.
Work in sections and smooth the treatment over each section for good coverage.
©Sciencey Hair blog 2014
Hair somewhere in between? Impatient?
Heat and longer conditioning time both can double the adsorption of conditioner to your hair. Let's say your blob of deep treatment contains 20 units of conditioning. These numbers are purely hypothetical for illustrative purposes.
Then we'll say If you just put it on and rinse it right out, you get 10 units of conditioning.
If you want to double that to 20 units of conditioning, you can 1) leave the conditioner on with heat for 5 minutes or 2) leave the conditioner on without heat for closer to 30 minutes.
Maybe you use heat (shower cap, under shower spray) for 3 minutes and get 15 units of conditioning.
You actually have a lot of control when it comes to deep conditioning and intense protein treatments.
Sometimes getting these treatments to work for you is just a matter of getting the ingredients, application and timing right.
Then we'll say If you just put it on and rinse it right out, you get 10 units of conditioning.
If you want to double that to 20 units of conditioning, you can 1) leave the conditioner on with heat for 5 minutes or 2) leave the conditioner on without heat for closer to 30 minutes.
Maybe you use heat (shower cap, under shower spray) for 3 minutes and get 15 units of conditioning.
You actually have a lot of control when it comes to deep conditioning and intense protein treatments.
Sometimes getting these treatments to work for you is just a matter of getting the ingredients, application and timing right.
Journal of Cosmetic Science Vol. 4 No. 3, 259-273 September/October 1992
Assessment of the substantivity of cationic quaternary compounds to hair by potentiometric titration using the surfactant electrode.
NGHI VAN NGUYEN, DAVID W. CANNELL, ROGER A. MATHEWS, and HANS H. Y. OEI, Redken Laboratories. 1992
Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Chemistry Vol. 4 No. 5, p. 85-94 1994
Adsorption to keratin surfaces A: continuum between a charge-driven and a hydrophobically driven process.
C. R. ROBBINS, C. REICH, and A. PATEL
Journal of Cosmetic Science, 60, 85–95 March/April 2009
The effects of lipid penetration and removal from subsurface microcavities and cracks at the human cuticle sheath
MANUEL GAMEZ-GARCIA
Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair
Robbins, 1994. 3rd Ed. Springer-Verlag, New York
0 Comments