Professional Vs. Over-the-counter Hair Products
By jessabelle
whos right?
- What is the difference aside from cost between professional and over-the counter (OTC) products? Its actually pretty scientific..they affect the pH of your hair. Your hair is an acid. Professional shampoos keep you within your hairs natural pH level with the exception of clarifiers which are meant to strip the hair. Many OTC shampoos make your hair alkaline. Thats the same thing that happens with chemicals.
- What does alkaline do? Well what happens to your hair is it opens up. This can make you love your new OTC shampoo at first because your hair looks very full. The problem is when your hair stays blown open it gets weak and it snaps. A perm makes your hair an alkaline but after you rinse it, you put on a neutralizer which brings your pH back down. Some OTC shampoos have actually been found to do more damage to your hair than color or perms and you don't even know it.
- Conditioners. I often hear people don't want to use them because they weigh their hair down. After someones tried OTC cond. and got limp locks its hard to convince them that won't be the case with the correct professional conditioner. Cond. is essential to keep your hair healthy unless of course yours is mostly wax. Some OTC conds. can be frozen and if you had put a wic in there you would have a candle. Gross. I actually had a client who was about 10 yrs. old..her hair looked matted and when i touched it wax came off on my hand. I asked the mother if she was using ___ cond. (I will not name OTC brands). She was shocked that I knew that. The truth is she had come to me because she left her last stylist for not being able to do anything with her daughters hair...noone could of. IT had to be stripped numerous times. Now is it worth saving maybe $7 to buy the cond. than the price of the salon services to fix your hair?
- A little known fact is most salons will not guarantee their chemical services unless you are using a professional product..and it's not because they are money hungry
Comments
As you mentioned there is a big difference between salon hair products compared to over the counter store bought hair care.
I agree with you! As a pro stylist myself, I find it hard to convince clients sometimes that the OTC just isn't the way to go for all the reasons you named here. And truth is, not all OTC brands are better priced than what we sell in the salon either! My webstore has salon hair products at great prices and lots of selection. Check us out today. http://www.beautywizard1.com
aside from gramatical errors in both this article and the one on fake or stolen products, you are completly right. I am a professional and you wouldn't believe, or maybe you would, how hard it is to convince my clients of this. I printed out these articles and plan on showing them to my clients.
Frieda Babbley 3 years ago
Ewww! Poor girl!