How I Scammed Myself and Ended Up With Protein Overload

 

I know my hair; I know her well.
I’ve invested 10 years in this relationship with her.  When she acts out I know what I’ve done wrong and how to fix it.  One of the first things I learnt about my hair is that it does not respond well to being deep conditioned with moisture alone or protein alone.  I always have to use a mix of both to get the right balance of strength and softness.
When I use a protein deep conditioner on its own, my hair feels very rough and brittle.  When I use a moisture deep conditioner alone, my hair feels excessively soft. Please note that this does not happen to everyone’s hair , many ladies can use protein or moisture alone and have their hair respond well to it.

I have many products I’ve used over the years and currently my go to moisture and protein deep conditioner are from the Motions brand.  My hair responds even better to them now they have levelled up on the ingredients by removing the crappy ingredients and replacing them with natural oils.
I was reviewing the ingredients in the moisture conditioner (Motions Active Moisture Plus) and the protein treatment (Motions CPR- Critical Protection and Repair) and noticed they had extremely similar ingredients and even the same type of proteins.

 

Why Moisture Conditioners Have Proteins In Them

I wasn’t suspicious about why a moisture conditioner had protein ingredients in it, in fact, I expect good moisture conditioners to have a small amount of protein in it.  Why, because protein ingredients will help hair fibres hold on to or retain moisture ingredients for longer.  This way hair stays softer and has good elasticity for longer.  This feature is quite important for ladies with normal to high porosity hair.  It’s actually quite smart of product formulators to make this move. Please note that it may not be great for those with low porosity hair

 

 

How I Scammed Myself

What raised my concern was that the ingredients were more or less the same, just in a different order and that both had protein listed as the 11^th and 12th the ingredient.

The first 12 Ingredients in the protein conditioner are

1. Water
2. Coconut Oil
3. Castor Oil
4. Soybean Oil
5. Biotin
6. Shea Butter
7. Vitamin E
8. Olive Oil
9. Argan Oil
10. Aloe Vera Extract
11. Hydrolyzed Silk
12. Hydrolyzed Oat Protein

 

The first 12 ingredients in the moisture conditioner are

1. Water
2. Soybean Oil
3. Shea Butter
4. Argan Oil
5. Olive Oil
6. Coconut Oil
7. Vitamin E Oil
8. Sunflower Oil
9. Castor Oil
10. Aloe Vera Extract
11. Hydrolyzed Silk
12. Hydrolyzed Oat Protein

 

I wondered, is Motions simply the packaging the same product with  slight adjustments and selling it as two separate products? Or the brand formulate it so that the percentage of protein in the CPR is much higher than the Active Moisture?

I decided a way to find out would be to use the protein deep conditioner on its own to see the effect it had on my hair.  I had used the moisture alone on a small part of my hair in the past so I would compare the effects.

Wash day came and I put my plan into action.
Ladies, from the second I applied the CPR (protein one) to my hair I knew I had entered one chance (Nigerian slang for a bad situation).  My hair felt rough and angry as I was applying it in comparison to when I use a mix of the moisture and protein.
For some reason, I decided to carry on because I already knew how I would fix the impending disaster of rough tangle prone hair.  I hoped maybe it would feel different….feel better when I eventually rinsed out the products but it didn’t.
I spent the next week moisturising my hair more heavily than usual and it really helped soften my hair but the balance was still off…my hair still had a very rough texture.  I had to detangle way more often in those two weeks and the knots were more challenging to unravel.  This resulted in some breakage for sure.

I was so eager for my next wash day where I went back to using a mix of my moisture and protein deep conditioner and order has been restored to my hair world.  I basically had a corrective wash day and now it’s all good.  The image above is of my air dried hair after the corrective wash and condition.

 

Lessons to be learnt from this blog post

1 – Get to know your hair and give it what it responds well to

2 – Experimenting with a small section of your hair rather than your whole hair is wise

3 – The importance of judging a product based on how your hair responds to it rather than the brand or list

4 – A personal note to myself: who sent me (another Nigerian slang but I am not sure how to explain this one)

I hope you enjoyed and learnt a lil something from this post.  Next one coming soon.

x

Lade

Learn | Change | Grow