A New Generation of Products for Damaged Hair

Last Updated on December 29, 2022 by Gaga

What Causes Hair Damage?

If you regularly use hot styling tools or expose your hair to harsh chemical treatments, you’ve probably noticed some undesirable signs of hair damage.

Hot styling tools can make your hair dry over time, resulting in split ends and breakage. There is no way to reverse serious heat damage, so if this happens getting a haircut may be your only option.

Chemical treatments are another major cause of hair damage. Bleaching, permanent waving, and chemical straightening can compromise the protective outer layer of the hair, called cuticles, leaving your strands porous and prone to further damage.

a young woman feels bad about her damaged hair

Unfortunately, structural damage also affects the appearance of your locks. Your hair may turn into a tangled, frizzy mess that is difficult to style.

Over the past decade, some innovative products have been developed to prevent damage and rebuild the structure of your hair after exposure to chemicals. Most of these products are meant for use at home, so you can easily incorporate them into your regular hair care routine.

Here is a short list of the most innovative products for damaged hair that are available on the market today.

damaged hair and normal healthy hair

1. Hair Bond Builders

Lightening and color processing can weaken or even break the disulfide bonds that are responsible for your hair’s strength and elasticity. The bond breakdown is the main risk associated with hair coloring, and it can happen even if you have your dying job done by an experienced colorist.

You will be happy to know that there are products on the market that will forever change the way you color your hair!

Pretty girl with long and strong hair

Hair bond builders were developed to reinforce the bonds in your hair to prevent the damage from happening and relink some of the broken bonds, leaving your hair in better condition than it was before coloring. These products make the coloring process much safer and allow you to experiment with different shades without the worry of ruining your hair. Bond multipliers also help to improve color vibrancy and prolong color retention.

Nowadays, bond multipliers are a very important part of every color service. Bond builders don’t work to mask hair damage like most so-called hair-repairing products. Instead, they restore the structure of damaged hair, bringing it to a healthier state.

Bond builders can be added to your bleach or color mixture to prevent and minimize damage or can be used for restorative treatments.

In addition to color processing, bond multipliers also protect from potential damage from other types of chemical treatments, such as perms, relaxing, and keratin straightening.

Certain bond-building products are meant for professional use. However, each product line typically includes some kind of at-home treatment designed to maintain the integrity of the hair between salon sessions.

2. Protein Fillers

attractive model with long wavy red hair

Coloring and other chemical treatments can damage the natural keratin in your hair. Damaged cuticles make your hair porous and leave weak spots on the hair shaft. Overly-porous hair doesn’t absorb color well and the color also may wash out fast.

To reinforce the internal structure of your hair, you need to rebuild lost and damaged keratin. That’s when protein fillers come in. These products are intended to add body and volume to bleached and overly-porous hair to ensure the perfect color results.

A protein filler fills the gaps and weak spots in the hair shaft, making hair look smoother and healthier. It replaces keratin that has been lost due to chemical processing and heat styling. This helps prevent breakage and protects the remaining keratin in your hair from further damage. When used with color, a protein filler helps seal the color within the cortex so it won’t fade as fast as usual.

You can use a protein filler before coloring to equalize the porosity in your hair and help the color to take more evenly. The protein filler will also prevent chemical damage and help your hair to stay in good condition.

A protein filler can be mixed into bleach, color solutions, straighteners, or relaxers to protect hair from chemical damage and used after chemical treatments to rebuild lost protein and strength.

When used as a reconstructor, this product needs to be diluted with water or added to your conditioner. Using it along with other protein-rich hair products can lead to protein-overloaded hair.

There are two main types of protein fillers; clear and tinted protein fillers. Clear protein fillers contain no color/pigment and have conditioning and protective properties while color protein fillers add warm tones back into the hair in addition to fixing the damage.

3. Hair Products with Hydrolyzed Keratin

Cute girl with healthy restored hair

Healthy hair consists of about 80% of keratin. The loss of keratin leaves hair weak, dull, and unmanageable. Using products infused with hydrolyzed keratin (amino acids) can temporarily repair hair structure and improve the appearance of damaged hair, making it smoother, shinier, and more manageable. Amino acids are small building blocks of keratin that can penetrate the hair shaft to rebuild damaged hair giving it a fuller and silkier look.

Amino acids also help maintain the moisture level of your hair, so you don’t have to worry about potential protein overload.

Hydrolyzed proteins can be an ingredient in hair shampoos, conditioners, leave-in treatments, hair masks, and other hair care and hair styling products to temporarily make your hair stronger and healthier.

The results are not permanent as the keratin particles wash away from your hair over time, so you need to use keratin replenishing products regularly to keep the damage under control.

a happy girl with fixed damaged hair

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4. Placenta Hair Treatments

Placenta-based hair treatments contain animal-derived placenta extract. A placenta is a rich source of protein and bioactive components that can work wonders for chemically damaged hair. Placenta hair products come in two main forms: rinse-off and leave-in treatments.

Benefits of placenta for hair:

  1. Repairs damage and restores the life and luster of over-processed hair. The protein fills in the gaps in the hair shaft to keep the hair looking and feeling healthy.
  2. Increases the elasticity, preventing breakage and split ends.
  3. Smoothens hair cuticles, reducing frizz and increasing shine.
  4. Leaves hair conditioned, soft to the touch, silky, and more manageable.
  5. Gives more volume to fine hair.
  6. Boosts blood flow to the scalp and decreases hair shedding.

How to use rinse-off placenta treatment: Apply the treatment to freshly washed and towel-dried hair. Cover your hair with a cap and leave the product on for about 10 minutes. After the allotted time is over rinse the hair with water.

How to use leave-in placenta treatment: Once the hair has been washed and towel-dried apply the treatment evenly to damp hair. Don’t rinse. Style your hair as usual.

satisfied brunette woman with long shiny hair

About the author

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Gaga is a blogger and founder of the Softer Hair website. She often says that insomnia is to blame for her first blogging attempts. Being the night owl, she hated the morning alarm. She left her office job and returned to what she loved most - writing.

 

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