Here’s what’s going to happen if you don’t:

• Dry hair
• Dull hair that lacks shine
• Hair tangles easily
• Hair breaks easily
• Colour fades quickly
• Hair that appears to not grow or grows slowly (often we can think our hair isn’t growing when in fact it is but because of poor strength it snaps/breaks off easily and the length of our hair never changes)
• Increased split ends (leads to more frequent haircuts)
• Chemical services such as perms/straightening don’t last

Any of these sound familiar? If you’re ticking quite a few of these off chances are you’re not using a conditioner/treatment after cleansing.

This is where I’m going to get a little bit technical to explain why. The hair structure is made up of different layers, the two we’re focusing on are the cuticle (outer layer that looks a bit like fish scales) and the next layer the cortex (the medulla is the very centre of the hair strand but generally isn’t a factor when talking about conditioners).

What’s happening when you shampoo the hair is that the cuticle layer (outside) is opened in order to clean the hair, this way it can remove any dirt or oil trapped between the cuticle and cortex. However, the down side to this is that when the cuticle sits open for prolonged periods the cortex gets affected by environmental factors (eg hot water, sunlight, airconditioning). The cuticle exists in order to protect the inner layers of the hair that provide the strength to the strand. The cortex is also where the colour pigments are so when this layer is exposed the hair dries out very quickly, colour fades and due to the surface layer not being smooth the hair will look dull and lifeless and hair will knot and tangle easily as the open cuticle catches on each other very easily. Therefore, we need to close the cuticle to lock the surface layer down again and protect the inner layers, and you guessed it – we do that with conditioners and treatments!

Let me know if you’re a conditioner convert after reading this!

Sara x