Even Salon Owners Read This Blog for Hair Color Assistance

Salon owners & Colorists across the country are sneaking around behind close doors reading the Killerstrands Blog....I receive plenty of emails from them asking little bits of info that gives away who they are to me! This Blog continues to approach Salon customers, Stylists and introduce Salon quality hair color and tricks I have learned along the way which many can learn to do to themselves at home. We carry the same lines of Hair color that are carried at the best Salons in the world.

'Many of their clients state they read the Blog and then wonder if I have, say many Stylists.....which leads them to look up the Killerstrands Blog” a New York colorist moaned. Considering Crib Coloring is less than what many women tip their hair colorists, more and more women are starting to give it a try. And for good reason.

Killerstrands answer for superb quality hair color

I am Killerstrands head colorist and know that mass-made boxed hair color is a disaster for just about everyone. I have crafted the directions and the theories behind how to reach a successful hair color -- using the precise formula you will best attain each of your goals.
High-quality ingredients and pigments go into professional hair color, which allows superior gray coverage, along with rich, long-lasting, healthy and most importantly SHINY hair color.

The personalized hair color formulas that you can learn very easily how to come up with can be as little as under $20. That’s a far cry from the $100-$200 plus you’d pay at a salon!

I'm so proud of the 5000 + per day readers we have and how proud of the service we provide for women across the country from small towns where they have no decent Salon's at all to the big cities where the price of a single color becomes both prohibitive and ridiculous sometimes. 
We teach those women how to achieve that specialized color and give them access to purchasing top quality pigments, as so many have wished for!

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Everyone Needs to Try 

Customized color truly makes a difference. It even comes with a tint brush, measuring cup & gloves. 

 KC 

 

Healthy Hair is the Back Bone of Great Hair Color, You Cannot Have One Without Other

 10,000HEADS and the Importance of Continuing to follow this protocol is super important and I do not want ANYONE to forget about it.I get warpped up on the immense amount of questions I receive about Hair Color and have 60 Post Title's waiting for me to write about color and not about health! Therefore due to my own mistake, I let the healthy hair topics fall to the wayside....which should NOT be done.

Healthy hair is the backbone of all great hair color, you cannot have great color without great health. Why? 
The deterioration of the hair strands, makes it incapable of both holding color for long AND giving it shine - and what's hair color without shine?Crap. Anyone can accomplish that and that is NOT what we are about here. Lately I have breezed through the 80 zillion copy cats out there (which before now I had never taken the time to do!) and they all seem to be reading from a script. No backbone, no experience and no zest for the world of hair health and color. 
Again, I never want you thinking about one without the other - again.......they MUST GO HAND IN HAND!

I haven't spoken about this in quite some time and I never want any of you to forget these concepts. 10,000 Heads was developed over 18 years ago when I noticed that 18-19 & 20 year old's were sitting in my chair and complaining about hair loss. That should not be happening to that age group. They haven't even learned how to destroy their hair yet ! 
So I began some experiments that only myself and my 4 assistants knew about. 

I began to study the make-up of shampoo, because I had to find a common denominator, and the one and only denominator between the young clients and the older - was "sulfate-shampoo's". Now don't think that concept took us a couple minutes to come up with as it truthfully took months to figure out ........ it was not that easy. We came up with a questionnaire and kept  rewording it week after week until the only thing left (basically) was the Shampoo that both ages were using. Now remember this was way before that weirdo "Wen" drummed up his ridiculous idea of washing with conditioner. 

One of the ingredients in shampoo is called a surfactant and I would love for everyone to learn the name of that and try to absorb what that is. Alternate titles: surface-active agent

surfactant, also called surface-active agent,  is a substance such as a detergent that, when added to a liquid, reduces its surface tension, thereby increasing its spreading and wetting properties.
The surface-active molecule must be partly hydrophillic (water-soluble) and partly lipophilic (soluble in lipids or oils). It concentrates at the interfaces between bodies or droplets of water and those of oil, or lipids, to act as an emulsifying agent, or foaming agent.
Other surfactants that are more lipophilic and less hydrophilic may be used as defoaming agents, or as demulsifiers.

A surfactant is that ingredient in a shampoo that cleans. Something needs to clean....or why wash the hair? Wen took out all surfactants I am pretty sure, I don't care to truly analyze his method as I feel he is on the wrong road - all that needed to be done was to find a gentle surfactant, of which there are becoming more and more. Why don't companies just trash the whole idea of Sulfates? Boy, I wish they would.....I really wish they would. But 2 things get in the way: Price ! of course and foaming capabilities. It costs about 2Cents for a giant tub of Sulfates and the amount of bubbles or "foaming capabilities" are what makes the company's continue to use it. Their profits go through the roof and a lot of customers relate bubbles = good quality, when nothing could be further from the truth.

 

At one point I bought a 16oz jar of sodium lauryl sulfate - powder --- what a rude awakening THAT was !

I opened the jar and it truly knocked me on my ass.....just the scent alone was as if I have sniffed acid or some ingredient that burned the inside and outside of my nose at the same time from a distance of 8-10 inches. I knew I had truly found my culprit - from that one sniff.
If it did that -- so quickly.....can you imagine what it would do to the fragile hair bulbs on your scalp after years of use.

It would help when trying to solve the problem of hair shampoos - hair loss and hair shine on yourself to leave any type of "harsh ingredient  So after eliminating some of the ingredients and making my own shampoos and actually giving them to 20 18-25 yr.old clients I could observe if there was any changes or not.....Remember at this time, I was very green and did not know a fraction of what I do now! 

Back then Malibu 2000 was Sulfate-free and a couple other brands.........Lanza, etc..were all we had to choose from....... So that was all these people were given to use for months....
Guess what began to happen?
New growth spouted.......
Thickness returned....
and the most important to the client???.............Their length began to get longer than ever (this was of course after 1 year of the controlled testing) and then finally my questions were all answered and I still cannot believe that all of that trauma and worry was caused by one silly ingredient in a product that most everyone used on a daily basis.
I was thrilled with my results and I still have a hard time finding lines that have a wonderfully formulated Shampoo, they still will not listen....

So keep your eyes and ears open !

KC

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The End is Split, My Dear.......You should Give a Damn !

Split Ends ....  & the Silly Shampoo That Leads You To Believe everyone Has Been Working At The "Wrong-End-Of-The-Hair"...

Maybe they have :D

Heidi Klum is on this new TV commercial ??....... telling us that every hair product manufacturer has been working on the 'wrong' end of the hair....meaning the ends. 
I can tell you from experience that if you do not work on the ends especially for 'movie hair' like hers ... your hair will look like shit, my dear. I tell you I have been involved in so many of these commercials , yes, a while ago, but they haven't changed much - yet now they are lying even more) ! 

Still it just amazes how much these actresses lie through their teeth. I mean I just want one of them to stand up and say I would never use that drugstore crap. They are all so paranoid about their hair. So I call, BS, Miss Klum. From my sources she has been paid as little as $1 million dollars to say those words ( which took her maximum 8 hours and more like 4-6) ...and as much as $4 million. Do you believe her now?
Money is what talks here.
There is not 1 Hollywood Celebrity...........not Jennifer Garner, not Tina Fey, not who's that girl married to Ryan Reynolds....NOT 1 of them who has their bodyguards drive down to the local CVS and asks them to pick up a box of Color.....COME ON you do not believe them  do you??? 
                                                    
Split Ends
Now this is a subject there is not a lot of info on - there truly isn't because it is pretty simple. I have seen a few commercials that would have you believe shampoo can prevent split ends, I also need to put my 2 cents in on that. The only way to deal with them is too cut the damn things off. There is this silly commercial that says split ends can be taken care of by shampoo --  shampoo is on your hair for what 2-3 minutes - maybe, max ? Something on your hair for 'minutes' cannot solve a whole lotta             anything, do not fall for that type of thing, ever. 
                                                                                                                " I don't need to give a damn...!"

Split ends occur ...
when the protective layer of the cuticle is removed from the tip of the strand. As a result, the hair splits into two or three strands, each two to three centimeters long, at its tip.

Some of the causes of split ends?

• no haircuts
• hair being cut with a razor
• having fine hair
• hot tools
• putting hair back with cheap & damaging elastics
• and the number 1 cause today???  Flat Irons

The ways to prevent split ends? Get your hair trimmed regularly, by regularly I mean ...every 6-8 weeks for shorter hair - every 10-12 weeks for long hair. With the way split ends are formed, I had certain clients that just had them way more than others. I started with oils many many years before Argan Oil appeared..........which seemed to sway the mind of every hair care buyer in the world. 

In my own opinion I have tried cheap oils... Hell 15 years ago I was trying sunflower oil from home and while it seemed to mask the split ends somewhat - when I began playing around with oils that are heavy in Vitamins and more rare - that is when the real changes started happening. Those people of Morocco must absolutely love the United States. There are other oils that work OK, but the truly miraculous results come from finer oils and oils that are worn in a braid or bun over night. 

Killerstrands Gleam and is one of our Top Sellers for more than 10 years !!! 10 years oils have been around in Malibu, California. You MUST try Gleam, 1 small bottle will give you the perfect tester so you can see the magic this one little Oil produces.

You need to cut split ends off as soon as you notice them . . . they will just keep splitting up the hair strand and if you didn't want your hair cut, you are going to be super sad when it continues splitting up that strand shorter and shorter. Think about your regular maintenance routine and try to identify why your hair is splitting. Hopefully you will notice what is the reason, the list is pretty defining.

Do you believe Miss Klum now?
Please look at every celeb that does TV commercials and know their paycheck is minimum $1 million. That is all that possesses them and frankly I have had my entire close family torn apart due to money and the desire to have more than the sibling next to them. I don't respect any celeb that does that and you shouldn't either.  my kids and I have always loved and respected Reece Witherspoon and most recently we saw her in one of these despicable ads. There is an actor I became friends with years ago and many times he would get offered 1-4 million dollars to sell something he didn't believe in and all of it could be made in 1 day. 

He's never been able to turn them down.....he's worth millions, I mean how many millions is enough to make you at least say no to  something you don't believe in and know that people will buy this hair product, even though you wouldn't use it in a million years?

I still believe that Gleam and a haircut 6 times a year on the low end and every 6 weeks on the high is the magical mystery tour ride to no split ends                 

Over a Half a Million People Have Read This Post . . . .Don't You Think You Should Too? Sulfate-Free Shampoo & Why All the Uproar ? ?

I just noticed today that over a half a million people have now read this Post....there is a good reason for that and I hope you will take the time to read it .
Over 557,771 people took the time to read this, maybe you should too ! 

Because the health of your hair ....and your hair staying ON YOUR HEAD AND NOT SHEDDING .....all depends on the fact that you choose to use a sulfate-free Shampoo. It is truly that important !

The Health of Your Body.......Shows Up In Your Hair. 

In other words, if your hair is thin lifeless, shedding ... many times it can be a sign of another serious illness. So always rule that out, prior to working on my hair care techniques. Please. Rarely is that the sign of something serious, but I have spoken to numerous physicians about this, and they all concur that there are zillions of diseases that begin with hair loss. It is SOOO preventable within the walls of Killerstrands, especially if you follow 10,000 HEADS.


 The one and only type of shampoo you should ever use is :
 

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate-FREE or

SLS-Free

also

ALS-Free

SLS or Sodium Lauryl Sulfate:is a Surfactant

What SLS is...in layman's terms?

There is an ingredient is every shampoo and every "cleaning" agent whether it be for the body, for the hair, for the garage, for the bathroom, for the face,etc., called the "SURFACTANT". The surfactant in shampoos are surface active ingredients, meaning they can interact with a surface. The chemical nature of a surfactant allows it to surround and trap oily materials from surfaces. One portion of the molecule is oil compatible soluble while the other is water soluble.

 In other words the surfactant is the detergent - or the "cleaning portion" of the formula.

The surfactant is the portion of the formula that can have the harshness of the formula beCAUSE it is the detergent. Detergents CAN be harsh, but they can also be 'gentle'. For the past 20 years almost every shampoo has used the surfactant: Sodium Lauryl Sulfate SLS or Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate ALS, why? they are super - super cheap AND they make lots and lots of foam and bubbles.

People expect a lot from shampoos, its funny a product like that - which you use frequently .... we really... know nothing about.

Unfortunately, it is not easy to tell a good shampoo from a poor one. Cost, fragrance, and lots of foam is what most people look for in shampoo products. Lather and foam does absolutely nothing to make a shampoo a good one, but they often get the most attention.This is something I am trying to re-teach America:
Lots of bubbles has zero to do with the quality of shampoo - you must let that one thing 'go' - please.

Foaming occurs when surfactant molecules gather around air instead of oil. The result is millions of tiny bubbles. Obviously, the air bubbles are using the surfactants that should be removing dirt and oil. We have all seen shampoo advertisements showing happy, beautiful people taking showers with their heads heaped high with mounds of lather. These images have taught the public to associate lather with cleansing ability.

The truth is, lots of foamy lather only means too much shampoo was used.

Excess foam equals waste.

Sebum and other oils quickly destroy foam.

Ideally, the head should have just enough lather to lubricate the scalp and hair. This will help your fingers massage the shampoo more effectively into the hair.

Fragrances and foaming qualities are not good ways to evaluate shampoos.

Here is a common Formula to make a Simple Shampoo

Ingredient Part A SodiumCocoyl Isethionate ................20%       (look for this Surfactant above & below .. I love all  qualities) Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate..........13% Crodasinic LS-30 ............................11% PEG 150 Distearate Glycol Stearate PEG 7 Glyceryl Cocoate Calendula Extract (oil soluble) Part B GuarSilk Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein Dl Panthenol Water................................60-77%...........water is the majority of all shampoos, but the combination is what will give you the best results Part C Liquid Germall Plus _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate and Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate are easy to use and provide excellent foam and cleansing with mildness but that is where the substitution would be -- the SLS or the ALS would be plugged in there in other formulas. So you can see HOW MUCH of the formula is this harsh ingredient. It may not seem like a lot to you .......but I promise it is.  In formulating all the products you use, we use 2-3-4% of the TOTAL and that is a significant amount.

GuarSilk provides superior conditioning and additional viscosity. C12-15 alkyl benzoate provides sheen and improves wet combing. Panthenol & wheat protein for strength and conditioning.

Why did companies use SLS? 

SLS & ALS both create huge bubbles and are super cheap to use... and for years no one was looking "into" ingredients that are in cosmetics. The times are changing though. I was one of the first out here in wacky California - even my mentor didn't quite understand why I  cared about it so much!

 There are many manufacturers that use that exact same SLS as the main surfactant in garage cleaners, engine degreasers and the horrendous list goes on and on....the last place those ingredients should be > is in your hair.Try to remember the names, jot them down - put the list in your wallet, be sure not to purchase any hair products with those names in them. I'm not one of those fanatics, I promise you, I feel if you are fanatical about anything, it will drive you crazy. . . so crazy that avoiding whatever it is you were trying to, would be detrimental to having a balanced life.

My reason for avoiding SLS & ALS?
I began to notice that I was starting to have 18 year olds sit in my chair that had hair thinning and hair loss. Something I had never seen before. Of course, I had  30 (very few) - 40-50 - 60 year olds with the beginnings of this  problem. As you age, your hair thins. . . of course in men, but the problem began to become super predominant in women PLUS it began to become a problem in youth. . . so I began reading. 

This is when I started my journey into cosmetic chemistry.... so it took a full year of reading and joining a couple different groups, ordering huge textbooks and reading them /ALL OF THEM! learning how EXACTLY the hair follicle/hair strand worked. How and why certain things happened that had to do with the growing cycle....then I began to look into some of the ingredients in some of the products that we used. I am not a rocket scientist by any means.....BUT what I do have is : COMMON SENSE .

Therefore to me, I wanted to find a common bond. What did the 16-17 year old girl sitting in my chair use that the 67 year old man did as well??? It took me almost a full year. No one would help me, no one cared but me....But the 16-17 year old girl sure did. 

Finally it hit me.....shampoo....they both used shampoo. It was so simple and I missed it for a long time.

Then I had to decipher and learn what each ingredient was and what was its capacity within shampoo???

Long Story - - - SHORT . . . I started to focus on SLS and ALS. . . and then I got my first microscope. I ordered my first tub of SLS ( a powder). 

I opened the jar and the caustic smell of it burnt the inside of my nose and nearly knocked me over. I could NOT believe how rough and how horrifically strong - - JUST THE SCENT - - of this product was. 

I knew right then and there that this one ingredient was the cause of all the problems.
It also cost pennies, so the whole thing started to make more and more sense to me.
Super cheap . . . so the profits would be huge.
Super bubbles, which the public had been trained to love from the commercials.
Easy to work with.

I had been looking for a common denominator as to why all these people were having thinning hair & hair loss and this was it. All of these people used shampoos with SLS in them
- - we all did, we didn't know any better - this was years ago when we didn't question this type of thing.

So, after a lot of studying - researching and trials and errors with my clients. . . I discovered once we switched numerous people off of the SLS- shampoo's their hair thinning/loss after 2-4-6-8 months - - slowly improved. It worked for both men and women, which I didn't think was going to be the case. This was about 12-13 years ago . . . so steadily since then I have been writing letters, talking to labs and trying to bark up the right tree in hopes of getting the word out there. I feel 2008 was the first year the movement officially started, we still have a long way to go but at least it is opened up and now in 2011 I can proudly say I truly feel I had a lot to do with almost every company having a Sulfate-free shampoo.

PLEASE - PLEASE, get yourself an SLS or ALS-FREE Shampoo. . . .You WILL notice the difference when you quit using them and for the long term, you will be grateful.

I'm very proud of the shampoos in our store. We are the only site/store that carries 100% Sulfate-Free Shampoos. I just feel strongly about them for all of you and your hair's health.

We are having a Shampoo sale as I am bringing in some new lines that I am excited about. that does not mean I do not like these I use every shampoo in here personally you should see my shower it is hilarious......25%OFF all Shampoos in the store the code is:

SulfateFreeRocks  

 this will be good for the next 3 days: Sept. 5, 6, & 7,  2014

Can you believe that over 556,771 

people have read this post!

"The Health Of Your Body; 

           Shows Up In Your Hair"

I brought the previous comments up from a different post at a different time...but the same topic