Nowadays we are much more aware of the different types of beauty and skin-care products to use. There’s abundant information online that helps us gauge what formulas are best for our skin and health. However, shampoos are a different story. Finding the right shampoo for your hair type can be tricky, especially since many people don’t understand how important it is to protect your skin as well as your hair. The shampoo is applied to your scalp, so if you have sensitive skin, you need to take this into account when selecting a shampoo. To make it easier for you to have glossy, healthy hair, here are the shampoo ingredients to avoid in order to prevent damaged hair.

Parabens

The first additive to watch out for is any Paraben. Parabens are extremely harmful and are unfortunately found in many popular shampoo and conditioner brands. They are used to increase a products’ shelf-life, but they can negatively impact your natural hormone balance, disturb your reproductive health, irritate your skin, and cause neurotoxicity.

Sulfates

Sulfates are a chemical detergent that leads to your liquid shampoo foaming up when massaging your scalp. Almost 90% of hair care products contain sulfates which strip your hair of its natural oils, color, and moisturizers. This leaves your hair feeling dry and your scalp irritated. In addition to that, sulfates can lead to severe problems down the road such as hormone disruption and kidney damage or failure. Therefore, you must check the labels to avoid the following sulfates: Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES), and Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate.

If you have sensitive skin, your scalp may become irritated by the ingredients a liquid shampoo bottle consists of. If that is the case, specialists recommend that you take a look at the benefits of shampoo bar formulas instead. This is because shampoo bars are better suited to sensitive scalps and specific hair types. If you have struggled to find a liquid shampoo that doesn’t damage your hair, switching to bars might be in your best interest as they are more gentle on the scalp and consist of much more natural ingredients.

Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde is a carcinogen that is still found in many shampoos and conditioners, despite the fact that its harmful effects are well known. This is a preservative that can be extremely dangerous for your scalp as it is an additive that leads to toxicity, worsens or creates asthma conditions, and even causes cancer. If you find Quaternium-15 printed on labels, this means that the product is formulated with formaldehyde and must be avoided for the sake of your health.

Phthalates

Phthalates are a mixture of chemicals that are used as a binding agent in shampoo among other cosmetic products. It is imperative that you avoid these chemicals as they have been found to cause infertility, hormone disruption, and have been linked to lower sperm count, genital and reproductive defects, and may even increase the risk of gestational diabetes and pregnancy loss. Phthalates have also been linked to the immune system, kidney, liver, and thyroid damage.

Synthetic Colors and Fragrances

It’s a good rule of thumb to avoid any product with fragrances and colors, but understandably this isn’t always feasible for everyone. That’s why it’s vital that you know which fragrances and colors are absolutely detrimental to your health. Fragrances are completely unnecessary in products and are more often than not a way for manufacturers to get away with not informing customers what chemicals were actually used to formulate their product. This means that there is no way to know how damaging a product is if the only clue on the ingredient list is “Fragrance.” Synthetic colors and fragrances, specifically, can result in hair loss, irritation, asthma, cancer, and infertility. A way to ensure you are not in the face of harm is to always look for FD&C or D&C on labels to make sure that the product has been approved by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

It’s important to identify what each of the ingredients is because a shampoo bottle is formulated with many ingredients that would be harmful unless they are combined with other ingredients to balance them out. For instance, surfactants, preservatives, special additives, fragrances, conditioners, and thickeners are all included in most shampoo formulas and many of these on their own could do some damage. By making sure that the products you buy offer preservatives and surfactants that are not composed of the ingredients mentioned above, you are protecting your hair and your scalp from serious damage. Therefore, refer back to this list to determine the quality of your shampoo and avoid toxic formulas.