Dallas has a question: What is the pH of Soft and Beautiful texture softener for kids and is it ok to use on my six year old hair which is so hard to manage she is African American 100%.

The Left Brain has an answer:

The Right Brain has blogged before about the chemistry of relaxers and how they work. They all contain some kind of caustic material that reacts with and reshapes the proteins bonds in your hair. The Soft and Beautiful product is a “no lye” relaxer because it’s based on calcium hydroxide and guanadine carbonate instead of sodium hydroxide. Also, in order to work properly, relaxers must function at a high pH. (Soft and Beautiful has a pH of about 13.) However, the pH is not the critical factor to consider in terms of damage, it’s the concentration of the active ingredients.

Because of their reactivity, all relaxers can be dangerous if they are not used properly. But at least the Soft and Beautiful uses a lower active level than a standard relaxer so it has a milder relaxation effect that is designed for softening the texture of children’s hair. Therefore, it should be ok to use on your daughter’s hair as long as you follow the instructions carefully. I can’t emphasize this point enough: if you leave the relaxer on your hair too long, it can cause increased hair breakage and scalp irritation. Write back and let me know how your daughter’s hair turns out.

What do YOU think? Does the need to relax children’s hair outweigh the risks of exposing them to potentially dangerous chemicals? Leave a comment and share your concerns with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.

Monica questions:  What causes more hair loss straightening you hair with a flat iron or doing a relaxer at a salon?

Left Brain straighteners her out:

Great question Monica.  A quick answer is that Relaxers lead to more hair loss than Flat Irons.  Read on for why.  If you want some additional options to flat irons and relaxers take a look at this post we did on 7 ways to straighten hair.

How Hair Straightening Processes Work

While relaxers and flat irons can give you similar styles, they work in completely different ways.  To understand how they work, you first must know that hair is made up of proteins.  Within these proteins are chemical bonds responsible for hair strength & hair shape.  The two most important types include Hydrogen bonds and Disulfide bonds.  (There are others but Sarah’s eyes are starting to glaze over so I’ll stop there.)

Hydrogen bonds are weaker, temporary and dependent on the amount of water in your hair.  When you flat iron your hair, you remove curls/frizz by first mechanically forcing hair straight and then removing the water with heat.  It works just like an iron on clothes.  This locks hair into whatever shape it currently is in.  It works great as long as your hair stays dry.  But once hair picks up moisture from the air, it will start to revert to its more natural shape.

Hair’s natural shape is controlled more by the Disulfide bonds.  These permanent bonds don’t depend on how much water is in hair.  With relaxers, hair’s disulfide bonds get broken down making your hair permanently straighter.  At least permanent until new hair grows back.

Both relaxing and flat ironing damage hair but relaxing is much worse because it actually degrades hair proteins.

3 Kinds of Hair Loss

When you ask about hair loss you could be talking about 3 different kinds; breakage, natural, and permanent.  Since I’m not sure which you’ve asked about, we’ll look at all three.

1. Breakage:  Everyone’s hair breaks to some extent, but damaged hair breaks more.  Relaxing causes much more damage thus leading to more hair loss via breakage than flat irons.
2. Natural:  People shed just like dogs & cats.  Your hair has a natural cycle where you lose about 100 hairs naturally each day.  Neither relaxing or flat irons will affect this hair loss.  You might notice more hair loss while flat ironing but that just because you pull out hairs that would have fallen out on their own.
3. Permanent:  In this type, hair stops growing at the roots & there is not much you can do to get it to come back.  It’s unlikely that flat ironing will cause this but it is possible relaxing hair can.  If your scalp is exposed to the chemicals in relaxers for too long, it can burn you and cause permanent hair loss.  This isn’t a problem when relaxing is done by a top notch, professional stylist but if you have an amateur, look out!

For more, see this information from the FDA about hair relaxer safety.

Should You Relax?

Despite the safety concerns and extra damage, there are some significant advantages of relaxing over flat iron straightening.  These include

• More permanent
• Easier to do (if you have a stylist)
• More consistent results
• Less prone to negative humidity effects

On the other had, being more permanent might be a negative to some.

The Beauty Brains Bottom line:

Both relaxing and flat ironing damage hair, but relaxing is much worse.  However, it does give some added benefits so you might decide hair relaxing is worth extra damage.  If you don’t want to lose or damage hair, the best thing you can do is shampoo infrequently, condition each time, and don’t comb or style it much.  Of course, that severely limits the type of looks you can get so these aren’t options for most people.

What do YOU think?  Would you rather have hair relaxed or do daily flat ironing?  Leave a comment below.

Jane throws us a curve ball: Now that you’ve educated us about curl-enhancing shampoos, can you address the shampoos and rinse-out conditioners that claim to help straighten hair?

The Right Brain straightens her out:

As we’ve said before, shampoos that claim to magically make your hair curly are more bull sh** than beauty science. But making curly hair straight is another story - rinse out products can help, at least a little bit, if they deposit enough conditioning agents.

How can shampoos straighten hair?

Let’s be honest: no single use rinse off product can take the place of a straightening product like a relaxer or even a hair gel. If that’s what you’re looking for then you need to read about the 7 Sure Ways to Straighten Your Hair.

But if you’re just looking to tame hair that’s just a tad too wavy or curly, then rinse out products may be able to help you. That’s because silicones, polymers, and other conditioning agents can deposit even after rinsing. These agents help weigh the hair down, fighting its natural tendency to curl up or frizz out. They won’t fully straighten hair, but they’re better than nothing. For example, here are two examples that contain guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride and certain silicones like Quaternium 80 that have substantial conditioning effects.

Back to Basics Bamboo Straightening Shampoo

Water (Eau), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Cocamide MEA, Disodium Cocamphodiacetate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, PEG 40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Perfume (Fragrance), Sodium Chloride, Propylene Glycol, Quaternium 80, Methylparaben, Polyquaternium 10, Hydroxypropyl Guar Hydroxpropyltrimonium Chloride, Citric Acid, Diazolidinyl Urea, Tetrasodium EDTA, Polyquaternium 7, Propylparaben, Sodium Hydroxide, Panthenol, Persea Gratissima Oil (Avocado), Penta Sodium Pentetate, Hedera Helix Extract (Ivy), Bambusa Vulgaris Extract

Marc Anthony Instant Straightening Shampoo

Water (Enriched with Silk, Silcone), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Chloride, Lauramide DEA, Disodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Acrylates C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Glycol Distearate, Hydroxyethyl Cellulose, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Oleth 2, Glycerin, Panthenol, Polyquaternium 7, Hydrolyzed Silk, Dimethicone, Cyclotetrasiloxane, Simethicone, Dimethiconol, Polysorbate 20, Triethanolamine, Citric Acid, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Tetrasodium EDTA, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylchloroisothiazoline, Fragrance, Blue 1, Yellow 5, Green 3, Mica, Titanium Dioxide

(While both products may have a mild straightening effect, Marc Anthony got a bit carried away with his “instant straightening” claim which seems a bit misleading to us. We also love the way he “enriches” their water with silk and silicone.)

The Beauty Brains bottom line

No rinse off product can fully straighten hair. But if you need a touch of extra conditioning to smooth your hair, shampoos can help. Of course, you’ll have to experiment to find out what works on your hair type.

What do YOU think? Have you found any straightening shampoos that you’d recommend to your friends here at the Beauty Brains? Leave a comment and let us know!

Marie’s bemused by Bio Ionic: I’m considering getting my hair permanently straightened using the Bio Ionic thermal straightening process. I did a bit of research but the information seems a bit too sciencey and kind of what you’d expect from infomercials. The website talks about “negative ionic, infrared and electromagnetic wave charges simultaneously” and shattering “water molecule clusters into micro-fine particles.” My alarm bells are ringing but I know The Beauty Brains will be able to confirm or deny!

This doesn’t come cheap either – I’m looking at $300 to $600 for something that may or may not leave my hair straight. Is this really the “biggest evolutionary leap in hairdressing ever” or the biggest load of bull?

The Right Brain’s recommendation:
The answer lies somewhere in between but probably closer to “bull.”

What is Bio Ionic?

Bio Ionic Inc., was founded by professional stylist Fernando Romero. According to his website, Fernando traveled to Japan where he discovered natural ion therapy. Today Bio Ionic has an entire line of products using this “powerful healing energy.”

What does Bio Ionic supposedly do?

The main claim of the line revolves around these natural ions that are “powerful enough to break water molecule clusters into micro-fine particles and penetrate the hair shaft. That means moisture balance is restored and the hair cuticle is sealed.” It’s a great sounding story, but it doesn’t really mean all that much in terms of real science. Water will penetrate into a hair shaft just fine without being converted into pseudo-scientific micro-fine particles, thank you very much. Of course, that doesn’t stop Bio Ionic from using this natural ion complex in their shampoos, conditioner, and styling products as well as their line of styling tools (blow dryers, flat irons, etc.).

Perhaps the most interesting product in their line is their so called Ion-Retexturizing System which is a “permanent straightening process designed for people with curly, frizzy or unruly hair who want to wear their hair permanently straight.”

Does Bio Ionic really work?

Their website contains a FAQ section that reveals Ion-retexturizing formula is based on Thioglycolate at pH 9.5 with a Neutralizer at pH 3.0. This chemistry will be very familiar to anyone who has had their hair permed. Thioglycolate is used to chemically break down the disulfide bonds in hair and the low pH neutralizer reforms the bonds to lock the hair into a new shape. This is old school technology used in a perms to to take straight hair and change its shape to curly. But there’s no reason that you can’t use the same chemistry to take curly hair and make it straight. So the answer is yes, Bio Ionic will straighten your hair.

But unlike a regular perm, Bio Ionics uses heat to boost the straightening power of the treatment. So, the answer is YES, this product will do what it says. It will permanently straighten your hair. But it has nothing to do with micro-fine natural ions.

Why is Bio Ionic so expensive?

You’re paying for the time and expertise of the stylist doing the procedure. Despite Bio Ionic’s claims to the contrary, if you’re not careful you can seriously damage your hair. (They are correct though, it is less damaging than other chemical straighteners like relaxers.)

The Beauty Brains bottom line

Bio Ionic’s Ion-Retexturizing System uses a combination of permanent wave chemistry and heat to effectively straighten your hair. But there is no special science or technology in their natural ion therapy that makes this product work.

What’s YOUR favorite hair straightening product? Do you use styling tools like Farouk’s Straightening Iron, chemical processes like Motions Relaxer, or styling products like Philip B Drop Dead Straightening Baum? Leave a comment and share your straight dope with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.