Knowing the Shampoos
November 13, 2009
What are shampoos for a start? Shampoo is a chemical agent used on the hair to remove the redundant dead skin cells, sebum deposits and other residues (from other hair products) built up over there. And if you are living in an urban polluted environment, you will surely be hoarding a lot of dirt and germs in your beautiful hair as well. Shampooing your hair regularly can blot out these unwanted guests from your hair.
So, how many types of shampoos are there? Well, to be honest, there are thousand types of shampoos in the market. There are baby shampoos (for the babies), hair-thickening shampoos (for volumizing the hair), dandruff shampoos (for removing dandruff from hair), color enhancing shampoos (for retaining and augmenting the effect of the dye), sunscreen shampoos (for protection against the sun), and reconstructive shampoos (to repair and nourish the hair).
What do these shampoos contain? Most of these shampoos contain sodium laureth sulphate/sodium lauryl sulphate or ammonium lauryl sulphate/ammonium laureth sulphate. They act as surfactants (producing lather and loosening the dirt particles) and cleansers (cleaning off the dirt and germ particles). Shampoos also contain acids (citric acid or ascorbic acid) to bring that shine and glow in the hair. Some of the dandruff shampoos have zinc chemicals to fight off the dandruff causing fungus. And along with these, they contain preservatives to keep it conserved for a long time.
Is using shampoos harmless? Well, there’s been some rumor on the fact that the above-mentioned sodium chemicals cause irritations in the skin making it hypersensitive and might also lead to cancer over the time. Well, when that is thought provoking, another ester called paraben is getting some attention for being used as a preservative in shampoos. This chemical agent can be an endocrine disruptor, as claimed by the medical community, thus affecting the health of the person using it. Remember, skin does absorb!
Well let’s see if we can do away with these shampoos altogether. Do we really need shampoos? Well, if you ask me, yes, we do need them. Some people do claim that hair can rejuvenate and revive itself after every six weeks but can you really wait that long? Ha-ha… It’s natural you can’t. So what’s the way out then? The best way to go for is buy you an organic shampoo. Organic herbal shampoos don’t normally contain any harmful chemicals and won’t harm that much. And there are some really cool products out there.
Everything has its side effects! We just got to learn how to bypass that.
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