Thursday, July 3, 2014

Know your Keratin!

With all the "buzz" lately on keratin and keratin treatments for your hair, I want to take a minute to explain what keratin is and the different types of keratin that are being found in hair care products and hair treatments.

The definition of keratin is "a fibrous protein forming the main structural constituent of hair." When you do hair coloring, lightening, perming and chemical services to the hair you are depleting the hair of this very essential protein. To replenish the keratin your hair has lost, it is best to use hair care products containing keratin or to receive a keratin smoothing treatment. However, those products will not help your hair, or could even damage it, if they do not contain the correct type of keratin.

There are are four different types of keratin that can be found in hair care products on the market today. The first and best type of keratin is human hair keratin. However, since there are not people lining up to donate their hair for keratin extraction, companies had to come up with a way to get keratin for their products elsewhere.The next best type of keratin is animal keratin, more specifically sheep's wool. Sheep's wool has the closest genetic make up to human hair keratin. Animal lovers, there is no need to worry about the sheep, they get a haircut and frolic on their way unharmed. The next two types are the least desirable and cheapest forms of keratin, they are plant based and man made keratin. These types of keratin can over "keratinize" the hair. Which means that by using products with these types of keratin the hair can receive too much protein and break off. While with the human and animal keratin the hair will only accept the amount of keratin it needs and not take in the rest, so no concerns with over keratinization.

There are some companies that have recently said that their products contain human hair keratin, when investigating a little further you will find that they are very small amounts of human keratin and they are getting the rest that they need from other sources.

At Body Bliss Salon and Spa we carry Keratin Complex hair care products, hair color, lightener and smoothing systems which all contain sheep's wool keratin.


-Blog post by Sarah Boulton

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