Scientist explains: Why your hair products stopped working

so you found the hair routine of your dreams and your hair is magnificent but then it just stops working what is going on I'm Michelle of lab muffin beauty science chemistry PhD cosmetic chemist and person with high maintenance hair today I'm going to help you work out why your products suddenly stopped working and what you can do about it you might need to change shampoo first changing your shampoo can make a difference I did a video about how complex shampoos are and one big reason is the way they clean is complicated the one shampoo will

work in different ways to remove different things from your hair for example this shows how shampoo cleans an oil the pink tadpoles are the surfactants which are the cleaning ingredients from the shampoo they break off little bits of the oil into mini droplets it's actually even more complex than this a really runny oil isn't going to interact the same way with these surfactants as a really thick sticky oil so some shampoos might be worse at cleaning off a particular type of substance from your hair than a different shampoo that means if you use a shampoo

for a while an ingredient may might be building up it could be a styling ingredient it could be a conditioning ingredient it could even be something from the shampoo itself so you might just need to rotate through a few different shampoos a clarifying shampoo can also help but a lot of the time these are designed to be used every once in a while that might not be enough to remove buildup but it could still be worth a try you could have also changed your other products hair products are pretty complicated so how they work with

each other can make a difference it's like a group work assignment but for hair products it might feel like one product is working differently but it's actually a different product that partied too hard and didn't finish formatting the presentation that you all had to present like and subscribe for analogies that help me work through my trauma let me explain how this works for hair products conditioning ingredients show up in most hair products not just conditioners so they all end up working in tandem you might have added say a hair mask to your routine it might

be leaving an ingredient in your hair that your shampoo can't remove as easily so now it feels like your shampoo isn't working as well anymore or you might have changed shampoos maybe your old shampoo had some sort of conditioning ingredient that combined with everything else you're using gave the right level of conditioning but your new shampoo is less conditioning so it kind of feels like your old conditioner isn't working anymore maybe if you go back to your old shampoo your conditioner might feel like it's working again you might have treated your hair this is something

I am very familiar with I think we all know that chemical treatments like perms dyes straightening and bleaching are really damaging but it is a bit more complicated than that you can't just use a more concentrated conditioner these treatments will actually change the chemical structure of your hair so it won't interact with ingredients the same way the main thing we care about here is oxidative damage and the main place this happens is called the F layer you might have seen the structure of hair before if we zoom into the surface of the outside layer called

the cuticle there is this thin layer of oily substances attached this is called 18-methyleicosanoic acid it's like your hair's natural hair conditioner that is permanently bonded to your hair when you treat your hair with some sort of oxidizing chemical treatment a lot of this will break off and you're left with these groups which are called sulfonates these are not oily they're on the other end of the chemistry spectrum where water is and like water they don't really stick to oil and this is a problem because a lot of hair conditioning ingredients are oily they'll stick

to the oily F layer on less damaged hair but they will slide right off super damaged hair so hair conditioners that are designed for less damaged hair are just not going to work it doesn't matter how much you use plus your hair is more damaged so it's getting less conditioned while also needing more conditioning this is one big reason why I think a lot of people have a sort of crisis after they radically change their hair I definitely did it felt like I just ruined my hair and there was no going back but it turned

out I just needed a different hair conditioner with more positively charged conditioning ingredients these new sulfonate groups on the hair are negatively charged most of the time and opposite charges attract so these positive conditioning ingredients will stick more strongly to the more damaged parts of your hair which is exactly what you want these ingredients are also self-limiting which means that once you have enough attached to your hair it will get a slightly positive charge so these positively charged ingredients will have a much harder time sticking on so that means your hair is less likely to

get weighed down if you're using more conditioner here are some examples of uncharged and charged conditioning ingredients now all hair conditioners will have a mix of both categories but conditioners for damaged hair will usually be formulated with high inputs of the charged ingredients so looking for products with labels like damaged colored hair intense repair is a good starting point but these ingredients also show up in some other conditioners as well one of my favorite supermarket conditioners is the Toni and Guy volumizing conditioner it has amodimethicone near the top I never would have tried this if

I wasn't looking for charged ingredients my hair is really coarse so I actually have a lot of trouble with like poofy hair and I stay away from volume products but this works really well so chemical treatments are the main thing that kind of blasts away a lot of this F layer but there are other things that can remove it too the main ones we encounter every day are UV from the sun and pool chlorine these tend to cause a lot less damage than a chemical treatment but if you suddenly notice your hair conditioner stops working

after you start swimming for six hours a day in summer then this might be worth looking into your water might have changed a lot of people notice that their products don't work as well after they move to a different location there are a lot of possible culprits but one of the most common is tap water some places have hard water which contains more metal ions this is mostly calcium and magnesium and they can interact with fatty acids and turn into tiny soap scum particles which stick to your hair and make it feel dirty fatty acids

aren't really common in most shampoos and conditioners anymore but you do see them a lot in solid shampoo and conditioner bars you might also see them in natural soaps that are used as shampoos these are some names that might show up in ingredient lists they can also be listed in the ingredients as some sort of natural fat or oil like olive oil beef tallow coconut oil along with sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide fatty alcohols don't have this problem and plant oils don't have this problem if there's no hydroxide base the reactive groups stay tucked away

in their structures you do also have some fatty acids in your sebum which is your natural oil and that could potentially react the same way with hard water the hard water ions can also stick to your hair especially if it's damaged it is those sulfonate groups again they can sort of hitch a ride on them they can then interact with products that you might use outside of the shower like hair serums so have a look in those as well on top of that these hard water ions can make some of the ingredients in your hair

products less effective for example some of those cleaning surfactants in shampoos don't work as well in hard water tap water can also have some other metal ions like copper and iron these are really bad because they can speed up oxidative reactions in your hair so they can mess up how chemical treatments like bleach and hair dye work they can produce a lot of heat and cause way more damage than usual a lot of hair damage processes are also oxidative so these ions could be speeding them up and making your hair more damaged and harder to

maintain copper can also turn your hair green it's in a lot of swimming pools so it isn't actually the chlorine's fault so the best thing to do here is probably try some products that don't have fatty acids and consider getting a water softening shower head another big change that can happen with location is humidity water has a huge impact on hair and humidity especially messes around with your hair shape when you style your hair you're pretty much just holding it in place with hydrogen bonds picture this you and your dog go to an empty dog

park you have a nice strong bond with your dog you call for your dog dougie dougie comes running now let's add in a whole bunch of really friendly dogs your dog's distracted you're distracted you're both having all these extra interactions with other dogs your bond with your dog is is temporarily weaker this is basically what water does to your hair your hair has a whole bunch of protein the shape is held in place with hydrogen bonds this is a bit like glue holding everything in place water also forms hydrogen bonds so when you dump in

a whole bunch of water (puppies) on your hair your hair proteins will start forming bonds with those instead the proteins aren't holding onto each other as tightly so your hair isn't held in shape anymore and you get frizzy hair styling products work by adding extra bonds to the outside of your hair strands that adds to the hold that the hydrogen bonds are giving but if you have high humidity then there's more water around a lot of those hydrogen bonds are gone your styling products are kind of left during all the work and they might not

be enough anymore some styling ingredients can also hydrogen bond so these water puppies will also mess up how they hold as well so if you're in a more humid place you might want to try some styling products with more humidity resistance hormones and aging might also be changing your natural hair hormones can change a lot of the stuff inside your body and even though your hair is dead it it can still have an impact for example around menopause hair tends to become a lot thinner and there's less oil production on your scalp that means your

hair might not be getting as much of that natural conditioning if thinning is a problem you might want to look for more volumizing products if your hair feels rougher then you might want a heavier conditioner there are also some medications like isotretinoin and oral contraceptives they can also lower oil production during pregnancy hair tends to grow a lot faster and becomes thicker but after giving birth that goes back to normal and you lose a whole bunch of hair which is pretty disturbing being really sick or really stressed can also cause a whole bunch of hair

to prematurely end their growing cycle they quickly move out of the anagen or growing phase into the telogen phase and then fall out this is called telogen effluvium and the hair loss usually happens a few months after the actual stress and that delay means it's a lot harder to make the connection so a lot of people end up blaming their hair products there's also this annoying aspect of aging your hair texture changes but it doesn't like it all suddenly turns curly or straight you just start getting more and more irregular hair strands it tends to

start in your 30s so now some of my hair is wavier than it used to be it's a bit like there are multiple hair types on my head now my hair feels and looks rougher than it used to and yeah the bleach didn't really help but no regrets they could have also changed the product formula I left this til a bit later because it's kind of obvious sometimes companies will just change the formula without telling anyone so double check if that ingredient list has changed sometimes the formula can change without the ingredient list changing as

well a lot of cosmetic ingredients aren't pure substances they are mixtures so the exact properties can change with all the supply chain issues a lot of companies have had to adjust their formulas they might be getting an ingredient from a different supplier and that will have slightly different impacts on the formula you could also just be taking the product for granted maybe you loved the product at the start because it made a huge difference before you were using a much less suitable product but now you've been using it for a while your expectations have risen

you've been spoiled by the product you aren't appreciating what it's doing anymore this is really common we did not evolve to have perfect memories and we tend to notice things that are new we like novelty so maybe put that product aside try a different product for a while or skip using it if it isn't an essential product and then see if you can notice a difference I hope I gave you some insights into what's going on with your hair if you enjoyed this video hit the like and subscribe let me know what other topics you

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