The first thing to do is to go online and Google for lists of ingredients commonly found in hair products. You’ll be surprised how many that we see everyday on labels are of animal origin. For example, acetate can be produced from egg yolks or fish liver oils and is found in hair dyes. Casein is produced from the protein found in milk, and is often found as an ingredient in many different hair products.

Even products marked ‘natural’ on the label may still contain some animal based ingredients. One particular example would be a hair brush with natural bristles. These are most likely the bristles from a wild or domestic pig. The best thing to do to be sure you are avoiding purchasing any hair products with animal derived ingredients is to print out a list of such ingredients and take it with you when you next go shopping. You can check the labels of any products you’re interested in, and safely purchase only the truly vegan ones.

The next thing to do is to learn which ingredients which really are natural and vegan are used by the manufacturers of hair products to substitute for the non vegan alternatives. For instance, various vegetable proteins, including those extracted from soy beans, can be substituted for the hydrolyzed animal proteins that are found in many cosmetics and other personal care items. Rosemary and nettle are two vegan, natural substitutes for keratin, a very common ingredient in a wide variety of hair care products which gives body to the hair. In this case, many believe that the vegan ingredients work better than the animal derived one!

As you can see, you can’t just settle for the ‘no animal testing’ sticker on the next hair care products you buy. That’s only the beginning of your commitment to a fully vegan lifestyle.

Photo: djtutusaus

It’s really fun and interesting to make your own hair care products. You can decide what you really want in, say, a shampoo, and create one made exactly for your own needs. You can choose ingredients that will help oily or dry hair, give more volume to fine hair, brighten or lightly tint your hair, even control dandruff and address that slight thinning you’ve been noticing!  You can create other hair products, too. Conditioners, rinses, gels, styling cremes, bleaches, and conditioning dressings are all easily made at home, and you can tailor each one to your personal preferences. Even the scent!

Once you decided what exact qualities you need in your hair products (control for oily hair that needs body and just a hint of color to make your dark tresses shine, for example), you have a couple more decisions to make. When you go online to research hair products you can make yourself, you’ll find that some of them contain ingredients (for example, rubbing alcohol, borax, ammonia, and or different gums) that are or could be considered chemical or unnatural, and have to be purchased at the pharmacy. There are natural ingredients that can be used to substitute for these, but the effects they have may be different.

Another decision is whether you want to use any animal derived ingredients in your homemade hair products. Lanolin, beeswax, glycerin, keratin; these all come from animal sources and are standard in many hair care products. You can instead use various vegetable derived ingredients for these with similar results. Looking online for lists of vegan products will lead you to substitutes for these ingredients.

One of the really great things about making your own hair products at home is that you can make small batches and keep experimenting until you find the perfect combination of ingredients that work for you and your hair.

Photo: Vola Vale