Have you ever found yourself with oily and sticky hair ? It’s not just plain old oily. It’s something else – feels almost plasticky, and you can never seem to dry it even with a Dyson hair dryer blasting hot air at top speed at your hair. If you know what I’m exactly talking about, it’s product residue from your shampoos , conditioners, hair masks, treatments , sprays , serums , and oils.
These products are often laced with surfactants – stuff and chemicals in the likes of silicones that coat your individual hair strands to detangle and make your hair silky, shiny, straight, glossy, and ultra-soft.
But they bring a problem – surfactants accumulate and get stuck on your hair and scalp over time. As you use the same conditioner day on day, you are repeatedly piling more surfactants on your hair. So, there will come a day when your hair gets limp, dull, heavy, sticky, and may even start falling out as the gunk suffocates your hair follicles.
How to solve this problem? Not all shampoos and salons can do that for you – well, definitely not another “clarifying” shampoo from the supermarket, nor those too-good-to-be-true deals and salons you find on Fave.
You will, instead, need an actual professional product that was properly and scientifically formulated to strip residue from your individual hair strands and scalp. You will need the product to be salt (and negative ion) based so it will effectively repel anything that’s coated on your negatively-charged hair strands – like repels like, right?
“Huh, but where to find these hair cleansers?” We know. Here, we’ve compiled a list of detox hair and scalp scrubs for your different level of detox habits and haircare needs.
They may definitely cost more than usual drugstore or supermarket shampoos that we’re used to paying for, but they will definitely cost a lot lesser than a “fancy” hair treatment at random Fave hair salons that may exaggerate your hair problem only to up-sell you with additional services and “upgraded” shampoos. For your wallet and sanity’s sake, we suggest you just invest in a trusty scalp detox and do it yourself:
Emergency hair rescue! Let’s dive into the deep end and start with those who are in need of urgent, emergency care for stubborn, sticky, and limp hair. Go to Sephora Singapore and ask for Christophe Robin’s Cleansing Volumizing Paste with Pure Rassoul Clay and Rose Extracts ($72 for a tub) or the Cleansing Purifying Scrub with Sea Salt ($72).
When you open up the tub, you will find a thick paste-like scrub with coarse salt particles. Wet your hair thoroughly, and pick up just a 50-cents worth of paste in your palms, wet it, and rub it into your scalp and hair. It foams quite lightly and slowly, so do spend some time foaming it up while you enjoy the amazing natural fragrance of the ingredients.
If you have time, leave the foam on your hair to sit for a minute or two as you shampoo your body before rinsing it off. You will find your individual hair strands so light and clean that you literally can feel that “zhup zhup” clean plate feeling on your hair.
To store it away for future use, make sure you just give the tub a pour to drip out any water. Then, close it tight and leave it in your bathroom shelf! You can keep these amazing stuff and slowly use them for a long, long time! Worth every penny!
If your hair is not that sticky but is constantly oily and getting itchy and irritating, this one’s perfect for you. Lush’s famous Roots hair and scalp treatment ($55) is a minty paste to detox, soothe, stimulate, and nourish the scalp. You’ll want to start with a head of dry hair. Use a comb and slowly part your hair (like they do at the hairdresser’s), and then just use a spoon to scoop some of the paste and spread it on your scalp.
Then, part another section of your hair to expose the scalp and carry on. Once you’re done with the entire head, leave that stuff on for 20 minutes and go and watch Netflix or have a drink.
You’ll experience the best cooling, minty, and tingling sensation and aroma that lingers even after you rinse it off. Best part? Your head feels cleaner, lighter, and all the itch and dandruff would have been flushed down the bathroom drain.
If you don’t have any of those above mentioned serious sticky haircare product residue or itchy scalp and dandruff, but you know should start on a regular at-home hair detox programme, here are three other options for that weekly or monthly hair detox to remove haircare product residue build-up.
Starting from a Caffeinated Scalp Scrub ($29) by Frank Body, an Australian face, body, and scalp scrub brand which smells and works amazing. Then, there’s an Kristin Ess Instant Exfoliating Scalp Scrub ($27) which premise to remove product and hard water build up on your scalp formulated by the celebrity hairstylist, Kristin Ess’ namesake brand, and finally, the highly-raved Cold Processed Scalp Detox ($63) by Act+ Acre.
Just got your hair treatment or hair wash done and you just want a lightweight product to keep any excess oil at bay? For a light dose of acids to cleanse your scalp, opt for Coco & Eve’s Like A Virgi Deep Clean Scalp Scrub ($59).
It’s a pre-shampoo treatment, meaning you use this first in the shower before you start shampooing. Otherwise, there’s OUAI’s multi-tasking scalp and body scrub ($58) which exfoliates your skin with sugar crystals and foams just like a two-in-one hair and body wash for lazy people.
This article was first published in The Singapore Women's Weekly.
