What’s the Best Shampoo for Natural Hair?
As licensed stylists and tight curl educators, if we had a dollar for each time we were asked what the “best” product for something was, we’d have a yacht the size of Beyonce’s, no lie! It’s never a matter of what the “best” or even the worst something is, it all comes down to your desired result. How do you want to show up in the world each day?
When it comes down to shampoos in particular, there’s actually an entire spectrum of shampoos that we tend to gravitate towards based on how dirty a client’s hair is and/or what they’ve been putting on it. This blog post will explain what that spectrum is and how to go about selecting the correct shampoo needed in your natural hair care routine.
What Is Shampoo?
Shampoo is used to cleanse your hair. It is not a product to make your hair feel soft, look shiny, or appear moisturized. We often hear that shampoo makes the hair feel stripped, so the person doesn’t use it at all or will use it the least number of times they can get away with. What most people are indicated as “stripped” is really them feeling the real surface texture of their hair.
“A shampoo is technically designed to clean the scalp of sebum and prevent the development of folliculitis and seborrheic dermatitis. Shampoos are intended to rid the hair of sebum, sweat components, desquamated stratum corneum, styling products, and environmental dirt. The idea of beautifying the hair is really a secondary concern that is primarily addressed by a conditioner.”
Even moisturizing shampoos aren’t meant to moisturize your hair, they just contain more emollients to leave that smooth coating on the hair after shampooing. Somewhat negating the clean that you are likely seeking on wash day.
The Shampoo Spectrum
Can we give up saying that shampoo strips our hair? There are thousands of shampoo formulas out there and we guarantee there is one that will leave your hair feeling at least ok. The entire purpose of shampoo is to cleanse sebum, environmental debris, and product buildup from the scalp and hair. Instead of thinking of shampoo like one monolithic product out to destroy our hair, we like to think of shampoo as primer for the hair that comes in a spectrum of cleansing strengths that prepare the hair for everything we want to do to it.
Popular Shampoo Types from Most Cleansing to Least Cleansing:
Chelating shampoos are some of the strongest shampoos on the market. In addition to removing dirt, debris, and oil, they also remove minerals, metals, and chlorine (often from hard water) that can cause damage to the hair.
Clarifying shampoos are designed to remove buildup from product and environmental sources allowing the bare hair strand to be exposed. These types of shampoo are important in all routines but the frequency of usage should be determined by how dirty your hair and scalp is.
All Purpose shampoos have the ability to remove dirt, oil, buildup and environmental debris on a regular basis.
Moisturizing shampoos are more conditioning, less cleansing. This category of shampoo contains less strong surfactants more emollients and humectants in the formulations.
Co-Wash is an action verb that the hair care industry has turned into a noun recently. The formulation of co-washes will vary from company to company. Please read your ingredient list and understand what you’re looking for the cleanser to do before purchasing.
How Often Should You Shampoo?
The more often you are cleansing your hair, the less cleansing your shampoo will need to be. Also, how water soluble your products are will determine which category of shampoo would be most effective for your cleansing session.
Just like choosing a shampoo formulation, how many times you shampoo will be determined by the needs of your scalp and hair. Waxy sebum buildup, alternative styling (braids/weaves/crochet) and heavy non water-soluble product usage will likely be a reason to shampoo more than one time.
But determine how many times you need to shampoo based on what your hair is doing in the moment. There is no correct number of times to shampoo, just make sure that your hair/scalp is clean whatever you use or how many times you use it.
Want specific recommendations on the best shampoo to use? We provide our full curated product list along with instructions for proper use in our digital guide—Wash Your Damn Hair Styling & Product Guide.
This guide is a beginner-friendly resource for any tight curly + natural looking to simplify their hair care routines. It includes styling video tutorials demonstrated by licensed hair stylists, a robust curated product list from shampoos to stylers, our favorite product combinations to use on in-salon clients and much more!
We’d love to invite you to give our digital guide a try to help jumpstart your healthy hair care routine. Use the coupon code ELEVATE at checkout for $20 off your purchase.
