I got a Microscopic Hair Analysis...

Hello and welcome back to my channel. Today I am going to be reacting to the results from my microscopic hair analysis. I actually signed up for this over a year ago but it took so long, the process of like sending it off, it took months to arrive, then when they sent my results I didn't open them for like six months because I was so done with my hair. If you've been watching my channel you know that I have a whole series where I documented my hair journey. I went through a lot with my hair. Just to give you a backstory of like my hair kind of story, I have loads of videos on my channel if you want to check them out. I've been through the thick of it with my hair. I went through trying the curly girl method, I went through years and years and years of like a healthy hair, no heat journey. I have only in the past couple of months started experimenting with heat and hair styling which is why I decided to wear like a very garish 80s hairstyle today because I'm just being more free with how I style my hair. So I gave them I think like 20 or 30 strands of my hair. I made sure to get like thick ones, thin ones, ones from all around from the top from the bottom. I gave them like unhealthy ones with split ends, I gave them healthy ones, smooth ones, coarse ones, the whole lot so that they could get a really in-depth analysis of my hair. Now my assumptions, what I think they're going to say about my hair, so I think and I could be completely wrong but we're going to find out. I think my hair is a mix of thin and coarse strands but it's overall not very dense so like not a lot of it. I believe my hair is very dry and brittle. I believe it's going to be high porosity and it shouldn't have any heat damage because at the time I sent the samples I was like barely using heat. I maybe used it like once or twice a year. This is going to be a lot of pages but I'll just try and like condense it down to the important bits. Okay here we go, so my porosity low to normal porosity at the root, normal porosity at mid-shaft and high porosity at the tip. So that kind of makes sense as the hair ages and gets more damage. So that's not what I'm expecting, I thought it was gonna be high porosity at the mid-shaft so wow. So elasticity when wet it has 34% stretch which is normal, when dry it has 23% stretch which is normal. Okay wow I thought it would be like not normal. Texture 20% medium width, 80% coarse. Wow I have 80% coarse hair? No that cannot be. I thought I had like 50% of both but like I'm also thinking I only sent them, I can't even remember how many hairs I sent them I think it was either like 20 or I don't know, I'll put it on the screen but wow how can they know my whole head of hair? Suggested trim 5 to 7.5 centimetres. Okay I guess that means like they suggest I trimmed about five centimetres at the time that I sent those samples. That's a lot of centimetres, that's got my handy dandy little measuring tape right here. That's about two inches that, actually that's not too much, they suggested that I trim off two inches so I'm due for a trim so I'm gonna actually go do that soon. Overall your hair is in good health with the exception of your ends. It appears that you have naturally low porosity hair, what? But due to damage, oh no this is where I don't know if this is legit, it says but due to damage from styling and normal wear and tear your porosity increases at mid-shaft and lower but this is where I'm so frustrated because at that time I had not been styling my hair. I'm pretty sure I sent them a letter as well like talking about how I hadn't been heat styling my hair at all, that's mind boggling. Any kind of styling that I did was heatless, I never like teased my hair, I didn't even use like hairspray or a lot of like damaging products, I never dyed my hair, like at this point my hair was so natural, like I was so anal about having very natural natural hair care. It's always frustrating when people say oh your hair is like heat damaged. It is now obviously because I've been well probably in the past two weeks I've been experimenting because healthy hair standards, I can't keep up anymore. Okay so your hair has very slight build-up along the full length of your strands that required a shallotting shampoo to remove, so it had build-up. So I should also mention when I sent the strands they require you to like shampoo them but not condition them, this is so that you can like get off any product build-up because obviously conditioners have silicones and whatnot in them that will build up on your hair. So I had like lightly shampooed them, I didn't want to shampoo them too much because I didn't want them to be like dry as all heck. So that's interesting, so even after like a light shampoo they still had build-up and they had to use a shallotting shampoo, don't know what that is. This could decrease the effectiveness of your products you are currently using. Build-up can result in inconsistent styling, contributing to frizz, rob your hair of access to vital protein and moisture. Okay so obviously there's a lot of downsides that having build-up can have. Okay hard water can leave mineral deposits on your hair. By adding a shallotting clarifying wash once a month to your routine it will help to control build-up and remove mineral deposits. Okay I might have to try this. Shallotting, I'm gonna have to figure out what that is. Also anytime you wash make sure you are massaging your scalp thoroughly. I do usually do that. Many have found that a shampoo brush is very beneficial. I was thinking of getting a shampoo brush. Beneficial to wash routines, remember to deep condition after any clarifying wash. Ah good advice. Ah here we go shallotting agent. Okay so in order to remove the minerals from your hair you need a product that contains a shallotting agent. Look for these ingredients. Okay I'm gonna put them on the screen. So these, these I guess are shallotting agents. Your elasticity results indicate that your moisture and protein are in fairly good balance. What? No. Using a good combination of products will help to keep your hair happily balanced. I tend to do that anyway. I use like a combination of products. I should also mention I am still testing positive for COVID. I had it last week and I'm kind of better. I'm just a bit congested but um yeah technically I've still got COVID so don't breathe too much. You might get COVID through the screen. I'm so surprised. So this is my, is this my hair? This is the surface of my hair at the root so this is like the healthy hair and it does look healthy from what I know about hair and what it should look like. That looks healthy. Hair near the midshaft. This region has more chipping at the edges of the cuticle layers making it normal porosity. Okay so this is normal porosity. So you, so the hair before. Okay cool. This level of damage is expected since the hair at midshaft has had more time and opportunity to be damaged. So I guess this is like a normal amount of like wear and tear for your hair in the midshaft. Okay. This is the ends. Okay. Cuticle layers at the tip of your hair appear damaged. Of course this goes without saying and I know this because my ends are always horrendously, horrendously dry. Oh yeah. See this is what I expected my hair to look like in the midshaft to be honest because I feel like all my hair is just crap but maybe I'm too hard on myself. Evidence of heat damage? What? No. This can't be. This cannot be. Oh how frustrating. Evidence of heat damage but I didn't, I wasn't using heat unless like the few times that I used heat throughout like those couple of years really did damage my hair that much. I always felt like even when I used heat like I don't know two or three times a year I would always feel like I was frying my hair when I was doing it. I was like oh. I tried to always use the lowest heat possible like I was scared of heat so to see that I had heat damage when I didn't even use heat ever. Hardly. It's really disheartening. Also you give them some products that you're using and they like analyze them and tell you if they're right for you. Oh my Shea Moisture Manuka Honey and Yogurt Hydrating Repair which is one of my favorite products. So let's see what they see about this. Oh they say I do recommend this product for your hair as your regular shampoo. Fabulous. I love that shampoo. It doesn't have any uh sulfate in it. Sodium is a cleanser that is not as harsh as sulfates but may be a little drying. And the conditioner. Okay I recommend this product for your hair. The conditioning agents and shaper will continue to build up so be sure to follow a regular clarifying routine. Okay I'm gonna do a clarifying routine now. I actually used to kind of do one but I didn't ever really understand if I was doing it right or like what I should be using to clarify. Joico Moisture Recovery. Interesting. Interesting. So this shampoo I only sometimes use because it has a lot of silicone in it and shampoos don't often have silicones in them. I just wanted to jump in and correct myself because for some reason whenever I'm referring to the Joico Moisture Recovery I always have the habit of using the words a lot of silicone. I don't actually know if it has a lot of silicone in it. I know that it has silicone quaternium 16. That seems to be the only silicone ingredient in here I could be wrong. But yeah just because of the fact that it feels so slippery when I use it and that it's quite unusual to find silicone in shampoos. That's why I have the habit of saying a lot but it might not actually be a lot. Yeah I just wanted to correct myself because sometimes I have little slip-ups in the way I use my words so I'm sorry. And they actually say they do recommend this as a clarifying shampoo. I would never have used this as a clarifying shampoo because in my mind clarifying shampoos should not have any silicone or anything that's going to build up on your hair. Like to me I thought clarifying was like stripping your hair of any product. So I'm surprised that they're saying this is a good clarifying product. Probably because it does have sodium lauryl sulfate in it which is stripping. Sodium lauryl sulfate is one of the more gentle of the sulfate cleansers. This I already knew. It's still a strong cleanser. Yes indeed. Is great to use as a clarifying ingredient due to its stripping nature. You should always follow a clarifying wash with deep conditioning treatment. Okay well I guess the fact that it has sodium lauryl sulfate in it is enough to clarify my hair even though it does have silicone in it. Look for products that have high concentrations of humectants. Aha yes we have spoken about this before. Humectants of any kind in a rinse out in rinse out products are hugely beneficial to moisture because they draw water to the hair. Yes indeed they do. This product also contains isopropyl palmitate and can cause breakouts for those with acne prone skin. Well well. Humectants you may want to avoid in your styling products. Glycerin, sorbitol, propylene glycol, pvp. Film forming humectants are awesome for low porosity hair but can work on all types. These include flaxseed gel. Love that. I made a video making flaxseed gel. A seaweed extract, irish mox, moss extract, okra gel. I'm just going to put it all on the screen here. So these are all good. These are proteins tolerated well by all porosity types. I feel like I should share this information because you can no longer like buy this. If you could I probably wouldn't share this like if you know they needed to make money from it obviously but they've they've it's no longer available so people can't get this information anymore. At least a little bit. I'm not going to share all of it obviously. Take forever. Citral alcohol is a type of moisturizing alcohol. I'm surprised at how much information I already know. I also put in which I haven't used for like a year but I really liked it when I was trying the curly girl method. They would classify this as a co-wash which I do believe it was. It does not contain any true cleansers. It contains a fairly high concentration of a common conditioning agent which is infamous for creating high levels of cumulative build-up but also great for adding slip. That explains why I got so much build-up in like the second or third week of like using Boucleme. I remember my hair went so stringy. I might try and add some footage. The high concentration of oils may make your hair feel weighed down however regular clarifying again the clarifying is gonna save us all. The clarifying routine will allow you to use this product without fear of creating substantial build-up. Great. Okay well and the conditioner. I do recommend this conditioner for your hair. It has high concentration of humectants and won't create a huge amount of build-up. Okay so the Boucleme conditioner has high concentrations of humectants so I guess if you're wanting some like real intensive like conditioning and hydration Boucleme curl cleanser and conditioner are the ones and I already knew this because I could just feel it from the texture and looking at the ingredients. Okay I also put in Aussie Miracle Moist. This product is okay for your hair. Okay this product is okay for my hair so if you like the results continue using it. I wasn't sure if this product was actually good for my hair. I'd bought it because somebody had recommended it for wigs for like real natural hair wigs so that's the only reason I bought it and I started using it on my hair. It does not have anything in the way of a humectant. It also contains the Itchy MS. Some have found that these preservatives cause scalp irritation. Okay. Aveda Damage Ready. This is one of my more high-end products that I put on. I've got it down there. I still use it. Before diving into this product I want to discuss protein. All hair needs... anything that has the words or a variation of the words strength and repair and or restore in the description or product name likely contains some level of protein and or amino acids. Okay interesting. I do recommend this product for your hair if you like the results. To be honest I don't see any result like results with this product. I just use it because it's supposed to be good. Yeah it has loads of natural ingredients in it and it's quite a high-end like hair brand. Okay so this product has a lot of protein in it. Oh and they've said that I may like Aveda's Nutraplenish Leave-In Conditioner. It is silicone free, protects from heat and protects from UV damage. Okay I might give that one a little look when I go to the shop. Okay so they've given me some hair care and styling recommendations. Oh it's talking about the clarifying Once a month you should be clarifying your hair with a shellacting shampoo to remove product build-up and mineral deposits left behind by hard water. Because of the stripping nature of a shellacting shampoo start with a pre-poo. Pre-wash your pre-poo. Only do this as often as beneficial. Apply a layer of moisturizing oil to the damaged porous regions of your hair two to four hours before washing. Coconut oil and olive oil are both moisturizing oils that are easily accessible. Great because these are the ones that I've used for years. This will prevent the porous regions of your hair from swelling from the intake of water. Hair swelling makes the hair weak and prone to breakage. By allowing several hours for the oil to absorb your hair will absorb the oil it needs and the clarifying will help remove the excess. Okay that yeah that makes sense. Oh try to wash. Oh try to wash no more than every three days. Perfect. I only wash my hair every three to four days so perfect. Okay squish to condition. Condition using a silicone free conditioner. Actually I still do this even though I'm not doing the curly girl method anymore. I still do that squish to condition method because I feel like it does like get it into my hair better. A simple apple cider vinegar rinse after shampooing is an alternative method for clarifying hard water buildup. Great okay so that is something I already do. I'd like to say that I do it monthly but it's more like every couple of months. I should really do it more but yeah so again I have a video all about apple cider vinegar. They're saying one cup of water plus one to two tablespoons of ACV. Interesting because I found all these different articles online that were giving all these different ratios and I was like what on earth is the correct ratio and excuse me I think I did come to the conclusion that around two tablespoons was the right amount in one cup of water. After you've clarified your hair follow with a deep conditioning treatment. This I guess I already knew this. This just like clarifies what I had already known which is good because I had like an inkling of like what I should be doing but I wasn't sure. Oh they talk about silicones. There's nothing inherently wrong with using silicones but it is important to know how and when to use them so you can still care for your hair. I have a video all about silicones which basically goes into this whole like is are they bad are they good in a nutshell it's about like how you use them and like how often you use them. Oh my god it says yay your hair is in balance you can help to maintain this balance and improve the health of your hair by adding a weekly deep conditioning treatments with well-balanced deep conditioners. I reckon they rotate rotate between two or three different conditioners to vary the type and amount of proteins, conditioning agents and moisturizers. I also like to have about two or three different types of products on the go at one time when it comes to my hair and I've been like torn about this because I also believe that as a nation we have too many products and a lot of the time we don't end up getting through them and I also feel that like you should really just have one of each thing until it all gets used up but when it comes to hair I do think sometimes you need like different things for different like hair needs. Ones with silicones, ones without, ones with stronger cleansers, ones with weaker ones. Your analysis results indicate that in terms of moisture and protein your hair is in balance. The feeling of dryness could be due to not getting along with a type of protein or plant extract or a need for more emollients in your routine. Since we discussed protein during the product reviews I will focus on emollients here. Okay so I need to read through what she said about proteins but this is interesting so this could potentially be why I feel that my hair is so dry but clearly through the microscopic analysis it's actually in balance. Emollients like oils and butters soften the hair, reduce the feeling of dryness, add shine and increase manageability. On finer hair however they can cause it to look weighed down. Fortunately you have mostly coarse hair so it will be better suited for products higher in emollients. Interesting. The downside of emollients is they do create cumulative the cumulative build up so be sure to follow a regularfying clarifying routine. Regularfying. Here are a few products I recommend. Nice, sweet, okay. If you prefer different styles than your natural texture you may not be able to maintain the healthiest state of your hair but there are things that you can do to style in various ways and protect your hair as much as possible. Regardless of your style preference the majority of these recommendations should apply. So that's good because now obviously I have started styling my hair. You know I am sacrificing the health of my hair but honestly I was so unhappy with my hair throughout like that 10 years of of that journey of going on this healthy hair journey and I was never happy with my hair so I personally have come to the conclusion that I'd rather just enjoy it and like have fun with it and stuff and like I love how my hair looks today whereas you know when I was like so focused on healthy hair I would just despise my hair every single day. I thought it looked horrible all the time. I do have a better relationship with So that's it I think. So they haven't actually confirmed whether my what my hair texture is like maybe I've missed it. If I have I'll put it on the screen. I don't mean to like say that they've done things wrong. I obviously think they obviously know a lot more than I do. This is my one question I'm like is my hair curly? Is it wavy? Is it just straight and I've just got weird hair? Like what is my hair? I think I know in myself I have wavy hair. If you think otherwise you're welcome to watch my curly girl method series. I'm not trying to say oh I've had wavy hair all my life and I just didn't know it. No. I had straight hair for the majority of my life. It was only when I was around 21-ish that my hair texture like started changing and that's when I started looking more into the curly girl stuff. So I don't know why my hair changed. It just did. Okay I should also mention my main bio are sadly closing. They are no longer accepting hair analysis anymore. I have scoured the internet to try to find anything similar that any other company is offering. I mostly came across like hair mineral analysis which is like what you need nutritionally but I did find one that are doing something similar. I will leave below the only other one that I found. I'm not sure of its legitimacy but you know you can do your own research on that but I thought I would at least give something because I feel bad that I'm making this video and like now you can't go and get your own hair analysis done. Or leave below if you know of any others so people can continue to get their hair analysed. I hope this was helpful. I hope that sharing a bit of my information was beneficial for you. If you want to support me in any way shape or form I have a Patreon where you can get access to vlogs and bonus content if you would like. That's below. Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye bye. I've done this like weird little eyeliner look with like dots. I don't think it looks too good on the camera but whatever. I thought it was cool.