Water Physics Helps Hair Grow Long and Strong
Every year women struggle with trying to grow their hair out, but get very frustrated in keeping their hair healthy looking during this tedious process. As hair grows it has more and more time to get exposed to damage from washing, brushing and styling. P&G scientists determined the best way to help reduce this damage is by using conditioning ingredients in both the shampoo and conditioner to get that right level of moisture to keep hair healthy.
Effect of water on wet and dry hair
When hair is wet it swells up leaving it very fragile and more susceptible to breaking. In fact, wet hair is actually 33% more fragile than dry hair! While dry hair is strong, it becomes susceptible to the negative affects from high humidity levels. Not only does the hair style get ruined, but it can absorb up to 30% of its weight in water, making it more prone to breakage. It is therefore important that shampoos and conditioners address the needs of hair when both wet and dry.
How Understanding Water Physics is Helping
"We've developed a shampoo and conditioner system designed for people with long hair to help control the rate at which moistures moves in and out of the hair to help prevent breakage from styling," says Teca Gillespie, P&G Beauty Scientist. These products work in two parts; wet conditioners protect fragile wet hair, and dry conditioners help promote moisture balance for dry hair.
Wet hair needs special attention to help prevent breakage. The wet conditioning ingredients are the polymers and silicones, which create a smoother surface to reduce the frictional forces between hairs (vs. non-conditioning shampoo). With the help of these ingredients the hair has fewer tangles; a common problem with long hair. The fewer the number of tangles, the less likely it is to have broken hairs.
Dry hair has an entirely different set of needs. Not only does it need protection from the effects of humidity, but it also needs protection from forming tangles. The conditioner for long hair contains a special surfactant, BT-MAC, which works with the fatty alcohol in the product. Together they form a gel network that gives a rich and smooth feel from the time it is spread on the hair, through the time it is rinsed. This gel network acts like a protective layer to help impede the absorption rate of water from humidity changes. With the combined benefits of the silicones and the gel network, the dry hair will act like it has a slippery layer to help prevent tangles from forming, much like lip balm is used over your lips to protect them. The diagram below depicts how the gel network and silicones work together to help protect each hair strand when it's both wet and dry.
P&G Beauty scientists have demonstrated that the shampoo and conditioner system make hair 10x stronger against breakage (vs. non-conditioning shampoo), allowing hair to grow longer and healthier.