Chelating Shampoo

My chelating shampoo arrived today (Joico K-Pak Chelating shampoo in case anyone is interested) and so the big clean happened.

First I washed my hair well with the chelating shampoo twice. I really gave a my scalp a good scrub, even more so than normal, and left the shampoo on for a couple of minutes while working it in to ensure that it had the best chance to remove possibly years of mineral build up. I have lived in a hard water area for my entire life so far and never used a chelating shampoo. I was trying to keep my expectations low so that I wouldn’t become miserable if things didn’t work out as I hoped, but logically this just seemed to be the missing link from a lifetime of bad hair.

At the end of this my hair felt odd. I admit, my perception of how hair should feel is likely somewhat distorted, but it felt slightly stretchy and almost sticky. The shampoo does contain proteins though and this is the first time I have knowingly used proteins on my hair. This could just be my hair reacting to the protein as I don’t think it particularly needs any.

The next step was an apple cider vinegar rinse. I really wanted to make thoroughly sure that every last bit of crap on my hair was removed. I’m still berating myself for having not done this at the start of all my experiments.

After rinsing, I slathered my hair in conditioner (TRESemme naturals moisturising conditioner), popped it all in a shower cap for half an hour and then rinsed it out.

Results of chelating shampoo

 

I sat here with my hair in my microfibre turban and worried about taking it off. What if this doesn’t work? I’d run out of ideas so if this didn’t fix things I had nothing left to try.

The first thing I noticed when my hair dried was that it dried quicker. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not but it was something I noticed. I don’t mean a little quicker either, but an hour or two less than normal. It looked fairly messy as I really had tried not to touch it much and had added no styling products, but that wasn’t the aim of this wash anyway.

My hair felt not softer as such, but fuller…not stringy and lifeless as is normal. It looked softer and shinier although I don’t actually think it was softer. And it had pretty impressive waves for hair that hadn’t been styled.

 

I feel that this was a success, but I’ll take a better look tomorrow after its been slept on for a night to see what it looks like then. If I’m still as happy with it tomorrow then its time to start up the experiments again!

 

Suspended Experiments

Just a quick update to say how stupid I’ve been and to announce that my hair experiments will be suspended for a week or so and then restarted.

My last post was made whilst rather frustrated at the tiny amount of progress I had achieved so far. I showed the pictures I’d taken of the closer view of hair quality to a few long hair friends and someone (the lovely Brave from LHC) asked if I’d used a chelating shampoo before I started.

I feel rather silly. I clarified to make sure all the product build-up had been removed but in my head the only need for chelating shampoos was if you were a swimmer. I had totally forgotten that they remove the minerals from hard water build up. I have never used a chelating shampoo in my life and I have lived in hard water areas for pretty much my entire life. I am totally kicking myself.

More than 30 years of hard water deposits on my hair would easily explain why my hair never seems to get much better. I am suspending my experiments until I can get a chelating shampoo and then will need to recheck all my previous findings on clean hair.