Over-the-counter beauty products, their misleading labels and the real reason professionals push you to buy the good stuff.
The Truth Behind Your Drugstore Purchases
You wouldn't spend the time + money into seeing a specialty doctor only to skip the prescribed medication, would you? The same goes for your salon service! Great hair needs a committed follow-up. While the up-front investment may seem like a lot, over time you won't need to waste money on clarifying treatments, more hair color touch-ups, conditioning treatments, diluted products, hair loss remedies or extra visits to the salon.
1. They are heavily diluted
• You'll use more product.
• Using triple the amount of a slashed-priced product doesn't add up.
2. They contain carcinogenic colorants + fragrances
• Read your labels
• Yes, the market is currently flooding with product claims of being natural + plant-based but most chicken you find on the shelves says natural, too. 🧐
3. They contain silicones that aren't water-soluble
• Your hair only FEELS silky.
• Fact: Silicones sit on the outside of the hair strands leaving your feeling silky + looking shiny.
• The problems come when that silicone is man-made. These silicones aren't water-soluble + aren't easily rinsed out when washing leaving hair with a build-up that can cause dullness over time, tangles, breakage + dryness (because moisture isn't able to penetrate + be absorbed into the cuticle).
• Plant-based silicones are water soluble meaning you get the same initial benefits of silk, shine + manageability without the long-term damage.
4. They can cause hair-loss
• Clogging hair follicles.
• Ingredients in many drugstore brands have molecules that can literally lodge into your hair follicles causing irritation + hair loss. (Read our blog on organic hair-loss treatments).
5. They can make hair difficult to color
• Build-up of silicones + other "sticky" ingredients. Read: #3.
6. They cause hair color to fade
• Higher astringent.
• Chemicals used in cleansing can strip away the hair natural oils + protection barrier literally loosening color molecules. Seriously, it's chemistry!
7. They can damage your hair
• Chemicals are added for long-term shelf life.
• Being shelf-stable is a good thing but not when that shelf-life is 5+ years. One of the main obstacles of natural + organic products has been keeping these amazing ingredients preserved. While you may still find preservatives in higher-end products, you want to look for natural alternatives or a well-studied variant. Finding a brand you can trust is important!
8. They are mass-produced making it difficult to find allergens.
• Small batches of beauty products are ideal for finding the culprit of issues that may arise such as irritants or allergens. When a flaw in a small batch is found its easy to pull products while in large batches these flaws may go unseen or even worse, unnoticed. Attention to detail is prevalent while working with small batches.
9. They are drying
• Over-use of alcohols.
• Alcohol within a product is used for a variety of reasons but when Alcohol is overused expect to see major dryness + brittleness as you watch your hair color go down the drain.
10. You invest a lot into amazing hair services
• We beg you to maintain your investment + protect our masterpiece.
Now you see why we "push" our products. Yes, we selfishly want our artwork to stay fresh for longer + truth be told, the added commission is always nice to see on paychecks but there's a much bigger factor in it all. We want YOU to have great hair. We want YOU to enjoy our artwork. We want YOU to have products that prevent you from coming back in when you can't quite seem to get the same look at home.
The OWAY hair + skincare line has always been our top pick of organic beauty products. Learn more about why we choose Oway. If you are ready to make the switch, click here.