A heat protectant provides an extra coating over the hair to prevent heat from going through the cuticle layer (the flakes that sit on the outside of the shaft) too quickly. When heat goes through the cuticle layer too quickly it causes it to crack and in turn damages the shaft by creating a lack of moisture which leaves the hair dry, brittle and open to breakage.

Everyone should use some form of heat protectant but it is STRONGLY recommended for people that have curly or coarse hair as those hair types are more prone to damage by default.

Don’t be fooled though… although it’s beneficial to use a heat protectant when using hot tools to style your hair, they don’t COMPLETELY protect it from damage. Essentially, a heat protectant just reduces the amount of damage to the hair.

Other than finding a heat protectant that actually works well for your hair, using nourishing products, like leave in creams and deep conditioning treatments on a regular basis can also help defend your gorgeous locks from getting damaged :).

A good way to test your heat protectant:
1 – Get both of your hands and your heat protectant
2 – spray some of the protectant on the back of one of your hands and leave the other bare.
3 – Grab your hair dryer and heat the hand without the protectant. Take note of how quickly your hand heated up.
4 – Now use the hair dryer on the hand that has been sprayed with the heat protectant and take note.
5 – Did you notice a difference in how quickly the heat penetrated your skin?

I did this trick with my Davroe Thermaprotect and Sebastian Trilliant Thermal Protection and both worked quite effectively. I noticed that I could hold the hand that had been sprayed under the heat of the hair dryer for far longer than the one without before.

I was super excited as well when I was researching this actually because I checked out the heat protectant I use from Davroe and it contains hydrolyzed wheat protein woohoo!

You can pick up a 200 ml bottle of Davroe Thermaprotect for $22.95 or alternatively you can grab the 50 ml bottle for 9.95.

Other heat protectants, I’ve used before are:

The science behind heat protectants is quite interesting actually. A study was performed 1998 by the Society of Cosmetic Chemists that looked at the effects of 3 different key ingredients found in different heat protectants. The 3 ingredients were hydrolyzed wheat protein (this is in the Davroe one I actually use), PVP/DMAPA acrylates copolymer and quaternium 70.

All 3 of the ingredients showed a 10-20 percent reduction in the time it took for the heat absorbed into the hair. Remember earlier how I mentioned when the heat goes through the cuticle layer too quickly it breaks it? Well, these 3 agents help slow that process!

The researchers suggest that these agents create a film like coating on the hair which reduces the heat absorption and distributes it more evenly… pretty cray cray huh! Also just to wrap this section up, you might hear people being all wah wah about using silicones and stuff in their hair but from the research I’ve done so far, it’s not actually that bad. It pretty much encases your hair, locks moisture in and works really similar to hydrolyzed wheat protein, PVP/DMAPA acrylates copolymer and quaternium 70. It’s pretty crazy huh?

Anyway, that brings us to the end of this post. I hope you found this article somewhat interesting! I tell you what researching stuff like this is actually really fun!

Have a good one and catch you in my next post!

Sources: http://journal.scconline.org/abstracts/cc1998/cc049n04/p00245-p00256.html