When our hair feels off, we can go to extremes to ensure we have long, strong, healthy hair. Over bleaching, over-styling, poor diet, stress, many things can cause damaged hair, but a big culprit can be protein overload
When we bleach our hair or use heat the structure of the hair strand becomes damaged and causes the protein to be stripped away. At this point, we need to add protein back into our hair to rebuild the strength of each hair follicle.
And our hair is made of mostly protein.
But this is where we can go overboard with the protein treatments and our hair can get protein overload. Sometimes we can be overdoing it without even really knowing it because protein is in so many hair products.
Let’s first figure out what your hair needs and what the actual issue is causing your damaged hair.
Does my hair need protein or moisture?
Evaluate your hair first:
When you comb your hair, does it not stretch at all and snap? If so, it has too much protein and not enough moisture.
If it stretches when you comb it and then breaks off, you don’t have enough protein and have too much moisture.
Next: Grab a strand of hair about 6 inches from the end.
Healthy hair will fall slightly. If your hair is limp and flops down it most likely needs more protein. If the strand is stiff and not bouncy, you most likely have too much protein in your hair.
Once you have identified if your hair is lacking moisture or protein, you need to evaluate your hair products.
If you need protein, that post is coming soon, but you can just take this advice and apply it for protein instead of getting rid of the protein in your hair. If you need to get rid of the protein, keep reading.
Evaluate your hair products:
Nowadays, many hair products contain a type of protein as most of us color or style our hair.
Common Proteins Found In Hair Products:
- Soy protein
- Silk protein
- Keratin
- Biotin
- Hydrolyzed collagen
- Hydrolyzed wheat protein
- Hydrolyzed rice protein
- Amino acids
- Coconut oil
We need to add protein back into our hair to help repair it, but most of the time we end up adding too much aka protein overload. If we have too much protein in the hair strands, it’s impossible for water to get through. Therefore having an imbalance of protein to moisture ratio.
Coconut oil acts as a protein and is the only oil able to penetrate through the hair shaft. So keep that on your radar as well.
Products with coconut can cause itching or dry hair especially if you are protein sensitive.
Hair Porosity
There is something call porosity and this plays into how your hair reacts to protein. It also refers to how well your hair absorbs moisture.
Low porosity hair can be sensitive to the protein and does absorb water well and using protein products can cause protein overload.
How to find out what your hair porosity is: Grab a hair strand by its end and place it between two fingers Follow the strand up the root. Does it feel smooth or slightly coarse?
If it’s course, you either have medium or high porosity hair as the coarseness is causing by the hair cuticles being open.
If it feels smooth, your hair is low porosity. The cuticles are tight together making it hard for water to penetrate to moisturize the hair.
Too Much Protein?
Some of the effects of protein overload are the following. You can have just a few, but most of the time, almost all of these symptoms are present.
Dry and brittle hair – it breaks off easily at the ends and feels very dry.
Feels Stiff or straw-like – your hair could feel more course than usual because, without enough moisture, your hair turns stiff and is less flexible. Even if you use a deep conditioner, your hair never gets softer or less dry
Major hair texture or curl change – a big sign of protein overload is your hair misbehaving. Your soft, shiny hair turned course or your curls can’t form.
Loss of shine – Shiny hair means hydrated hair. Too much protein can lead to dull-looking hair or your color looking off and the effects can happen quickly.
Shedding – You shed hair every day naturally (50-100 strands a day) and there are other reasons why you could be shedding but too much protein is ofter the first thing you should assume. Your hair isn’t at its optimal health if your water to protein ratio is off.
How to fix it:
It’s a simple fix and it won’t take a year to see the effects. It depends on how bad the protein overload is for the time for the fix. Usually, it’s anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months for extreme cases.
First, stop using your protein products
Make sure to look out for coconut and anything with the word “hydrolyzed” in it.
The common ones:
- Soy protein
- Silk protein
- Keratin
- Biotin
- Hydrolyzed collagen
- Hydrolyzed wheat protein
- Hydrolyzed rice protein
- Amino acids
- Coconut oil
You still will need some protein but most of the products, you don’t need.
Use the nonprotein products for a few weeks and then you can alternate the non-protein one with the protein one.
It’s a good idea to have a mixture of products to prevent your hair from becoming accustomed to one particular product. This can cause products to stop working or develop too much protein.
Remove Excess Protein with Clarifying Shampoo
We usually want to stay away from Sulphates but if you have a lot of build-up especially protein build-up, sulfate is really going to strip that junk out of your hair.
You can try a regular clarifying shampoo but I’ve heard that the Pantene Pro V Classic Clean has really done the job to get all the protein out of your hair in 1 maybe 2 washes. If you use a different one, make sure there aren’t any protein ingredients in the shampoo.
Leave it in your hair for 3 minutes to really get it in there.
Once you wash all that product out, use a deep conditioning treatment
Find one, once again that is protein-free and leave it on for 15-30 minutes. This is different than your in-shower conditioner.
A treatment is where you have to leave it on much longer than a deep conditioner which is usually only 3-5 minutes in the shower.
Moisture and Seal
We want to moisturize our hair with water and water-based products in a liquid form, seal the water with oil and then apply a cream product to close the hair cuticle which prevents moisture loss.
Look for products that contain glycerin is a humectant, meaning it can actually pull in moisture from the air. You want to have glycerin in products that are leave-in to get the full benefits.
For the oil, try to stay natural and away from coconut oil! Oils don’t hydrate the hair they moisturize as they form a protective layer that can help seal in moisture. So the cream before is crucial.
Once your hair has less of those protein overload symptoms, go to a simple hair care routine. I did a blog post all about that here.
I hope this has helped you understand that too much protein isn’t good for your hair and might be causing more damage than good.
XO, Annie
