I understand that sometimes looking after our curls and using products specifically designed for curls can often take some getting used to. Therefore, I wanted to create a series of blogs detailing how to get the best from each of the BY SELINA products, including some hints and tips so that you can get the best from your curls.
First up I wanted to start with the BY SELINA Scalp & Curl Cleansing Shampoo. This product is a sulphate free shampoo and if you are used to more conventional sulphate shampoos then a sulphate free shampoo may feel strange. Before talking about sulphate and sulphate free in more detail, I thought I would start off by talking a bit about surfactants.
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The role of surfactants sulphate-free shampoo
Surfactants are ingredients in our shampoos that make our shampoos foam. They are surface active agents that reduce the surface tension of water. Think of surfactants as making a water droplet spread out more. Surfactants also contain a water loving part and water hating part, so they allow water and oil to mix. Allowing water and oil to mix is a great benefit in shampoo as it means our shampoo can encourage the dirt and oil on our scalp and curls to mix with water more easily so that it can be washed away.
Now on to sulphates. Sulphates are traditionally used in shampoo as they have great foaming ability and as consumers we generally correlate increased foam with increased product quality. Sulphates are also very cheap ingredients and are easy to formulate with. However, recently many consumers have been looking for sulphate free options as sulphate free is generally thought to be more gentle on the skin and hair. As curlies, our hair is generally a lot drier so using a sulphate free product can be more beneficial to our curls.
Here at BY SELINA, the surfactants used in the Scalp & Curl Cleansing Shampoo are sulphate free, this means that they are gentle to both our curls and skin. In addition to being sulphate free, the surfactants used in the BY SELINA shampoo are also chosen because of their green credentials, they are biodegradable and also do not contain any palm oil.
How to get more bubbles when using a sulphate-free shampoo
If you are new to sulphate free then as mentioned above, it can sometimes feel a little strange as sulphate free surfactants do not foam as easily as sulphates. However, if you would like your BY SELINA shampoo to foam up more, just add in some extra water. While the shampoo is in your hair, massage both water and shampoo in to your scalp. The added water will help to create a lot more bubbles and give you the desired foaming. Don’t be tempted to add in extra shampoo as the products are concentrated so instead add in some extra water to give you extra bubbles if that is what you are craving :).
Conditioning ingredients in the BY SELINA sulphate-free shampoo
The BY SELINA Scalp & Curl Cleansing Shampoo is also formulated with conditioning ingredients to help care for your curls whilst cleansing. Not only that, the shampoo is also pH balanced to encourage your cuticle to lay down flat and prevent the dryness that you can often get with some shampoos. The BY SELINA shampoo is also different in texture to most shampoo. It is not a thick creamy product, instead it is more akin to the consistency of a facial cleanser. This cleanser like texture of the BY SELINA shampoo was created as for many of us curlies with thick hair, getting shampoo onto our scalp can be quite hard work when you are using a thick product. Having a more malleable texture means that you can pump 1 to 2 pumps of shampoo into the palm of your hand, rub your hands together and then massage this directly into your scalp. If like me your curls are thick, I first apply the shampoo to the front of my scalp before tipping my head forward and repeating on the back of my scalp. once I have massaged the product in, I then add in some extra water to encourage the bubbles and lathering effect of the shampoo.
I hope you found this useful, if you have any questions please do get in touch as I love talking curls and science.
