atune

I thought I'd post something about conquering protein sensitivity since I have been battling this thing for about a year now and I haven't gotten a ton from online forums. There are a number of older posts that have helped but people give you the same solution "use a moisturizing conditioner" but no one ever tells you what that is.
For background I got my hair colored almost two years ago and I'm convince that made my hair more porous and more sensitive to protein. I have 4a/4b hair that when treated right is soft and pillowy as all get out.
Needless to say I haven't see that hair in ages until this week.
It turns out that just about everything you use has for your hair has protein in it.
Ingredients include Hydrolyzed wheat protein or silk protein - but I would stay away from anything with coconut in it - since coconut oil can help your hair retain protein and also aloe vera - which probably has small amounts of protein.
But again if you are washing and deep conditioning weekly and co-washing your hair more often you are giving yourself a protein treatment all the time. If you have thick healthy hair you probably don't need it.
In addition, products with a lot of ingredients are more likely to have something in it that could be protein based.
Naturally curly has a good search for products without protein.
What worked for me is that I went back to Kinky Curly Come Clean For along time I thought their shampoo was a little too drying and the fact that it lathers always makes me suspicious but it does list it's surfectants in there. Warning they are coconut base but I think combined with the conditioner it's not too much. Also it's the best you can do without having to read through too many ingredients. I followed with Knot Today and added some olive oil which works a little different from coconut oil.

I later follow up with the curling custard for a twist out but realized it was too flaky for me still. Mid-week I did a water spray and sealed with shea butter and hair is back to normal. I used a creamerier whipped shea butter that I believe they sell at whole foods. It's not the yellow label but the black label. Needless to say I'm back to normal and I have a ton of shampoos that I need to give away.

My advice is if you are experience continued dryness regardless of deep conditioners and taking proper care of your hair - try getting off a protein for a few weeks.

Gretchen

Thanks for sharing, atune! Great tips.

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Gretchen
NaturallyCurly.com co-founder
3A

You are beautiful!

hippiechik

I have continued problems with dryness that don't seem to be significantly effected by several deep conditioners that I've tried. Protein treatments don't significantly effect my hair either. Though I've been applying them weekly for a while now. My hair is porous so all the advice says to give it protein. but it doesn't seem to be helping. Should i try protein free for a while and if so how long?