What's the difference between a cheap shampoo vs a professional shampoo?
I’m not here to bad mouth supermarket brands, just to inform you from a professional point of view.
First off I want to talk about silicones and the good ones vs the bad ones.
Silicones act like a raincoat for your hair and tend to lock out any moisture or humidity to help keep your hair looking and feeling smooth and shiny.
Bad silicones are not water-soluble and do not rinse out when you wash your hair, meaning they will wrap around your hair and build up over time. They are shown as these ingredients - dimethicone , cetyl dimethicone, cetearyl methicone, dimethiconol, stearyl dimethicone, cyclomethicone, amodimethicone, trimethylsilylamodimethicone, and cyclopentasiloxane.
Good silicones are water-soluble and break down, washing away when they come in contact with water, meaning they don’t build up on your hair. They are boiled down to their breathable nature so they won’t cause any damage or coating to the hair. They are shown as these ingredients- dimethicone copolyol, stearoxy dimethicone, and behenoxy dimethicone.
Moving onto the shampoos..
Cheaper shampoos are mostly just detergents that remove the oil from your hair and scalp.
Most cheap shampoos have an average pH of 6.0 or higher which will mess with the natural balance of your hair and scalp, damaging your cuticle and making your hair feel drier. Note that your hair and skin pH level sits between 4.5 - 5.5.
Cheaper shampoos also add bad silicones into their shampoos, to make your hair appear shiny and healthy. Due to the silicone you feel as though you have to wash your hair more often as the silicone creates layer upon layer on top of the hair and you start to think your hair is becoming really oily but in fact it's just the product build up due to large molecules of silicone being used. It’s kind of like your hair is being wrapped in gladwrap, looks ok on the outside but hiding the damage on the inside.
After years of using cheaper shampoo products with the bad silicones in, your hair also creates a barrier to professional colours and powder lighteners.
I’ve personally seen one of my colleagues clients sitting having foils done and her foils were steaming and liquid was dripping onto the floor as the professional powder lightener was reacting with the silicone and melting it off the hair.
So how do you get rid of the silicone build up in your hair?
A deep clarifying shampoo will strip away the build up and remove the silicone wrap on your hair. But do not over use a clarifying shampoo as it strips away all your natural oils causing your hair to feel very dry afterwards! (A good deep conditioning treatment after will help!)
Why professional products then?
Professional shampoos will only use the good silicones and typically contain a high quality of ingredients that make your hair feel nicer and easier to manage after it has been washed. This means the shampoos are much more concentrated so you don’t need to use as much product when shampooing, saving you money in the long run!
They also add ingredients that will help your hair long term. For example, a scalp shampoo for dandruff will eliminate the problem and stop it from coming back. Whereas a cheaper supermarket one will rely on you to continually use the product as the dandruff will return as soon as you stop using it.
Professional products also contain UV protection and anti-colour fade technology to help your colour last longer. It makes no sense to invest all that money into a beautiful colour and then wash it all out with a cheap shampoo.
When visiting your salon, your stylist can prescribe the best suitable products for your scalp and hair- so take advantage of that and ask as many questions as you like!
Pippa