Comments on: 10 Curly Hair Care Tips For Summer http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curly-hair-care-methods/conditioning-curly-hair-care-methods/summer-curly-hair-care-tips Where curls come to life! Wed, 23 May 2012 02:09:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Miss Lynx http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curly-hair-care-methods/conditioning-curly-hair-care-methods/summer-curly-hair-care-tips/comment-page-1#comment-4628 Miss Lynx Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:20:38 +0000 http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/?p=50015#comment-4628 A small correction for #4: hair care products cannot actually have a SPF rating, at least not legally, because there's no way to measure SPF for hair. SPF is, in most countries, a regulated term, and in order to use it, a company has to be able to demonstrate that a product will keep skin from getting sunburned for that many times longer than unprotected skin (i.e. SPF 15 = 15 times longer, etc.). Hair can definitely become sun-damaged over time, but it doesn't show any such obvious and immediate result as a sunburn, so there's no way of measuring SPF for hair. It may be that some sunscreen ingredients do provide some sun protection for hair, but at present there's insufficient research to prove this, due to the difficulties in measuring it. So really, pretty much all claims of specific hair care products providing sun protection are wishful thinking at best, and deceptive marketing at worst. Claiming a specific SPF rating for a hair product is definitely deceptive, and may be illegal in countries where it's a regulated term. There's probably no harm in using hair products that contain ingredients known to protect skin from sun, and it's possible they may help, but it's really not known for certain at this point. The only guaranteed-effective way of protecting your hair from the sun is covering it with a hat or scarf. A small correction for #4: hair care products cannot actually have a SPF rating, at least not legally, because there’s no way to measure SPF for hair. SPF is, in most countries, a regulated term, and in order to use it, a company has to be able to demonstrate that a product will keep skin from getting sunburned for that many times longer than unprotected skin (i.e. SPF 15 = 15 times longer, etc.). Hair can definitely become sun-damaged over time, but it doesn’t show any such obvious and immediate result as a sunburn, so there’s no way of measuring SPF for hair.

It may be that some sunscreen ingredients do provide some sun protection for hair, but at present there’s insufficient research to prove this, due to the difficulties in measuring it. So really, pretty much all claims of specific hair care products providing sun protection are wishful thinking at best, and deceptive marketing at worst. Claiming a specific SPF rating for a hair product is definitely deceptive, and may be illegal in countries where it’s a regulated term.

There’s probably no harm in using hair products that contain ingredients known to protect skin from sun, and it’s possible they may help, but it’s really not known for certain at this point. The only guaranteed-effective way of protecting your hair from the sun is covering it with a hat or scarf.

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