I long ago accepted that chemicals in my beauty products were probably going to get the best of me – sure, natural products are nice, but isn’t the chemically, tough, super-duty effective stuff just so much better?!  My new London Correspondent Katherine McKenney disagrees with me, and has been passionately educating me about natural and organic beauty these past few weeks.  She will be writing a series here on Jolie about natural beauty and also poking around London for the best beauty finds.  Enjoy!

London Correspondent Katherine McKenney writes:

Earlier this year I decided to switch to natural, SLS-free hair products. Sodium lauryl sulfate is all kinds of nasty: it’s a toxic chemical which overstrips your skin so that other harmful chemicals can more easily enter your skin (and bloodstream) and it makes your skin overproduce sebum. In industrial settings, it’s used to clean machine engines; it’s also what makes products like shampoo foam. Not exactly what I want to be putting on my body – “But do SLS-free hair products work as well?”, I wondered.  The test began!

I started my mission by purchasing the highly rated Logona Repair Shampoo Gingko for dry, damaged hair and Logona Hair Repair Jojoba. My hair is naturally wavy and in the past I always purchased shampoos and conditioners that were very moisturizing. I used to use Kerastase hair masks as my regular conditioner and wash my hair only 3 times per week. In addition, I only blew out my hair 1-2 times per week, and I used hair straighteners even less frequently. Whenever I went for a hair cut in a salon, I was always told that my hair was in good condition and I attributed this to infrequent washing and styling, and high end products. Therefore when I purchased the Logona products I presumed that I should pick from same repair/dry hair range.

5 weeks after using the products my hair was extremely greasy and I’m ashamed to say that there were a few dreadlocks starting in the back. Mortified that my little organic experiment was going so wrong, I was beside myself. Further research on the internet told me that people who stopped washing their hair altogether for 6-8 weeks found that their hair would start to “rebalance” and actually be in better condition than before. Since stopping washing my hair altogether was not really an option (gross!) I switched from Logona to A’kin products. (more…)