Caring about the environment and your hair

Environmentally friendly - Natural hair and beauty products - Green beauty - we can choose.

Consumers are increasingly concerned about the impact their product choices are having on the environment. Everyday products we class as necessities which are available on the high street such as shampoos, conditioners, styling sprays and hair treatments, are often loaded with chemicals, additives and ingredients we are not familiar with.

Buying green and making a conscious decision to know what your haircare products are produced from means not only are you making the right choice for caring for your environment but you are also spoiling your hair with natural organic oils and vitamins leaving hair feeling and looking gorgeous. Knowing where to find green natural products is difficult; certainly the high street is severely lacking in offering green products which are kinder to the environment and good to hair. Often web searches and buying from green websites and online apothecaries are the only way to be sure what you are buying is organic, natural, green and environmentally-friendly.

Over 60% of what we put onto our skin and hair is absorbed by our bodies. Therefore it is essential to know what our bodies are absorbing. Often high street haircare options including shampoos, conditioners, styling products and hair colourants contain ingredients which are confusing and unknown to consumers. We buy based on the brand name without knowing what those ingredients are doing to our bodies. Most shampoos contain sodium lauryl sulphate which helps penetrate the products into the scalp and is a foaming agent, though this can cause skin irritation and has been linked to health problems. Styling products often contain ingredients including Parabens and Propylene Glycol which are not good for the skin. Using organic haircare products limits the toxic chemicals your skin will absorb and green haircare works just as well if not better than mainstream brands. A main concern with consumers when buying green is that often shampoos do not tend to foam as much as mainstream brands and this leads to worries that green shampoos and organic haircare are not as effective.

Jo Minihane, Owner of Real Hair & Beauty in Tunbridge Wells, an exclusive environmentally-friendly run salon using only natural haircare and beauty products said: “Natural shampoos do not foam as much as products you would find on the high street simply because of the natural ingredients and oils used in the products. The natural foamiating does create a foam but not the mass lather we are used to. When first buying a new shampoo, it is a psychological thing that you need to have a foaming shampoo. We are brought up on the idea that "if a shampoo doesn"t foam it isn"t working" but that is a difference with natural shampoos though they work equally brilliantly.” Buying organic offers consumers a familiarity which immediately puts us at ease, as we can quickly and easily identify what the key ingredients are in each haircare product. Vitamins and oils such as Vitamin E, Aloe Extract, Eucalyptus, Patchouli, Chamomile, Tea Tree, Thyme,Peppermint and Orange mint are all natural familiar sources which will provide fantastic wholesome goodness for our hair. View now our complete range of "PACT" organic hair care products, nature's pact with science - Purepact.

Julie Penfold - Hair & Beauty Journalist.