Number 1 Shampoo in the Land of Bubbles & Sulfate-Free

I would imagine most consumers think there are constant changes going on in shampoos, from all the wacky commercials on the tube. Frankly, within the chemistry make-up and formulation ends they have not changed that much in the last 30 years...in my eyes, that is not a good thing. About a month ago I made a few calls to some of the major shampoo manufacturers in the USA to see what they had to say about the biggest changes  within their up coming shampoo releases.

This was the best news I have heard in a very very long time. They all said the same thing: "Sulfate-Free" is their number 1 Red Flag. Which has been a knife in my side now for at least 4 years . . . .

So rejoice . . they have finally heard the complaints and bitching I and many of my stylist compadres have unleashed on the world! I'm not going to complain about the time it took . . . at least "it took". That is a very good thing.

I cannot completely prove that SLS or Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is a 100% cause of all the hair loss and hair thinning in women of late....because I still feel from all my research that it is because of the synergistic effect of any one of, or combination of ... of the 10 steps of 10,000 HEADS. 

 






















But when you open the top of a simple small jar of SLS and the inside of your nose,eyes and lungs BURN  from 1 tiny inhale ( which is what I did !) .....SOMETHING IS DRASTICALLY WRONG ... who in their right mind would put that on the hair and hair follicles...??? wow that subject infuriates me...and always will. Stay away from SLS, become accustom to reading labels please....just like you do for your food. You have to learn to protect yourself...there are so many millions of products on the market now that it is not even realistic to think that our government could keep control over that entire industry. 
We can't even keep Terrorists out of the country that are trying to kill us with guns and 747 Airplanes !

HAIR FORCE ONE - 10,000 HEADS Regimen : Hair Strengthen System by Killerstrands

This is the time of year I add or detract to 10,000 HEADS, the program I started over 8 years ago on my clients in the Malibu Salon. I will take 2 steps per day this next week and add or detract from a notebook I keep from letters, emails, and responses I get from clients all year long. It's so nice having hundreds of people who are just as eager as I am to come up with a hair strengthening system that truly works on all types of hair loss, hair damage & thinning for women. Many of my clients would go to their dermatologist with their worries of hair loss or more specifically "hair thinning" and would be told "oh you look great - - - you are stressing over nothing, my dear, just go home have a glass of wine and be glad you aren't bald." If really pressed the doctors would give them women's Rogaine, and send them on their way. That type of attitude is not met well by women from the entertainment industry, they are a bit more demanding than that. That is when they all started to open up to me at their appointments. 

I had many girls and women finally opening up to me . . . which was not at all a surprise to me, I noticed the thinning myself, I know my clients hair well enough that I could bust them for using the wrong shampoo or a hot tub without treating it when they came in for their appointments. Some called me the Hair Nazi . . . but it was all done in fun. What happened took place over a few years it began with a few women per year, and what was different was that the women were younger - under 40 - under 30 and soon under 20! (men have always had this problem it is new for women) When the problem progressed to a few people every 3-4 month's -- then every month - - every week. . .and when I began having 1 woman per day every few days per week from the age of 17 up to 50... ( I would do 15-25 people per day) is when I put my foot down, 20 year olds with hair thinning ? ? ?
That is just WRONG, and something needed to be done.


 
 
I met with my assistants to brainstorm - they agreed with me > and we began with our surveys and trying to figure out what in the world was going on. Every rear end that sat in our chairs would fill out a survey... in our attempt to find a common denominator. I've told bits and pieces of this story throughout the Blog, as I will continue to but this is how the story BEGAN.  In my opinion the answer is in the 13 steps above - follow them all for 1 year. If you follow all 13 steps - ( which I understand, is very difficult to accomplish) -  I have yet to find anyone male or female that has not improved their hair to their own satisfaction. I realize that is a big...no, HUGE statement . . .  but not a whole lot of people have truly tried the entire program. That is a whole lot of discipline, but damn it  - - it works! Most do bits and pieces of it and I tell people to get the best results follow the last 4 Steps religiously . . . and do the best you can on the other 9.




SLS Sodium Lauryl Sulfate in the shampoo as most of you know ended up being the one true common denominator in all of my clients and now readers. So this is a mandatory step you MUST follow, I have a number of SLS-FREE POSTS you can review .  But through that survey and the next couple years work and research trying to figure out what was going on with my own clients hair, I began work on 10,000HEADS - without even realizing what I was doing. My assistants figured out at one point that I had done over 10,000 heads of hair, which was years ago...so you now have the birth of this very successful system.
Many people have ordered THRIVEN this week, so I am hopeful that many of you are looking forward to developing healthy hair. 

The 2 Steps for today - Steps 1 & 2
Step 1 ; NO SMOKING (of anything)




I must get at least a dozen people a year that ask me to prove to them that POT is bad for them. Now I laugh, I used to get bent out of shape. I'm a child of the seventies, we were the ones who gave birth to the drug scene in America, so I am not the one who has never tried anything, nope I was right in there with the best of them. When I became pregnant, was when everything STOPPED for me. Completely stopped.  But you cannot tell me that when you take a hit of weed, and its all you can do to hold the sucker in your lungs, it burns so bad, hurts so much, that puff of sweet smoke is not tearing your lungs, your skin, your organs and your hair apart.  With every puff you undoubtedly end up coughing it out in a huge belch of smoke, cough and laugh....AM I RIGHT > ?  Sure that shit is fine for your body. Get real boys & girls its a disaster for your lungs & hair.. I was the first one to vote to legalize it so its not that it scientifically doesn't make sense to be OIK for your hair.
 
I have a relative that died a very very sad and much too early death because of lung cancer, this man was a great athlete, had absolutely no stress in his life, was a very talented artist, but smoked weed religiously from 1950 to 2000 (when he died)  50 years of smoking weed almost every single day. No its not the strength of the stuff today which I hear is like smoking an atomic bomb in todays market, but it was clean,clear and the amount they smoked was just a lot more. But this lovely man came down with lung cancer, and they did everything in the world to try to save him . . . they even gave him a lung transplant. Now I remind you, he was a health food fanatic, did his daily exercises, did EVERYTHING right  . . .he actually had a great head of hair till he was about 65 and then the thinning started. He simply could not quit his pot addiction. It was a very very sad loss and no one will ever convince me that pot was not the single cause of his death.Everyone denies it.

Some facts:
FPHL = Female Pattern Hair Loss is what they technically call it when the thinning starts, I will use those initials throughout. The cause of the failure to grow new hair in female pattern baldness is not well understood, but it is associated with genetics, aging, sulfates in shampoo and levels of hormones (especially androgens, the male sex hormones) . Why, the pharmaceuticals do not have more research going into this area - I truly, do not know. 



A hair grows from its follicle at an average rate of about 1/2 inch per month. Each hair grows for 2 to 6 years, then rests, and then falls out. A new hair soon begins growing in its place. At any time, about 85% of the hair is growing and 15% is resting.  Baldness occurs when hair falls out but new hair does not grow in its place. This is the simplified and EXACT reason for thinning or balding. Therefore the goal is to figure out a way to continue that cycle of hair growth on every single hair on your head and then you will have solved the problem of hair thinning. Now, every single step of the 10,000HEADS regimen deals with the many reasons that will prevent each and every hair from continuing that cycle of re-growth, which is why if you follow them all you will have a wonderful head of hair. With smoking at the very top of the list.

Pot or Cigarettes are a sure fire way to wreck your hair... smoking constricts your blood vessels, thereby restricting blood flow to the hair follicle, slowing cell turnover, which holds back new hair 
growth.
 
Remember my best advice to you is to dust off that "common sense" shelf and begin using it. If smoking KILLS, which we all know - can you imagine what it does to the poor little hair strand that is so tiny and defenseless against the big bad meany - NICOTINE, Formaldehyde, and God knows what other chemicals are in those death sticks. I know its hard, I smoked when I went through my divorce - years ago - it was so hard I chose to quit when I went in for knee surgery and I couldn't walk ! I used the patch as well which I felt worked wonderfully - but I see they have all sorts of tricks now. Just try something. Replace smoking with exercise, it is the perfect pacifier - and you will be knocking 2 of the Steps off the list with one stone! I promise!

Step 2; Nutrition
Ahhh nutrition . . . I have battled and fought this one my entire life. I am always - ALWAYS 
trying to eat better. How about - YOU?
I cannot tell you the amount of times that a diet change has helped one of my clients, but I think deep down we all know this. I can tell when one of my strict clients has changed her diet . This is the person that eats the proper amount of protein every day, the proper amount of vege's, and fruit and the whole 9 yards, I can tell when she has gone off and eaten junk for a week, so it is that apparent! 

2008 is when I have truly tried to get more people eating vegetables and most specifically broccoli.  I am of the belief that eating broccoli everyday will help everyone in many different aspects, so if you can - follow me and begin eating at least 1 serving of either steamed or crisp fresh broccoli every single day, I feel it is the one perfect food for your hair.


I have read just so much good about it.      Here is a short piece from a gentlemen that claims to have kept his hair through many years and a multi-pronged approach - kind of like mine - only geared at men. 

 In this year alone I will bet I have read well over 200 articles that give broccoli the heads up for improving health in dozens of different areas. Everyone needs to add this to their diet, and especially if you are dealing with hair loss, or thinning, it just HAS to be mandatory.

Vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower produce a chemical when being digested that inhibits the action of dihydrotestosterone DHT. Leonard Bjeldanes, professor of nutritional science at UC Berkeley, and Gary Firestone, professor of molecular biology at the same institution, have been researching the anti-cancer properties of plant chemicals (phytochemicals). They found that vegetables such as broccoli and Brussels sprouts are rich in an indole called I3C. I really don't find it necessary to go in the whole technical who-ha, so this is an abbreviated version of his story.

Further research confirmed that this DIM inhibits the action of DHT. It does this by binding to the same receptors within the cell that DHT uses. DHT, is involved in baldness. The research that Bjeldanes and Firestone are doing is mostly centered on prostate cancer and the proliferation of cancer cells, but Dr. Bjeldanes in an email to Haggerty wrote that he is now requesting funding to do research on baldness.

The reason that I stress the importance of getting nutrients from real food instead of from pills is that there are many unidentified nutritional factors in food, especially in fruits and vegetables. These phytochemicals that one doesn’t get in pills may provide a great health benefit.

SILVER BULLET  --  BURST

There is nothing conclusive yet in the research of Bjeldanes and Firestone indicating that broccoli and other vegetables will benefit the hair follicles, but I loaded up on broccoli at the market today just in case.

 By the way, the best way to cook broccoli and other vegetables is to steam them. Boiling vegetables destroys over half the nutrients; steaming destroys hardly any. Just purchase one of those little racks at Target for $3.00 that sits in a regular sized pot , you put an inch of water  in. . . and you're good to go.

  Just a quick paragraph on PROTEIN. Protein is a must for good hair, if you are a Vegetarian, or vegan you seriously need to think about quitting that protocol - Hair is made up of protein and hair LOVES protein coming in the body. The more the better. There are some dynamite protein bars out there. . .be sure they are at least 15 Grams or above and devour one or 2 of those every day just to be sure you get some of the required 50-75 grams of protein daily. Nothing will replace the whole foods themselves, but in reality who can eat that well every single day. You would have to give up the rest of your life to "eat correctly" ! But I do know that revamping your diet  to getting close to what you should eat for your hair every day is not that hard. . . . so just start making the changes. 

Breakfast is the most important meal for your hair so DON'T skip it! Your energy levels to your hair follicles are at their lowest first thing in the morning, and they need a boost so skipping this meal would be your first mistake. Find something that has protein in it you like and begin making that you healthy hair breakfast from now on.
Lunch is the 2nd most important, remember salads have no protein in them unless you add chicken or tuna or turkey to them.  Protein is what will turn your slim salad into a healthy hair meal.

When eating throughout the day it will benefit your hair to eat many small meals or as I call it  . . ."grazing". Eat many little meals all day long, its better for your body as well as your hair.  You know how if you wait more than 4 hours between your meals you get a little giddy or lethargic ? That is the same thing that happens to your hair follicles, so you will want to grab a little snack like a vegetable or fruit ( carrot, or apple) . . . just enough to boost your hair follicles energy levels until your next meal. Remember when that one hair falls out and the next one is supposed to begin growing. . . is involved with your nutrition, you do not want that new one growing in to be starved because you are improperly dieting. That is why you will see almost EVERY anorexic/bulimic with such horrible thin hair.

DON'T STARVE YOUR HAIR.

Dry - Oily - Normal - Dandruff : ''Types'' of Hair & Scalp

In this post we explore how to understand and care for, the typical range of hair and scalp types.

The sebaceous gland plays an important role in determining hair and scalp type. 

The production of sebum is a natural process that adds strength and lustre to the hair strand. However, diet, blood circulation, emotional distress and drugs and the aging process can all influence production. Salon products are designed specifically to compliment individual needs and work toward producing strong, healthy, naturally beautiful hair. Hair and Scalp types fall into the following broad categories:

Oily
Over-active sebaceous glands produce an excess quantity of sebum, which can make hair limp and lank. This may be due to hormonal changes, often evident during puberty or menopause. Many people have a naturally oily scalp, which can result in greasy hair. Fair hair is much finer than dark hair, hence is more susceptible to excess oil.

High quality - SULFATE-FREE shampoos cleanse without stripping the hair of essential moisture and nutrients.

Dry
Dry hair looks dull and lifeless and is also more susceptible to breakage. Dry hair can only be stretched 15% of its overall length before breaking, while healthy hair can be stretched up to twice this amount, more when wet! A common cause of dry hair is dehydration; water retention can measure between 4 and 13% of overall hair volume.

A change in lifestyle can make all the difference, and there are many products available to help nourish the cortex and smooth cuticles...beginning with GLEAM. Gleam is a little bottle of magic if you ask me - it has fixed more problems on my clients than any other 1 product we carry. It maddens me that there are so many "copy-cat" oils out there, that everyone thinks all OILS are the same. You can't find an oil on the market place that does not have silicone in it, but GLEAM has none of that type of thing, it is 100% Oils from Nature! With essential oils lacing lightly with an intoxicating fragrance.
 

Normal Hair
Normal hair is shiny, supple and good looking and is the result of a well-balanced, healthy lifestyle, combined with good hair care using the right products.

Mixed Condition
Over-active sebaceous glands and poor scalp condition may create a glut of sebum; this can be absorbed back into the scalp, preventing essential oils from traveling the length of the hair strand. The scalp in this condition is a common cause of Pityriasis steatoides.

Pityriasis steatoides is more severe case of dandruff characterized by an accumulation of greasy or waxy scalp scales, mixed with sebum, that stick to the scalp to the scalp in crusts. When accompanied by redness and inflammation the medical term is seborrheic dermatitis, which I have seen GLEAM cure more than a dozen times, along with the Scalp Scrub and the Malibu Scalp treatment pack.

. Mixed condition hair types have dry, frizzy ends that are prone to breaking, with oily roots. In this scenario application techniques are very important when applying products to ensure the problem area is targeted. 

Attention: Oily Scalp and Dry Lengths Hair?

This is kind of a taboo subject, not many people like to think or talk about........ oily scalps,

but we must sometimes do things in life that are not always pleasant...........yet are necessary.

I am from the camp that believe the scalp is more important than the hair. What? Well I hope you remember some of my previous Posts that explain how the hair actually grows and what goes on underneath the scalp and how each individual hair strand grows.

It still absolutely amazes me the intricacy & monumental  job that actually goes into growing ONE single STRAND of hair. Which is why it is so very VERY important to care for your scalp.

Over the years I have worked with various clients and developed a few little tricks that help the Oily Scalp / yet Dry ends Hair Combination

#1.) Kaaral Scalp Scrub

#2.) Malibu 2000 Scalp Shampoo - another great choice
#3)  Scalp Treatment Packet by Malibu 2000

What you do when shampooing is, you put a dime size squirt of shampoo and add a little water and rub back and forth to create a lather in your hand then put that shampoo on your fingertips. Take that and try to just shampoo just your roots, 1st....... leave that lather on your roots for a few minutes (do everything else in shower) .....then quickly run the shampoo through the lengths very quickly....and rinse. The lengths almost never are very dirty -- because the dirt comes from the scalp, so the scalp is what you need to clean mainly.

Pointing that out helps many.

Leave the lengths out of this process.

Sometimes don't even add more shampoo to the lengths she just pulled the lather from the roots thru to the ends and rinsed almost immediately.........

AGAIN.......... the lengths usually are not that dirty....the dirt would have to travel from the scalp to the ends. .

Then once or twice a week use the KAARAL Scalp Scrub  which also has a conditioning effect when rinsed through. But it has little walnut shells ground up very small so it has a rough texture to it ( just exactly like facial scrubs I'm sure you've tried).

You can use a scalp treatment pack from Malibu2000  maybe every other week ....u will figure out how often on your own.

Then always - always a few drops of Gleam on the hands rub them back and forth really fast and hard it will make your hands HOT -HOT and it will heat up the few drops of Gleam and then just take your finger tips and put that oil on only the tips of the hair, it will travel down a little.....Gleam will heal those lengths if you continue to do this...

There you have the solution to Oily Scalp - Dry Lengths !

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