Killer Strands Top 10 Tips For Choosing the Proper Shampoo For Color-Treated Hair

Here's hoping this Guide will help you with the over 700 different shampoo's on shelves in the USA.

Here are Killer Strands Top 10 Tips for finding an awesome shampoo for those of you who color your hair...............

10.) The color of the bottle matters.....( checking to make sure you are paying attention - j/k)

9.) Take into account the texture of your hair...fine, coarse & normal are words used for texture plus: straight, wavy, curlie. Those words will be listed on a great bottle of shampoo . Each one of those factors affects how well the hair will hold hair color in the hair strands. Therefore should coincide with hair color retention.

8.) On the Ingredient list on the back of the bottle, be sure the surfactants (cleaning agent in shampoo's) are one of the following (copy-paste-slip in your wallet), these will take it easy on your color and leave your strands vivid:

• Caprylyl Capryl Glucoside ...........(super natural)
• Disodium Soyamphodiacetate
• Sodium Coco-Sulfate
• Sodium Methyl Oleoyl Taurate
• Sodium Coco-Sulfate
• Cocamidopropyl Betaine
• Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate
• Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate ..........one of my fav's
• Ammonium Cocoyl Isethionate
• Sodium Lauryl Glucose Carboxylate
• Lauryl Glucoside
• Decyl glucoside
• Sodium Lauroyl Lactylate

Of course you are not expected to remember these, but become accustomed to the words of the good ones, so you are not only told the "bad" ones....I wanted to show you a partial list of surfactants that could replace SODIUM LAURYL SULFATE or ALS....very healthily. There are plenty to choose from . . . .

7.) Start with a company that cares about its customers and doesn't seem to be only about sales, marketing and selling, I realize that is hard to distinguish between. . . but a little bit of research will usually reveal what you need to know about this topic, remember how important your hair is to you. If all else fails. . . go by my recommendations, I do a lot of research, test lots of brands and listen to a LOT of people.

6.) Read the labels of ALL shampoo purchases, I know many of you have learned to read the labels of food you eat . . . most of you care about your hair just as much as your body . . . give it the same respect, by learning the ingredients that are safe and sane for it.

5.) These ingredients should NOT be in the ingredient list:

• sodium lauryl sulfate - sls
• ammonium lauryl sulfate - als
• sodium laureth sulfate - sles

(or anything close to these - I've noticed some companies spelling them incorrectly - to sneak through online searches I imagine).

4.) Pay attention to whether your hair is dry, oily or normal - - - probably the most common label you'll find on the bottle. Pick out the shampoo that matches your hairs moisture level - which should help retain your hair color using the appropriate shampoo for the hair type.

3.) If you wouldn't buy your apples, oranges and bananas at your Beauty Supply, then don't buy your shampoo at your grocery store - please. You will be purchasing a higher grade more appropriate for color treated hair purchased from Killer Strands, a high end Beauty Supply or a Salon.

2.) Seeing the words "For Color Treated Hair" mean nothing - I'm afraid. After combing the aisles of the local drug store, I've discovered with the popularity of wanting shampoos for "Color TREATED" Hair, ever other shampoo has those words printed on the bottle - Anyone can put them on any bottle with anything inside it.

1.) Do not believe the words "NATURAL" or "ORGANIC" printed on the bottle , remember we have absolutely no restrictions, of "words" printed on products. They literally could put the words "battery acid" in the bottle and say it was "natural". I truly don't think you should believe anything printed on any bottle of shampoo. The only thing you should look at from a bottle of shampoo in the drug store is the ingredient list.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There actually are a set of laws on what manufacturers of hair products are supposed to follow, but the laws address the "INGREDIENTS " label on the back, not what they print on the front. Therefore I highly recommend to all of you to only look on the Ingredients list. Let's review one bottle as if you were in a Salon OR Beauty supply

Below is a close-up of a couple bottles from the line that my clients like the most, John Masters Organics or JMO. The reason they claim to like it? How gentle it is, how Blondes remain the proper tone all the way to their next appointment, how vivid the reds remained, I got pretty much all the compliments on the shampoo a Colorist is looking for..

Look at the front of both bottles ! !

What do you notice about this shampoo?

( this shampoo is usually put in the "higher-mid" range class of shampoos - $15.95/bottle > which is inexpensive here in LA).

The front of the bottles mention absolutely nothing about being "Color-safe" or "Sulfate-Free " . . or any of it. . . they are just quiet stated- simple -classy . not words and false claims plastered everywhere.

The information you need is in the "INGREDIENT LIST ", so you would flip the bottle

I want to teach you a little bit about LABELING . . . .

labeling on shampoos, hair conditioners, & styling products. I am by no means an expert, so this will be a "little bit"...but I think will be enough to help you with upcoming purchases, if you are so inclined.

Luckily for all of us . . . the FDA is receiving a lot of heat from consumer groups as far as " SAFETY IN LABELING". . . they have already completed a giant overhaul in Europe . . .hopefully we will do something similar here in the USA.

Here are the ingredients in the JMO - Evening -Primrose Shampoo and remember the manner in which they are listed....is the strength in which it is in the bottle. Meaning, see the Aloe Vera Juice??? It is listed first. . .(if you are following the rules of Labeling correctly) that means there is more Aloe Vera Juice than water in this formula. Which is a wonderful and amazing feat, I actually used this combo on my Carbon Beach Creme, so I happen to know that this IS possible and works into a wonderful -"end" result.

On most SHOWER-based hair products you will find "water" as the number 1 ingredient, especially Shampoos. Aloe Vera juice, is exactly as it sounds...aloe vera itself. Which is a very jelly-like-thick substance that is truly nature's "healer". As a former Stunt woman one of my specialties was "fire"....after a few mishaps with burns, I discovered Pure Aloe VERA the first time I got my skin burned ....it was not horrific, but if you've ever had a small burn, think of that magnified 50 times ! Its not a pretty situation and after going to one of the top "burn" centers in the country...I was introduced to the ALOE VERA plant ... they had aloe vera plants growing all along the window sill on one of the floors, where the nurses were.

After I had recovered from a small burn, the nurses had me pick a few leaves ( yes, at a medical center) I applied the juice from the leaves. . .with cool compresses (after 14 days of more radical treatments) - they were miracles workers. Since then I have ALWAYS had an Aloe plant on my window sill, used them to raise 2 kids - - NOTHING HEALS the way pure ALOE VERA does.

I just can't imagine the wonderful tricks it performs on hair and scalp, come to think of it . . .maybe that's why people say their hair-fall completely stops ? ! ? ? ???

It does help cells rejuvenate which is what you look for in hair loss formula's......?? I think I just hit on something new I need to start testing for 10,000 HEADS - Yeehaw !

• aloe vera leaf juice
• water
• decyl glucoside
• disodium cocoamphodiacetate
• sodium cocoyl sulfoacetate
• babassuamidopropyl betaine
• panthenol (vitamin B5)
• sorbitol
• comfrey leaf extract
• lavender flower/leaf/ stem extract
• nettle root extract
• horsetail leaf/stem extract
• chamomile flower extract
• yarrow extract
• white tea leaf extract
• willow bark extract,
• honeysuckle flower extract
• hydrolyzed soy protein
• ylang ylang flower oil
• patchouli oil
• grapefruit peel oil
• cedarwood oil
• lemon peel oil
• geranium flower oil
• sandalwood) oil
• guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride
• wheat amino acids
• sodium pca
• arginine
• serine
• amino acids
• potassium sorbate
• sodium benzoate
• hyaluronic acid
• glycerin
• evening primrose oil
• sunflower seed oil,
• flaxseed seed oil,
• borage seed oil,
• jojoba seed oil,
• tocopherol,
• sulfur

* NOP Certified Organic................It is also CERTIFIED Organic, not an easy certification to obtain, especially when you consider how many real/natural Fruit Oils and extracts this shampoo contains.

I did not use the "INCI" names on the ingredient names for you, the REAL English names were used for you so you would KNOW what most of them are... the big corporate manufacturers want to be able to use the technical or Latin names for the ingredient names, so the consumer cannot figure out what anything is. What do you think of the list, in plain English? ? ?

I would imagine it would make you want to read them more often....wouldn't it? Look at the ingredients in this shampoo? This is andre shampoo { I never really sat down and looked at this list, now that I have...I'm impressed! ! Really impressed!}

You Should Be Too

Killer Chemist

A few Looks to Love - You can never have too many hair photos to dream about !

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow : Female Hair Loss

FPL: Female Pattern Hair Loss 

The most common cause of hair loss in women is “androgenetic alopecia” which basically means FPHL or Female Pattern Hair Loss, the "chicks" version of: aging/hormones/genetics affecting hair loss. It has been fairly well established that hair loss issues between the sexes is completely different. Not only does male pattern baldness ‘reveal’ differently, scientists believe the solutions are also down a different path than mens.

 

The men already have a quick-fix pill that works very well (Propecia), while the women still only have Minoxidil (Rogaine) as the only FDA approved drug to combat hair loss. I don’t even include minoxidil in the 10,000HEADS Protocol, although clients are more than welcome to use it. My work & research at Killer Strands is focused mainly on the issue of Womens hair loss as is this blog, I do see & help young men at the clinic, but my focus has been forced to narrow lately.

Killer Strands would like to introduce you to a new way of understanding the female hair loss plaguing America today. By recent estimates 40 million women are suffering from one form or another of hair loss and the numbers continue to rise. In order for women to understand why the 10 steps of this program work, I have found it helps to educate and explain the “HAIR GROWTH CYCLE" in a little different method, one that is clear – simple – and concise . When I take the time to explain the whole process at the clinic, I can just see light bulbs going on over heads.

Every person is born with every single hair follicle they will have for their lifetime, on the body, at birth. As a tiny baby you are born with 5 million hair follicles throughout your entire body, with 1 million on the head and 100,000 on the scalp. There are 2 types of hairs within those, vellus and terminal…vellus are the short fuzzy, soft ones that do not grow, while the “terminal” hairs are just that, terminal.

Think about that, as that is what will help you understand the reason behind alopecia, the hairs on your scalp have a life-span: they sprout, grow, shed, rest, then begin the process all over again.

Now there are technical names for all of these stages which you can see on the chart, but what is important here, is that each and every single hair on your head sprouts, grows, sheds & rests. . . shedding is a mandatory part of new hair growth. One hair remains in its growth phase for approx. 4 years (fluctuates by person) – at the end of the growth phase it is shed {hair fall}; three months later another grows in its place. When the hair is shed there is the period of awaiting cell regeneration … which begins another new hair… and ‘that’ is where the diminishing numbers come from and the noticeable hair loss begins. As we age the hair that once grew for 4 years – the next time it may only grow for 3 1/2 years, the next time for 3 years and so on. 

Therefore, if you had 50,000 hairs growing for 4 years when you were 20 years old and then every 4-5 years the amount went down another 2-3,000...you can see fairly well how thinning happens and that when it does happen it has been happening for months that you were not even aware of. The result: an even...all-over or “DIFFUSE” pattern of hair loss which explains WPHL or women’s pattern hair loss  occurs. I believe that the hair SHIFT term that I coined is the result of 10 years accumulation of changes within the body (for one reason or another)resulting in a distinct and noticeable change in a womans hair.

Every single hair on your head sheds, that is the completely normal process within the normal growth cycle of each and every hair. In order for a new hair to grow in  - - -  the old one MUST shed, so the “cycle” can continue along its merry way! Many people panic about hair shedding, 95% of the time it is within the normal range, it has just been combined with a persons aging & hormones, so it seems more severe, which is understandable.

Compare the hair to the eyes to make it easier to understand. The eyesight of a 20 year old is at its peak, with many having 20/20 vision, move forward 20 years – and reading a menu all of a sudden becomes difficult & blurry, people panic 95% of the time its just age. Same thing with your hair, it was at its peak when you are about 20, from there it begins its retreat until one day the combination of your aging and some abnormal shedding just seems to hit you around about the same week When you are about 30, you will notice your first or second hairSHIFT. Many women are having babies around this age, and having a baby can do both make your hair thicker or make it thinner….there is just not one way it will go. If you were to implement the entire 10,000heads program, religiously you have a very good chance the hairSHIFT you have will be a ‘good” one. That is one fact we are absolutely sure of.

Each individual hair is formed inside a hair bulb deep in the hair follicle. The follicle is a tiny but powerful factory, which throughout many people’s lifetime hardly ever stops working. From birth to sometimes as much as a century in some people, the follicle continues to produce hairs! Each hair grows for years, it is shampooed, conditioned, cut, blown dry, coloured, bleached, permed…none of these treatments affects the growth of the hair in the hair bulb, even though some may radically damage the hair shaft. Finally the hair falls out, rests for a little while then produces yet another new hair! That is the HAIR GROWTH CYCLE, the cell regeneration that goes on in the hair follicle is the most prolific on the body, coming in second is the spine.

PHASES of the hair GROWTH cycle
Anagen 1000 days
Catagen 10 days
Telogen 100 days

Hair grows ½ inch per month, and faster in the Spring. Mens anagen phase is shorter than womens so genetically they are already pre-disposed to shorter hair then women.

10,000HEADS Hair Strengthen System - 2009 Revisions

Thriving 13 Step System Developed by Killer Chemist for the entire Female Sector

Every year I revise - change - add- subtract - in my never-ending quest to have the most precise & easy Steps for you to follow. So here is the current 0-9 version.

10,000 HEADS remains as successful as ever, now that the system is basically being used all over the world, I am secure in the fact that its success has nothing to do with a particular type of person, as I feared in the beginning. Its in England, Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and right back to Hawaii where we just started shipment to. And, that is just the countries I can remember off the top of my head, pretty cool - - huh? I think so.

I set out to help the women of Malibu, moved up to the women of America and ended up helping the women of the World. That is cool . . . . . . . VERY Cool !

From now on, anyone that asks for shipment of THRIVEN to another country I'm going to ask they send a photo showing them holding THRIVEN in their country. If they do they will get a small discount on their next order . Hopefully we have some adventurer/photographers out there. Your photo will be posted right here on the front pages of the Blog!

I haven't talked about 10.000 HEADS in a very long time, I get so wrapped up in hair color, I dislike when I do that - I will look to some of you for reminders.

10,000 HEADS - 2009

Step 1 -Smoking

I would hope most of you understand this step, although the young need to be told & reminded constantly. . . . Remember that . . .when you think you know everything and you are positive cancer will n-n-n-n-never hit you.

I wonder what the Europeans think of this step when they see it. They are quite passionate smokers it seems which is just not conducive to having healthy hair. I have quite a few women write me about their hair loss (from all over Europe) and they all end up ordering THRIVEN and following 10,000 HEADS.Almost all of them will write frantic with suggestions on how to get the secret supplement in their country, if you have hospitals you can get the secret supplement, its sold world wide as an OTC pharmaceutical.

There was a great article in the New York Times last month that pretty much sums it up for me. Long ago when I began my research and tests for 10,000HEADS - when I discovered how smoking both Weed and Cigarettes absolutely trashed your hair, I wrote a note to Allure magazine and asked them to print the smoking <> hair loss link. I got no response. So with the NY Times finally doing it I can now rest in peace!

I love the NY Times . . . the article was from May 2009 written by Anahad O'Conner :

THE CLAIM:

SMOKING CAN CAUSE THE LOSS OF HAIR

If an increased risk of respiratory illness, cancer and heart disease are not reason enough for many smokers to consider quitting, than perhaps a message focused on hair instead of health may do the trick.

Scientists have long speculated cigarette smoke may accelerate haIr loss. The association was largely attributed to toxins in smoke that can harm hair follicles and damage hormones. According to epidemiological studies, that appears to be the case. A report in the journal BMJ looked at more than 600 men and women, half of them smokers. After controlling for variables, the researchers found a “significant” and “consistent” link between smoking and early graying.

Last year, another team studied the link in a group of 740 men in Taiwan, aged 40 to 91 years, notable because Asian men generally have low rates of hereditary baldness. After controlling for age and family histories, the researchers found a greater rate of hair loss among the smokers, a risk that grew with increasing smoking.

One question is whether the link is a result of tobacco toxins directly affecting the scalp, or of smoking’s causing severe disease that speeds aging.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Several studies suggest smoking can lead to hair loss and hair thinning.

When clients would come in for a 10,000HEADS Consultation, I could tell, by touch - that they smoked. It takes away shine and it takes away elasticity. . . there is a very simple elasticity test I run. Smokers fail it every single time.

STEP 2 -NUTRITION

I go over this in depth in a couple Posts so please see the Table of Contents I made (go ahead laugh) for 10,000HEADS. Remember Hi-Protein, tons of fresh vegetables & fruit . . .dieting itself is prohibited. Eating properly is imperative. I don't support Vegans or Vegetarianism if you have hair thinning....that's a tough one because I was a vegetarian for 15 years and a Vegan for 1....so I love that way of life, minimum of 50 grams of protein per day. . . closer to 70. Protein is the trick. Use protein bars if you have to there is a lot of great ones out there. I believe in oils for your "insides" as well as the outside. . .Lipids are just the key to strong shiny hair.

STEP 3 - NO FIA (FLAT IRON ADDICTION)

Flat Irons have been one of the worst hot hair tools ever invented. There are a lot of girls out there with Flat Iron Addictions, its quite sad to me. They just cannot stop flat ironing their hair. I've busted over 100 girls and at least sparked up the conversation with them about the problem. If there are any of you out there that need an ear and someone who understands send me an email Killerstrands@gmail.com. That is only one extreme. Just remember that the single most harmful thing to your hair is HEAT. With a flat iron you are taking the heat times one hundred putting it in 2 metal plates and SLAMMING it against your fragile hair strands. For the life of me I cannot understand the thinking behind this hair tool. If you have one, use it very very sparingly. The way to go is a round brush and a blow dryer. . . period.

STEP 4 - EXERCISE - YOGA

I just had a client of 10 years (a 27 year old buyer) who over the years ended up trying all the steps in her never ending goal to have her hair to grow longer. Her hair just stopped at this certain point - she tried all of the 13 steps - or so I thought, was religious about both Thriven & the SS secret supplement and was one of the founders (as I call them) > she is one of the "10,000" heads. She showed up with awesome hair - last time out of the blue - I was blown away to put it mildly - she had cracked the barrier and it was 2 inches longer than it had ever grown. She didn't want to tell me, but . . .she started YOGA and had been going 3-4 times a week for several months now. I didn't notice the last time she came, but this time with it being a 2 FULL inches longer, I was needless to say - startled and thrilled for her. I had asked her if she tried YOGA years ago, I guess people think I just make this crap up and do no research . . . maybe its what you think. I would hope from 2 years of posts that I have pretty much laid my life out for those of you that are KILLER STRANDS followers and fans of my hair knowledge and work and research in the betterment of hair health. I hope you can see that I mean what I say and say what I mean. I'm a no bullshit kind of girl I truly am.

The yoga trick I learned from 3 years of practice I trained as a teacher and interacted with hundreds of women in the process when I was living in Santa Barbara . I would say 80-90% of the women I spoke to attested to the fact that YOGA was beneficial for their hair . . . it was so in a number of ways. My hair grew longer and finally recovered from all the damage from treatment so I ever knew if it was just because mine was so traumatized or what until I started asking the women in all my classes. I very much recommend giving Yoga a try - besides the hair you will never find anything that calms the nerves and relaxes your heart as a 3-4 day a week routine.

Step 5 - ALCOHOL - LIMIT IT

We are talking excessive alcohol, social alcohol use seems to be fine, alcohol in excess is bad for the body and so it follows, bad for your hair

Step 6 - SHOWER WATER FILTER

I've written about this extensively on the blog and found it cool that Dr. Oz from the Oprah show was a big fan of Shower Filters for hair health and to prevent hair loss.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, vice-chair and professor of surgery at Columbia University and health expert on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” recently talked about the importance of shower filters on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Dr. Oz asserts that 50 percent of women suffer from hair loss. “You’ve got to treat [your hair] like a fine silk blouse that got wet,” Dr. Oz said on the show. “If you’re blow-drying your blouse that got a little wet or if you’re combing it backward over and over again, or if you’re too rough with it, it begins to fray. Your hair has to be dealt with extraordinarily gently.” Wow, I couldn't agree more with this guy.

And when it comes to treating your hair gently, Dr. Oz argues, a charcoal filter in your showerhead is the best thing you can do. A filter can help eliminate chlorine and many other metals and particles in the water, which can dry up your hair.

Here is one post on Shower Filters http://http://killerstrands.blogspot.com/search/label/Shower%20Water%20Filter and another http://killerstrands.blogspot.com/2007/05/step-2-shower-water-filters.html

Step 7 - PROFESSIONAL HAIR COLOR

Well, this entire Blog is pretty much devoted to teaching and telling you to never ever use boxed hair color and after 6 months of testing at the beginning of writing this Blog - I began testing on the hair colors that can be purchased at Sally's. I found every single one of those hair colors to fall VERY short of the results you can get from Professional Hair Color. In my right mind I just could not promote selling or buying such inferior color - so I began selling professional Hair Color online as a result of that finding. The hairs integrity was compromised

You know what's funny, in the entire rest of the world they don't distinguish between hair color for professionals and hair color for the public, which should tell you something. Mainly that we are very behind the times and need to get with the program. No sooner had I said that ... did I read an article in our trade magazines that Wella and many of the professional lines of color were in talks to sell to the public. So. there you have it, I'm hoping Killer Strands was instrumental in that .

I believe that after the age of about 30 Pro Hair Color actually makes the hair stronger and in better condition than without it.

Step 8 - WATER - DRINKING

The beauty and health benefits of drinking water are many. Water flushes out toxins from our body, this in turn gives healthy skin and hair. Summer is a time when the intake of water should be increased since our body loses most of its water in the form of sweat. Hair too like our body needs water to maintain its moisture levels. It is even better to drink warm water, since it has a cleansing effect on the system.

One should drink at least 8 to 10 glasses of water everyday, this quantity is required to keep the body hydrated. Water is the carrier of nutrients, so it carriers nutrients to every cell of your body including the cells where your hair re-grows.

Having 8 to 10 glasses of water everyday is a must, it should be at regular intervals to keep your body hydrated and your tresses moist. Water therapy helps in curing various diseases like acidity, diabetes, constipation, and so on. Use it to promote a healthy shine in hair, indulge in a simple remedy and enjoy the benefits of nature.

Step 9 - OVERLAPPING (W/ LIGHTENERS)

This refers to the process of getting the hair re-lightened and instead of applying the lightener just up to the line of demarcation, it is applied on top of the line and past it so you are overlapping on top of previously applied lighteners - one of the top 3 most damaging techniques for blonds.

Step 10 - SLS-Free Shampoo

No where is this subject covered more than here at Killer Strands. I have been working on this subject for 12 years, running tests with my clients in Malibu trying to figure out why all the hair loss and why it was affecting 18- 20 - 25 year olds along with women in their 30's, 40's and 50's. There are 16 Posts on this subject it would almost be silly to repeat myself on the subject. Look in the "Labels & Tags" on the sidebar about 1/2 down on the right side.

Step 11 - No Crash Dieting/ Anorexia

I just noticed that I have never written about this. I'm kind of blown away that I haven't . . . I have a lot to say about this, so watch for this post in the next 30 days.

Step 12 - Thriven

This Step is mandatory if you choose to follow 10,000HEADS, This product was made to repair hair not just coat it.

Step 13 - Secret Supplement

It says its a SECRET and so far all of you have done a great job at keeping it that way............THANK YOU. With the purchase of Thriven you get everything you need to know about. They work together 1 or the other will NEVER work alone, how I describe without the other - period.