Scientist explains: What everyone gets wrong about sulfates in shampoo
Scientist explains: What everyone gets wrong about sulfates in shampoo
Do sulfates really strip hair, or clean better? I’m doing a deep dive into the science of how shampoo actually works, and why hair science is so confusing.
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In this video:
0:00 Hair science is a mess
1:07 Diversity of hair
2:27 Straight vs curly detangling
4:33 Can we please just agree on “keratin”??
6:11 How shampoos and sulfates really work
10:27 Sulfates strip LESS?
11:01 Intentional product design
12:33 Foam?
Studies and links from the video:
https://doi.org/10.1002/macp.202200420
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cis.2020.102104
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/beauty/hair/a33514494/what-is-sulfate-shampoo/
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/beauty/hair/g3878/best-shampoo-for-colored-hair/
https://snopes.com/fact-check/shampoo-sham/
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🙋🏻 I’m Michelle, a chemistry PhD, cosmetic chemist and science educator, here to explain how beauty products work, debunk myths, and help you make smarter decisions about your skincare, hair and makeup!
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Is not abt what they do or the formula in total, but what do the chemicals do to the health and hair by their own! Microdosing toxic SHIT in your organism is always bad, no matter what the FDA or orther corpo mercenaries tells us.
4:27. I realize I don’t have brain for this. My hair are fine.
I don’t misunderstand squat. I’m allergic to soaps with sulfates. If I use sulfates, my skin on contact develops either dry flakey skin or full-blown eczema. If I stay away from sulfates, this never occurs. It’s as predictable as clockwork. If I consume artificial sulfates in food, then my gut goes crazy and I have to hover near a toilet. If I don’t, I don’t. Also, predictable. A very large percentage, though still a minority, of the population is the same. It’s irresponsible to have these industrial chemicals in soaps period. They are unnecessary and soaps have been made for hundreds of years without them.
I think u forgot about the scalp, sulfate shampoo really negatively affects the scalp, and the scalp affects your hair, it rinses all natural oil on the surface of the scalp and hair, which causes dryness, irritation, and triggers, everything sulfate shampoo can damage the scalp and the hair, sulfate-free shampoo always the best choice for me, bc I am really easily to get allergies, I agree with everything u said but the [sulfate or sulfate-free does not matter]
shoutout archer
So… sulfates are okay to use on curly hair?? What’s the bottom line?
As someone with fine yet curly hair, I need sulfate shampoos. I also have to wash it everyday because it gets gross and greasy fast. I hate when people tell me not to wash everyday because I have already tried that and it never works for me. It’s so frustrating.
Sulfate shampoos feel better on my skalp and my hair also responds better. Probably because the kind of grease I have, which is not getting out easily. I’ve noticed that on my son’s skalp. He always had quite a lot of buildups for a child with little hair. Since I use stronger shampoo on him, his hair looks better and stronger.
From what i know historically shampoos were developed to not be basic so i think the ph actually matters but needs to be buffered
Can you please talk about gels are they bad for hair because girls with curly hair used it often?
Is there a way to have a consultation with you @LabMuffinBeautyScience?
Another factor, if I switch to a new shampoo my hair responds really well for like a week and then goes back to what is was like for the old shampoo 🤦♀️
i have a very sensitive scalp which is easily irritated by sulfates und parfume in shampoo. havent found the perfect shampoo for me yet
what younger people don’t realize is that color stripping from shampoo is not about the shampoo it is about the colors. In the late 70s and early 80’s if I colored my hair back to my natural color (dark brown with strong red highlights) it never faded, EVER. It was permanent and I could just grow it out and never color it again and there was no demarcation at the line of what hair was dyed and what was virgin. Hair color manufacturers realized there was a ton more money to be made if your color needed to be refreshed constantly. They didn’t want you to just easily go back to your natural color if you were sick of dying.
And these so called popular “ cleansing conditioners” aren’t good on your head either, because the stuff clogs the hair follicles, making your hair fall out. Some have complained about the Wen products.
I started using baby shampoo bc of really bad excema on my head, someone told me it was better bc it’s sulphate free but I think it has more to do with the fact that’s literally formulated for babies 😂
Hey there Lab Muffin. I want to thank you for scientific based videos. I am interested in creating hair and skin products made from all natural ingredients. Please, if you’re willing, make videos that describe which is the all natural ingredient used for products such as bar/liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner, etc. (anything would help). Thanks again so much for providing us content. Be well. P.S. I am a subscriber.
I just found this channel bc I started growing my hair out and feel like these products just damage it. Thank you lab muffin you cutie
I am confused what is she saying,?can someone explain me in easy way
Omg! So called natural and sulfate free and silicone free products destroyed my hair and caused hair loss 😡
I’d love a video about all the supposedly bond repairing products. Another youtuber has a video where hair treated with various bond repair products are viewed under an electron microscope.
I hope you enjoyed this video!
I didn’t go into as much detail about water and hair as I wanted since it wasn’t as strongly related to sulfates, but I did get to finally go into a bit of supramolecular chemistry which was my favourite part of my PhD 😊
What other hair topics would you like me to talk about?
Thanks for taking the time to go into detail but as a result I think you’re missing the main point and getting off topic. And I’m sorry but when the voice gets high pitch t it’s quite distracting and not super pleasant. Hope this’ll help
my hair would look like a raven’s nest if i let it dry before detangling it
I can’t even tell if a shampoo works or not. I just buy whatever and continue using it until I’m bored 😂
I have hair that’s dense, but fine… lots of it, but the hairs themselves are super delicate. I’m still trying to figure out if I should be treating it like it’s curly or wavy. I just know that it’ll never be pin-straight. My dad had super tight "Irish curls", and mom’s hair is completely straight and silky.
With my mom, silicones seem to be fine. But the moment they touch my hair, it’s a disaster zone. My hair sucks it up and will never, EVER let it go. I went silicone-free during covid and it’s genuinely been an absolute game changer! But I can see how it would work on very straight and silky hair that’s not too fine…
The hair industry is so full of misinformation, as a hairdresser i feel pretty confused with all these different affirmations made by brands or other professionals. Thank you for keeping us actually informed
This is great. Thank you.
When i heard chemistry PhD i clicked it asap…
My hair never feels clean unless I use sulfate though….like the dryness builds up until I use sulfates to allow water to get into my hair. I feel like sulfate free shampoo is only for people who don’t use conditioners, oils, leave-ins, heat protectants or basically any hair product at all in their hair except the sebum they produce, naturally.
Such great information!!
….. I’m just allergic to sulfur ions. high sulfates soaps give me baaaaad hives. 😢 morphine sulfate was just full anaphylaxis lol 😅 i love the sulfate free stuff becoming popular as suddenly there’s way more i can use.
I feel like i loose half my hair if I detangle whilst wet, even with conditioner.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
i was so sick of my friends demonizing my sles shampoos. thank you!
I am kind of confused of the more detailed points as I am a hair noob but I will say that trusting the label is also not reliable like companies saying “natural” and “2 in 1” most of the time “natural” just means no sulfates and 2 in 1 blatantly don’t work.
Lots of cool interesting science but few answers. I hope there is more research on the way.
Thank you for the explanation at 5:05 about how humidity changes hair! I’m watching this video because i just moved from Washington State (cold, rainy, very low humidity) to Texas (hot, very high humidity), and I definitely feel like Monica in that clip right now 😂 my wavy hair is so frizzy now! So I’m having to do the research to find a new shampoo/conditioner that will help my hair not be frizzy in this new, drastically different climate.
Hey 👋🏻
What is your opinion on kérastase?
the wavy hair struggle what’s less damaging brushing my detangler through my hair wet or dry 😂
More hair science videos PLEASE. As someone with healthy but thin, fine yet extremely dry hair but prone to oily scalp and no distinct hair texture to speak of I am constantly at a loss. No one’s advice seems to apply to me.
We really need more hair science content! Thank you for this
don’t watch this she’s just saying that hair science is very complex and the gist of the whole video is that sulphates clean better and not necessarily stripping
Generally, my hair hates sulfate free shampoo. It makes my hair feel like hay. I’m on a hair journey rn to grow my hair out and find what my wave texture is, which also includes finding the best shampoo. So far hairitage is the best
this was such a good video!! i’m still worried about something though ;;;
if sulfate shampoo doesn’t necessarily clean better, does that mean i can keep using my sulfate free shampoo even if my conditioner has silicones in it?
i keep seeing people say that only sulfates can clean silicones, and i didn’t even buy a sulfate free shampoo because of the sulfate debacle, i just wanted a different shampoo because i wanted to try something new before i realized this entire discussion existed ;;;; i really like my current sulfate free shampoo, and i didn’t want to have to switch it!!
I have curly hair, but because my hair is very fine, it straightens when wet, because of the weight of the water. And I’m sure in general this happens to a lot of people with curly hair. That way, how does the physics of the swirls not sticking to each other as much when wet still apply, when my hair gets flattened by the water?
I have curly hair and comb when wet
I’m allergic SLS and SLES inside and out. causes my skin and scalp to be super dry and itchy. can’t use toothpaste that has it bcuz I get canker sores (big ones, too). and my hair doesnt like it either. since Ive stopped using it, my hair’s retains it shape better now after I’ve slept on it all nite, my hair it turns out is really wavy, not straight.
I would love it if you would consider getting to the point quickly. I’ve tried and tried but cannot finish listening to any of your videos. I get you’re a chemist and want/love to share the minutiae of each topic but🤪TMI
This is the first video of yours that I have seen. I really enjoy your approach. I really like learning about the science behind formulating.