Beauty Talk: Low-Poo, No-Cone Hair Routine

Source: health-tricks.com

As a naturally curly girl, as long as I can remember, I struggled with my hair: Hard to manage, frizzy and damaged.

I always had to put some sort of hair product to make my hair look good. If I let it air dry without any product, the result was horrifying.

But then I discovered about the no-poo, no-cone hair routine for curly hair on some blogs and websites. Basically, this hair routine eliminates shampoo and silicone. Washing the hair is done with conditionner (without silicone). I tried it, but I believe it works better for curly people with coarse hair. Mine is fine (I just happen to have a lot of it haha!). So I tried another version of it: the low-poo, no-cone hair routine.

What is the low-poo, no-cone hair routine?

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Low-poo:

Poo means shampoo. The "bad" ingredient in shampoo is sulfate. You can often find it under "Sodium Laureth Sulfate". Sulfate strips off all the natural oils of the hair, causing hair to respond by producing more oil. The No-poo routine eliminates sulfate completely by washing the hair with conditionner: For curly people, this is often enough to eliminate dirt. But for people with fine hair, sometimes a little poo is better. For example, "Sodium Methyl-2 Sulfolaurate" is a form of low-poo.

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No-cone:

Cone means silicone. Silicone is often used in conditionners and most hair products meant to add shine and to have sleek hair. The problem with silicone is that it doesn't dissolve in water, so it justs build up on the hair, damaging it with time. Silicone makes the hair look healthy, but really is just damaging it. You can find silicone under most names that finishes with "-cone", like "Dimethicone".

Some products contains a form of silicone that is (partially or entirely) soluble in water, which is less damaging. You can find this form of silicone under "PEG-" before the name with the "-cone". Personnally, I prefer to have no cone at all in my hair.

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I've been doing the low-poo, no-cone routine for now over a year, and honestly, my hair never looked that good, never was that healthy and has never been this easy to take care and and to style. It's a revelation to me! That's why I wanted to share it with you.

But beware! If you decide to switch to this hair routine, you must know:

• This routine might not be suitable for you, especially if you have fine and straight hair.
• At first, your hair might look a little more greasy which can sometimes be embarrassing. But keep going, in a couple of weeks you will be able to wash your hair 2 or max 3 times a week.
• You hair might also look more damaged at first. This is because of the silicone. You might want to get a little trim.
  
• You will have to become familiar with complicated chemical names and you will have to read the list of ingredients of hair products as carefully as if you had an allergy.
• You might become frustrated on how many products contain sulfate or silicone, even salon or high brand products. It's unbelievable!

Are you doing the low-poo, no-cone hair routine? What do you think of it?

Next Beauty Talk post: my favorite products for my low-poo, no-cone hair routine.