Celeste821 has a sobering question…I see a lot of conversation about beer rinse and heat damage, I was wondering if a brain could shed some light on this?
The Right Brain pours a reply:
Beer is a great way to treat heat damage, I always feel better after downing a couple of frosty beverages…Oh wait. You were asking about beer on HAIR. That’s different. There are three reasons that beer MIGHT help protect your hair from heat damage. Do you think they could be true?
3 Reasons Beer Could Be Good For Hair
- Beer contains protein which can form a strengthening film on your hair.
- Beer has an acidic pH which makes your hair shiny by tightening the cuticles.
- Beer contains hops which are natural astringents.
The sobering truth
- Beer contains grain proteins (like corn, wheat, or rice) but the protein is not chemically modified to deposit on your hair – it just rinses down the drain!
- The low pH of beer is caused by dissolved carbon dioxide which will not have a significant impact because loose cuticles are caused by loss of the natural hair lipids that hold them in place.
- It’s true that hops have a mild astringent effect on skin but they are in very low concentrations in beer and are not left on your hair long enough to have an effect anyway.
The Beauty Brains bottom line
From a scientific perspective, putting beer on your hair is just a waste of good brew.
If you want to learn more about which beauty myths are true, download our free guide “How To Save Money On Beauty Products.”
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
My empirical evidence suggests otherwise– when I have rinsed my baby fine, very slightly wavy hair in beer, with our soft water, it most definitely is shinier and has more body–which seem like conflicting results to me, but it is true.
But that is an N of 1 experiment (1 person in your study). I fall for my own such experiments, too, but it isn’t a good scientific test. If you can disguise the scent of beer so your study participants won’t know whether they’re using it or not, maybe you can have a good placebo-controlled, large-scale, randomized double-blind trial…
At horse shows many riders wash their horses tails in beer to make them silkier and shinier. It seems to work.