Your Guide to maintaining moisture for permanently luscious locks.
Myth 1: Oils hydrate
One of the biggest misconceptions about plant oils is that they hydrate hair. Hydration means adding water. By their very nature, plant oils are anhydrous – meaning, they don’t contain any water. So they can’t add water to hair.
This misconception leads to a common hair mistake: applying oil to the hair without consideration for the hair’s moisture content. If the hair is too dry, the oil won’t be able to get to work, and the money you spent on oil isn’t adding any value to your hair. Your hair has to be at a moisture level where it can make the most of the oil.
So how do you make sure moisture content is high enough, and how do we boost the level? We take advantage of the hair’s propensity for absorption using ingredients called humectants. Humectants attract water from the environment to them, and then they hang on to that water, giving plant oils the opportunity to trap that moisture in the cortical fiber where it can raise the natural moisture content. That’s why you’ll find humectants in abundance in Noughty products.
Myth 2: Drinking water helps hydrate hair
The natural moisture content of hair is between 8-12 %, but anything you do to your hair can reduce this level and unfortunately, hair doesn’t have access to the water you drink in the way your skin does.
If your skin is dry and you put oil on it, the moisture content of the skin increases because the oil enhances the skin’s natural barrier function, trapping water released from the rest of your body in the top layers of the epidermis, where we can see our dry skin. This is why drinking 64 ounces of water a day is so important to having great skin.
Hair, however, behaves very differently. If your hair is dry and the moisture content has been reduced to, for example, six percent, then applying an oil and leaving it on for hours won’t effect that dryness. When you wash the oil off, the moisture level of your hair would still be 6%. Plant oils make an effective barrier but are an epic fail if you’re after strong, flexible tresses. There might be better shine, and the hair might be more supple, which could fool you into thinking you’ve improved its condition. The reality is that the moisture content would remain low and no amount of drinking water will help.
Myth 3: Oils repair split ends
No ingredient or product can repair split ends. Some ‘glue’ ends back together, but the only way to get rid of them is to cut them out. However, improving the hair’s flexibility and strength will help to prevent splits, breaks and the brittle hair that can lead to them. Increasing the moisture content of hair is important for increasing its elasticity and strength, and that’s another reason we use humectant ingredients in our formulations– glycerine is the easiest one to spot. It’s usually pretty high up on our ingredient list, so you can be assured there’s tons of it.
Our To The Rescue and Wave Hello ranges are specially formulated for drier and damage prone hair and are packed with humectants to lay down hydration. All of our Noughty conditioners, treatments and styling products are rich in plant oils to ensure that moisture stays put. We hope this illuminates the benefits of getting a little Noughty to improve moisture levels in your hair!