Why You Shouldn’t Use Drugstore Shampoos & Conditioners

By: Don Stacy Patronelli

  Everyone wants to know what the difference is between professional salon products and drugstore brands. Though some may not see the difference, it is defiantly there!  When it comes to hair products, the sad truth is that you get what you pay for.

 Cost: Are you really saving money?

The main reason people buy drugstore brands is because of the cost. Well, you may be thinking paying anything more then $10 for shampoo and conditioner is a silly waste of money - but in reality, you may not be saving as much as you think! For example, salon hair care products are extremely concentrated; therefore, you use a lot less of the product and a bottle will last you for a very long time. Drugstore products on the other hand are mainly composed of water, and you will find the need to use more of the product and will have to purchase it more often. This plays a big factor in the price as to why drugstore products are so cheap, you are basically paying for a bottle of water with a dose of chemicals, but with salon products, you are getting mainly natural and high quality ingredients with the lowest water quantity possible.
You also will probably find yourself having to wash your hair more often with drugstore products, due to your hair feeling both greasy and weighed down or dry and lifeless in-between washes. This is because drugstore products contain waxes and silicones. They add these waxes and silicones in their products to make your hair look shiny and healthy, but really it’s all for show. It instead creates unwanted build-up and prevents any nutrients from being able to enter the shaft of the hair. As a result, you will be going through these bottles of cheap shampoo so often that by the time you would be done with 1 bottle of salon product, you would be basically be paying the same!
Also, if you are someone who gets your hair colored; then here is another cost factor to consider: You just paid a lot of money on your hair color, why go home and use your products that are literally going to rinse your color out? You will end up needing to do color retouch’s more often, which is a lot more money than the products we sell! Same goes for Keratin Treatments. It is really important to use keratin safe products (which all of dsparada’s products are) after receiving the treatment, or again – you are just washing away the hundreds of dollars you just spent!

Ingredients

As stated earlier, the reason you are paying more for salon products is because you are paying for high quality ingredients. Drugstore brands are known to contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfates (SLS), a cleaning agent that also makes shampoo foamy. We have accustomed ourselves to associating bubbles with clean, so sometimes when people switch to salon products they feel their hair isn’t getting clean enough, which isn’t true. One huge problem with SLS is that it has been known to damage the hair follicle, leading to weakened hair structure and diminished hair growth. Even worse, studies are starting to show that it can cause cancer, immune system damage, and damage to the skin.
Parabens are another common and bad ingredient found in drugstore products. They are chemicals that are used as preservatives for their strong antibacterial and antifungal properties. However; they have been found in low concentrations in tumors and are believed to disrupt hormone function. 
So, not only are these chemicals causing damage to your strands, it is also causing damage to your overall health – eek!

P.S 

One more side note, please do not be fooled by buying salon product brands anywhere other than a salon or professional beauty supplier (NO to drugstores/grocery/online stores such as amazon or ebay). There is a valid reason as to why they are being sold there at a cheaper price! If you ever read the back of a professional brand bottle, they will state that there authenticity and results are only guaranteed when bought a hair salon / professional hair supplier. Being purchased anywhere else could mean a handful of things: Product has long gone expired, product was used and returned then refilled with water, imitation product inside the brand bottle, product bottles were recalled due to incorrect or missing ingredients.  Besides, they are never that much cheaper in stores, so why still spend the money when you are risking the authenticity of the product?!

At dsparada, our staff only uses and promotes the very best salon products on the market that are free of all harsh ingredients, and that will insure healthy hair growth while extending your color beautifully in between visits.  When we try to encourage you to purchase our products, it’s not because we are trying to make money. It’s because we care for the integrity of your hair and don’t want all the hard work we put into your strands to go to waste!

To learn more about our products lines, click on the following links to read all about how amazing they are:
Kevin Murphy
ColorProof 
GOLDWELL
Deva Curl 

Say NO to Box Color!

Why Professional Color is Better!
By: Don Stacy Patronelli

Any professional hair stylist will tell you to stay far away from box color - and for good reason!
Though it may be easier and cheaper, it is highly damaging on your strands, and will leave your hair with very unpleasant results.
You may be someone who has been using box colors for years – and in your opinion- getting color that you are happy with; However, after repeatedly applying box color to your tresses, you’re making your hair more and more porous and packing in more of the highly chemically pigmented color into your strands - which will eventually cause your hair to be patchy, darker, duller, weak and damaged!  If you care about your hair, then take care of it professionally!

Pro vs Box > Results
Box color is formulated so that everyone and anyone can use it. But how is this possible? We don’t all have the same hair type, condition, or natural color. That’s because most box dyes are formulated with maximum amounts of pigment and developer so that it is able to work on most people – and this is awful!  If you are someone who is using box color, have you ever felt like your ‘root’ area is growing faster than you think your hair is? That’s because your hair is breaking off. The mixture of dehydrating metallic salts, as well as the high amounts of ammonia (or just as bad chemicals replacing ammonia), creates the perfect cocktail of hair destruction. When you see a hair professional, they examine your hair strands for porosity and damage, evaluate your natural color and/or color that is already on your hair, percentage of grey (if any), and skin and eye color.  From there, they work out an educated formula that will give you the outcome you want while complimenting your tones with no damage - because they are using the correct color pigments needed with the lowest developer necessary.

Application is an extremely important factor when it comes to applying color, as well. Not knowing correct color application can lead to blotchiness, darker tips or lighter root. It can even cause burns and abrasions to your scalp and skin!

Celebrities do not use box color!
Have you seen the commercials with Beyonce, Eva Longoria, and Gwen Stefani advertising for box color? If you’re buying into these products hoping to get the glamorous locks of the rich and famous, then be prepared for disappointment! These stars go to extremely high end salons where they will spend hours and hundreds of dollars to achieve their famous looks. They are getting paid hundreds of thousands to promote for these companies, but unfortunately, it is all a lie (welcome to Hollywood, right?). 

Cost
Most people use box color for the cheap price. Well, think of it this way:  Since you are thoroughly damaging your strands from box color, you are more than likely going to require more frequent cuts then you usually would. On top of that, having unpleasant results from box color (most common problems are hair turning orange, purple, unwanted darkness, and blotchy/patchy color), that you then want a qualified professional to fix will require a lot more time needed to fix and A LOT more money. A corrective color is a tediously long and very expensive service that the stylist has to work very hard on. So, your sense of trying to save a buck is now costing you triple to quadruple the price and time then it would have if you just paid a professional to give you perfect results to begin with!

In summary, hair color should be respected. For something that is changing the entire molecular structure of your hair, it is more than just the goop you can apply in your bathroom to give you that bombshell red you've been wanting.
dsparada always stays up to date on hair technology and color techniques, and we are always able to give our clients the hair color they desire while keeping the integrity of their hair.