It's been pretty well established that healthy hair needs the right balance of moisture and protein, and that messing with the equilibrium by overdoing either one can cause problems. That's why, after years of what seemed like excessive hair breakage, I decided to try a protein detox this spring/summer to determine once and for all if protein overload was the cause of my sometimes brittle hair. Essentially, I eliminated any hair products with protein -- it's harder than you might think with all the hydrolyzed grains and other protein sources that can hide in an ingredient list! -- to see if that would resolve my issue.
As it turns out, I wasn’t fully protein-free for as long as I originally thought, as one of these products does contain a small amount of protein, but I did still do a proper detox for close to four months. My hair routine was already silicone-free, and that’s also true of these five items.
