Glitterati’s restoration question: What is the deal with “restructuring” treatments for hair? I mean, I get that the vague concept is to “restore proteins” to your hair or some gobbledy-gook, but isn’t hair essentially dead? Can a restructuring treatment really force-feed amino acids or whatever into our manes?
The Left Brain’s restructured response:
By the tone of your question, a certain level of skepticism on your part is evident. We here at the Beauty Brains love that!
Marketing hype
The idea of being able to slather on a hair restructuring treatment to actually re-form hair is ridiculous. True, hair is made of amino acids and putting them on hair may provide some minor benefit. But it won’t restructure, restore or rebuild the hair. This would be a bit like trying to repair a weather-worn Kate Spade bag by pouring a basket of thread and fabric on it. Sure, the stylish sack is made of thread and fabric but you can’t just randomly put them on and expect to get a new purse.
It’s the same way with hair and amino acids. To really restructure the hair, the amino acids would have to be chemically arranged in a specific way. This arrangement can only be done in the hair follicle when the hair is growing. After that, nothing can be done except coat the hair with a good conditioner
Rinse out restructuring
So, what are these restructuring treatments? In essence, they are just glorified rinse-out conditioners. Just take a look at the ingredients. Here is Tricomin Restructuring Conditioner
Purified Water, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Cetyl Alcohol, Propylene Glycol, Stearyl Alcohol, Dimethicone, Triamino Copper Nutritional Complex, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Panthenol, Aloe Vera Gel, Soydimonium Hydroxypropyl Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hydrolyzed Keratin, Citric Acid, Methylparaben, Fragrance, Disodium EDTA, Propylparaben, Peppermint Oil, Tocopheryl Acetate, Cholecalciferol, Retinyl Palmitate, Vegetable Oil, FD&C Blue 1, D&C Red 33
The rules of cosmetic labeling require that ingredients are listed in order of concentration above 1%. In general, the more of an ingredient in the formula, the more impact it has on the product. The ingredients near the end of the list are just put in there to make a nice marketing story or are color, fragrance or preservatives.
In the Tricomin formula, some of the main working ingredients are Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Cetyl Alcohol, Stearyl Alcohol, and Dimethicone. But then take a look at a “regular” rinse-out conditioner. Say Pantene Pro-V Conditioner, Smooth and Sleek
: Water, Stearyl Alcohol, Cyclopentasiloxane, Cetyl Alcohol, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Glutamic Acid, Dimethicone, Benzyl Alcohol, Fragrance, Panthenyl Ethyl Ether, EDTA, Panthenol, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone
Notice any similarities?? The main working ingredients here are Stearyl Alcohol, Cyclopentasiloxane, Cetyl Alcohol, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, and Dimethicone.
Both of these are good conditioners. But the Restructuring Conditioner will not rebuild your hair any better than a standard rinse-out formula. And it certainly won’t rebuild your hair better than thread and fabric would rebuild a worn out Kate Spade.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
Restructuring, revitalizing, restoring, are all marketing terms that describe the same basic conditioning function, so don’t fall for all the hype.
What do YOU think? Are you a sucker for any particular marketing claims or gimmicks? Leave a comment and share your thoughts with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.
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Hi,Some great tips & tricks here,.Thanks for all the useful info!!Amino acids that are classed as essential make up the other twenty percent of our necessary requirements. This is where your diet is important in that it contains these essential amino acids.
How about the Kérastase Vita-Ciment, I kinda intrigued about it. It says that it has a vita-ciment complex that reconstructs your hair and it’s consistency is not your usual conditioner it has to be sprayed on hair and rinse after a couple of minutes.
This Vita-Ciment Concentrate Ritual reconstructs and puts true substance and resistance back into hair that has been weakened by over-processing; colouring and perming, Vita-Ciment will leave the hair strong and revitalized.
Technology – Vita-Ciment Concentrate works from within. It enters the intercellular spaces, filling the cracks, reconstructing and strengthening the hair fibre’s internal substance. It remains in the hair, through several shampoos.
Laboratory tests have shown that a single does of Vita-Ciment Concentrate can increase the resistance of weakened hair by up to 56%.
The high concentration of Vita-Ciment, with a professional dosage of 30,000 ppm (parts per million) makes this a shock treatment.
Vita-Ciment might be a catchy name but it certainly isn’t restructuring your hair. Increasing hair strength by 56% is pretty minimal compared to a product like Fructis which claims to increase hair strength by 500%!
Remember you are getting information about this product from people who are trying to sell you something. I’d be skeptical of anything they say. This conditioner will not likely provide any better benefit than your standard store brand conditioner. The fact that it’s sprayed on is irrelevant. Pretty much any conditioner can be made sprayable if the manufacturer wanted to.
I have to say that several years ago I had the Kerastase in-salon treatments done regularly to try and strengthen my hair after frying it so bad, it had done it’s own “chemical cut.” I had always had long hair and it was now barely to my shoulders with a lot of layers (yuck!). My hair always felt really good after a treatment, so I talked myself into believing it was working, but it still took a couple of years before I could get it to grow longer than past my shoulders. Thanks to the Beauty Brains, I have started experimenting with store brands, and, even though I bleach the heck out of my hair, it still seems to be in the same condition (decent) as when I was spending 5-10x’s as much on products. You guys are saving me a bundle!!!!!
How about this product that I found:
http://www.hairproducts.com/view_product_CON-LOR116.htm
LOREAL Ineral Hair Fixer with Restructuring Molecules & Amino Acids Hair Repair Kit
Ingredients
Lotion: Water, Dimethylol Ethylene Thiourea, VP/VA Copolymer, Polyquaternium 4, Amodimethicone, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Monosodium Citrate, Polyquaternium 11, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hydroxyethyl Oleyl Dimonium Chloride, Magnesium Acetate, Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Sodium Sulfate, Trideceth 12, Aspartic Acid, Sodium Chloride, Stearic Acid, Cetrimonium Chloride, Simethicone, Green 5, Alcohol Denat., FIL (D3333/1).
Tablets: Corn Starch, D&C Green 5, Dimethyol Ethylene Thiourea, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Sodium Sulfite, Stearic Acid.
It says that it can restructure severely damage hair. Is it true? How it works?