Over-proteinized hair

For a very long time I did not realize that you can over protein your hair by using too many protein-containing hair products on a daily basis. Did you know about this?

Before I switched to natural hair products I continuously dealt with dry and brittle hair and I could not understand why. I have long thick hair which I take good care of (I have never dyed or bleach it, only occasionally use a hair curler or straightening iron etc.) so I could not understand what was causing this. I even bought expensive shampoos, conditioners and hair mask and all of this seemed to give no positive effect. My hair was dry, rough and would break very easily both when it was wet and dry. I thought that my hair was lacking moisture so I made sure to use moisturizing hair products. A regular coconut oil hair treatment helped quite a lot, but it didn't seem to solve the problem. 

After I started my journey with DIY natural hair products I discovered that my hair was becoming less dry and brittle with every day. I though I was finally moisturizing it enough. I make my own  honey shampoo so I though this was finally doing the trick and moisturizing my hair in the right way...and my flux seed and aloe vera gel conditioner must be working well for my hair...I though I finally had it figured out until one day after making a new batch of my honey shampoo I noticed that my hair was starting to feel dry again, the ends were breaking easily, and it seemed like my hair just wasn't elastic enough. I tried to rethink my recipe and realized that I had added quite a lot of hydrolyzed oat protein this time. Oat protein is a humectant which is suppose to give your hair strength, structure and a silky feeling. Although the suggested usage is 1 to 5 % I remember thinking that I will add more this one time as an experiment to see how much it improves my shampoo (and trust me I did go a bit wild with the amount I added). Well it didn't improve it...

     

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After giving it some though and doing some research I came across the term 'over-proteinized' hair and realized that not only was this the reason why my latest shampoo hadn't turned out good at all, it had actually made my hair just as dry and rough as it used to be before I switched to natural hair products. I also realized that all of those expensive hair masks and hair conditioners I used to apply so very often on my hair had actually caused all the problems in the first place. They were very rich in proteins and I had used them way too often without needing the extra protein treatment. It finally became clear that my hair was so dry and breaking very easily because of an overabundance of protein. Once I realized this I also learned that to treat over-proteinized hair it was not enough to put away the protein containing hair products. Additionally I needed to follow a deep conditioning regime for several weeks to have my hair go back to its normal elasticity. So be aware that you can over-proteinize your hair with store bought products, but also with your own DIY hair products.