Speaker 1: I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
Speaker 1: science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Speaker 1: Me and you have had a lot of hair adventures together.
Speaker 1: Yes we have, Okay, okay, so like from cutting our
Speaker 1: own hair, we both did that. I remember the last
Speaker 1: time I cut my own hair. I facetimed you and
Speaker 1: was like, I'm about to cut my hair. Watch. Yes,
Speaker 1: it looked good. I remember you cut my hair. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh. We were doing things that really could just
Speaker 1: be described as edgy. Yes, I mean, in the beginning
Speaker 1: of our friendship, we were putting a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: on our hair. I have to admit that I was
Speaker 1: giving some not so awesome. You were driving advice, you
Speaker 1: had me. I was making pastries and then you were
Speaker 1: talking about greenhousing, putting a bag on there from my head, yes,
Speaker 1: growing mold on our scalps. It was a tough time,
Speaker 1: but it was a sign of the times because we
Speaker 1: were all on YouTube just taking advice from anybody, anyone.
Speaker 1: It felt like they were experts, but really they just
Speaker 1: had a YouTube channel. But my bad for all of them,
Speaker 1: I trusted your tt I trusted you. All this thinking
Speaker 1: about hair, where we've come from, what we're still doing
Speaker 1: and is questionable.
Speaker 2: You know, we're doing all this stuff just to get
Speaker 2: healthy hair right, and that feels like a great topic.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love that. So let's jump into the recitation.
Speaker 1: Let's start with what we know. Okay, So we know
Speaker 1: that the haircare industry has their hands deep down in
Speaker 1: our pockets. Oh, that's what we know. I know that
Speaker 1: they're making a lot of money, and it feels like
Speaker 1: every five to ten business days there's a new product
Speaker 1: claiming that it's going to revolutionize our lives. And we've
Speaker 1: never seen anything so good, and my bank account feels it.
Speaker 2: I said, you're trying to many things. You're trying too
Speaker 2: many things. But I think we've also seen hair go
Speaker 2: through this like scientification process. I don't know if that's
Speaker 2: really the word I'm looking for, but where we see
Speaker 2: people understanding that all hair is not created equal and
Speaker 2: there's different you know, curl types, porosity, texture. So I
Speaker 2: feel like we know hair is different from one person
Speaker 2: to the next.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, my friend Zakia can literally shave her head in
Speaker 1: January and have hair down her back by March. Okay,
Speaker 1: bust out. Okay, this hair does grow back fast, it does.
Speaker 1: And me, on the other hand, I'm babies in these
Speaker 1: twelve hairs that I got honey stock. I'm just taking
Speaker 1: care of my little children here.
Speaker 2: No, no, because I've seen the twist out and it's glorious.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've seen the washing and go. When you do
Speaker 1: that too, it has washed and left.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's no longer here. Well, what do we want
Speaker 2: to know aside from what happened to those hairs?
Speaker 1: Right? I'm not a biologist, you know, I'm an engineer,
Speaker 1: So I want to know the biology breakdown of hair,
Speaker 1: Like what is it made of? People say it's dead cells,
Speaker 1: but then they're like, cut off your dead ends. I'm like,
Speaker 1: is it doubly dead?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How can both these things be true at the same time.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I want to understand, Like
Speaker 1: I understand the biology, but I want to understand the
Speaker 1: chemistry of like what are we putting on our hair?
Speaker 1: What can help it be healthy if it is dead?
Speaker 1: What should we be thinking about when I'm standing in
Speaker 1: Alta looking at all the different products Because me, I'm
Speaker 1: a sucker for design I'm like, what does a bottle
Speaker 1: look like? Okay, but aesthetics, but I need.
Speaker 2: To know functional, what's happening in these bottles and what
Speaker 2: do I need to have on my hair?
Speaker 1: Well. I also want to know more about hair technology
Speaker 1: and what we should be thinking about when we are
Speaker 1: using products and how it affects our hair in the
Speaker 1: long term and our bodies too. Yes, yes, that is
Speaker 1: such a good point. I think that's a great place
Speaker 1: for us to jump right into the dissection. Yes, and
Speaker 1: this is another really special lab for us because we
Speaker 1: have it with one of our longtime friends, doctor Sicily
Speaker 1: shilling Ford.
Speaker 3: I am doctor Cicely shilling Forward. I'm the Associate vice
Speaker 3: president of Product Development, Innovation and Regulatory at Amica. We
Speaker 3: are a global prestige haircare company that makes hair products
Speaker 3: for all hair types and textures. You can find us
Speaker 3: sets of Foura on Amazon if you are a cosmetologist
Speaker 3: at cosmoprof and salon Centric. You can follow me on
Speaker 3: Instagram at Cicely shilling Ford or on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: I think we want to just set the stage, you know.
Speaker 2: I think people are always used in the term healthy here,
Speaker 2: good here, and they all mean different things. But we
Speaker 2: want you to walk us through what's actually happening on
Speaker 2: a healthy scalp, like at the microscopic level, so we
Speaker 2: can all get on the same page. I think sometimes
Speaker 2: people think it's too early, it's too dry, it should
Speaker 2: be slicked down. I'm like, none of that probably has
Speaker 2: anything to do well, at least not the edge just
Speaker 2: part with a healthy scalp.
Speaker 1: But we'll have you orient us first.
Speaker 3: I think, first of all, health can be a little
Speaker 3: bit subjective, obviously in a lot of ways. So what
Speaker 3: might feel healthy to someone might not be exactly healthy
Speaker 3: to somebody else. But I think there's some basic things
Speaker 3: that like are probably pretty obvious, Like a healthy scalp
Speaker 3: is a clean scalp.
Speaker 4: We can start there.
Speaker 3: You know, one that's free of product build up, that's
Speaker 3: not caked in conditioning agents and oils and.
Speaker 4: All that stuff.
Speaker 3: A healthy scalp is also going to be a scalp
Speaker 3: that is balanced. And I know we got some micro
Speaker 3: biologists up in here. Your scalp has its own microbiome.
Speaker 3: As both of you probably know, throughout your body, you
Speaker 3: have different micro environments everywhere, and the scalp is its
Speaker 3: own unique micro environment, and that means you want certain
Speaker 3: organisms that are there, and you want certain organisms that
Speaker 3: are not there, and you want to maintain that balance.
Speaker 3: And that balance might be different for different people, and
Speaker 3: that's totally okay. You have super thick, dense hair. I mean,
Speaker 3: those bacteria they love hanging out in there. It's like
Speaker 3: the Amazon rainforest, so there's moisture oil and they have
Speaker 3: everything they need to drive. So that means you have
Speaker 3: to treat your scalp differently depending on your hair type.
Speaker 3: Hair that's clean hair that has a robust barrier that
Speaker 3: can protect it from the external environment and from external stressors.
Speaker 3: But in general, you want your hair to be protected
Speaker 3: because we're exposed to sun pollution, and healthy hair has
Speaker 3: that protective barrier, so that's what's going to keep it
Speaker 3: healthy as well. And then the healthy hair is also strong.
Speaker 3: It's robust, it's able to resist breakage and can be
Speaker 3: stretched and maintain its elasticity without breaking easily.
Speaker 1: First of all, I hear about here all the time,
Speaker 1: but nobody's getting into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 3: So we have hair follicles all of our scalp, right,
Speaker 3: And I like to describe the structure of the hair
Speaker 3: as akin to a scallion. So we've all seen a scallion.
Speaker 3: There's like a little white bulb at the bottom, there's
Speaker 3: the little dangly roots hanging off, and then you have
Speaker 3: like these layers of green, concentric kind of things coming out,
Speaker 3: and it's the shaft of the hair as well, right,
Speaker 3: And if when scallions grow, they're under a layer of
Speaker 3: soil and the bulb is under the layer of soil,
Speaker 3: it literally looks just like a hair follicle. So picture
Speaker 3: that your soil is your skin, the roots of the
Speaker 3: scallion are your blood vessels, you know, all the nutrients
Speaker 3: that are being provided. And then the bulb is quite
Speaker 3: literally called your hair bulb. And so that hair bulb
Speaker 3: has multiple layers, similar to a scalion. Like you can
Speaker 3: peel back all the layers, and that first outer layer
Speaker 3: is called your outer root sheath, and that's going to
Speaker 3: contain a lot of the stem cells that differentiate into
Speaker 3: hair cells.
Speaker 1: Now, if you've listened to some of our previous episodes,
Speaker 1: you'll know that stem cells have important properties. They can
Speaker 1: make more cells like themselves, and they can make different
Speaker 1: types of seals, and that's called differentiation, So they can
Speaker 1: go on to be different types of sale, not just
Speaker 1: the one that they start out as they choose in.
Speaker 3: And then you have the inner root sheath, which is
Speaker 3: like one layer in and that's really what's surrounding kind
Speaker 3: of the base of the actual hair that's being formed.
Speaker 3: And at the very bottom of the inner root sheath,
Speaker 3: it encases the hair bulb. And within the hair bulb
Speaker 3: you have the dermal papilla. That part is the super
Speaker 3: important place in the inside the hair bulb. That is
Speaker 3: basically what's delivering all the nutrients to the growing hair.
Speaker 3: And that dermal pilla is made up of mesenchymal cells.
Speaker 1: So we just talked about stem cells, which can differentiate
Speaker 1: into lots of different types of cells. Mesenchymal stem cells
Speaker 1: are limited in that they can only differentiate into a
Speaker 1: few different types MMM. So they're being investigated for their
Speaker 1: role in hair regeneration and treatment of hair loss.
Speaker 4: That's where all.
Speaker 3: The like kind of blood vessels are like flowing all
Speaker 3: the nutrients in, and that's where the hair starts to form.
Speaker 3: And the hair honestly is like ninety percent keratin. That's
Speaker 3: predominantly what's forming inside of the hair follicle. And when
Speaker 3: you kind of like pluck a hair out, and like
Speaker 3: you see a little like white stuff at the bottom
Speaker 3: and right you're pulling out the hair follicle. You're kind
Speaker 3: of just like pulling out the keratin that hasn't really
Speaker 3: formed into the hair yet, and like the other gungkin nutrients.
Speaker 1: That's good. See you remember I had those lemonade brightes
Speaker 1: T T.
Speaker 2: And the little white bulbs were just dangling, okay, And
Speaker 2: I was like, these are follics, But those weren't follicles.
Speaker 1: Those were hair bulbs using the wrong warbles follicle as
Speaker 1: the whole.
Speaker 3: So what's left, So there's some other things happening in
Speaker 3: the hair follicle. You've got your sebaceous glands. Those are
Speaker 3: what produced your sebum and you're sweat.
Speaker 4: So what is sebum.
Speaker 3: It's the specific blend of oils and lipids that form
Speaker 3: both within the hair and actually on the outside of
Speaker 3: the hair. So you actually have two classes of lipids
Speaker 3: in your hair. You have endogenous lipids, these are the
Speaker 3: ones that go inside the core of the hair, and
Speaker 3: then you've got your exogynous slippets.
Speaker 4: Those are all the oils and.
Speaker 3: Fats that actually like coat the outside of the hair
Speaker 3: and sort of drip down the hair and keep your
Speaker 3: hair lubricated and moist and shiny. And those are formed
Speaker 3: in the hair follicle as well. And then you have
Speaker 3: you have your erector pili muscle, and that's a little
Speaker 3: muscle that like controlled you know, like when you get
Speaker 3: startled in your hair stands up. Yeah, that's your like
Speaker 3: your muscle. There's like a muscle in there, and it
Speaker 3: like makes the hair stand up.
Speaker 1: That hair is really working. And that was all just
Speaker 1: the follicle, right, keep going sistly. Let's move out of
Speaker 1: the root and into the shaft.
Speaker 3: So now we're on the green part of the scallion
Speaker 3: as it starts to grow out of the soil. And
Speaker 3: your hair shaft basically has three layers within the scallion.
Speaker 3: The innermost layer is called the medulla. And not all
Speaker 3: hair has this innermost layer. It's not often present if
Speaker 3: your hair is very thin. Often the thicker hairs have it.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: Also, not all the hair on your body has this layer.
Speaker 3: Then the next layer outside the medulla is the cortex,
Speaker 3: and that's basically like your bundles of keratin that are
Speaker 3: in all these helical formations, so they're just bundled up
Speaker 3: nice and strong, and then the outer layer of the
Speaker 3: hair is called the cuticle. And the cuticle is made
Speaker 3: up of overlapping dead caratinocytes, which a caratinocyte is a
Speaker 3: keratin producing cell, and those cells sort of flatten themselves
Speaker 3: onto the hair shaft as it grows out of the skin.
Speaker 3: And that's the outer layer of the hair. It's the
Speaker 3: protective layer. It's like the skin on an onion. That
Speaker 3: is the first line of defense against aggressors. And that
Speaker 3: layer of hair also has a lipid layer. Now, mind you,
Speaker 3: hair is still about ninety percent keraten. It's mostly keratin,
Speaker 3: which is responsible for the strength of the mechanical properties.
Speaker 3: The lipids are responsible for that barrier. They're going to
Speaker 3: really keep the hair shiny smooth. And there are some
Speaker 3: main lipids on the hair. It has seramides. We also
Speaker 3: have fatty acids, cholesterols, and the most also important in
Speaker 3: your skin.
Speaker 1: This is making me think of when TT used to
Speaker 1: make me make hair concoctions in grad school. And I
Speaker 1: don't know why she's that night. She doesn't understand hair
Speaker 1: now because she was giving out prescriptions. Hey, I was
Speaker 1: just I was on YouTube a lot and they was
Speaker 1: saying put eggs in your hair, put mayonnaise in your hair,
Speaker 1: put everything in your hair. So I just was dumping
Speaker 1: my entire fridge into my hair and was telling my
Speaker 1: friend to do the same thing.
Speaker 4: And how did that work out for you?
Speaker 1: You know, that's a good question. As I sit here
Speaker 1: with my six hairs. You know there were there were
Speaker 1: mistakes made, but we're learning from you.
Speaker 4: So but you know, all the aunties still be doing that.
Speaker 3: You know, they're mixing and they're kitching their shades and
Speaker 3: their coconut oils, and you know, to.
Speaker 4: Each their own. Sometimes you gotta find what works for you.
Speaker 1: When I hear you saying this stuff, like when you
Speaker 1: mentioned cholestero, I was like, okay, I can think of
Speaker 1: these things. When I hear you sam rhapnocyites which are
Speaker 1: making keratin, I'm like, yes, I see all the things
Speaker 1: that stay with keratin or this has this and ceremonise.
Speaker 1: I see all of these terms, you know, and it feels.
Speaker 2: Like the beauty industry just picks up one puts it down,
Speaker 2: picks up another puts it down. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if you feel like this. First, My my grandmother was
Speaker 2: a hairdresser, Okay, so I was like, I didn't see
Speaker 2: any of these terms until much much later because it
Speaker 2: was a hot comb and blue magic.
Speaker 1: Grease that I grew up with.
Speaker 2: But there's just so much innovation in hair now. I
Speaker 2: think maybe hair is just getting a lot more weight,
Speaker 2: so people are looking for ways to.
Speaker 1: Do different things. T T. I'm getting ready to bring
Speaker 1: up something that I told you about, and you were
Speaker 1: a skeptic. What dry shampoo? Yes? I was like okay.
Speaker 1: She was like oh, because I was like, oh, my
Speaker 1: hair is so greasy. Just cut a bob and I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't want to wash my hair yet,
Speaker 1: but it's so greasy. And she was like, go pick
Speaker 1: up the Amika dry shampoo. I was like, dry shampoo
Speaker 1: is not for us, It's for someone else. She said no,
Speaker 1: and so I was like okay, fine. So I went
Speaker 1: and grabbed a small bottle and it has changed my life.
Speaker 1: Like on its face, I feel like I understand what's happening,
Speaker 1: but I really don't know what's happening because that Amika
Speaker 1: dry shampoo has changed the game for me.
Speaker 3: All dry shampoos are a mixture of starches or some
Speaker 3: sort of absorbent material. Some of them have silica Mika
Speaker 3: dry shampoos. We tend to use rice starch, tapioca starch,
Speaker 3: arrowroot starch. You'll see a few different ones across the collection,
Speaker 3: and it's one of our number one products. I mean,
Speaker 3: our dry shampoo, if I may be so bold us
Speaker 3: to say, is the best.
Speaker 4: It is so good.
Speaker 3: It is so good, And what you want to achieve
Speaker 3: with the dry shampoo is essentially the removal of like
Speaker 3: oil and moisture from the root and from the scalp.
Speaker 4: These starches.
Speaker 3: If you've ever thickened a soup, you'll know that the
Speaker 3: starches like to grab onto water and oils and that's
Speaker 3: how they operate as a thickener, and that's pretty much
Speaker 3: what's happening in your scalp. You put these absorbent materials
Speaker 3: on your scalp when it's starting to get oily, or
Speaker 3: before a workout, or even before you go to bed.
Speaker 4: Which is a hack.
Speaker 3: And as you start producing oils, it's going to latch
Speaker 3: onto those oils and you can basically brush them out
Speaker 3: of your hair, shake them out of your hair so
Speaker 3: that you don't get a build up of oil on
Speaker 3: the scalp. And this is beneficial for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 3: especially for black women who press their hair, this could
Speaker 3: be a very expensive process.
Speaker 4: It can take a long time.
Speaker 3: You don't want to be doing this every two days
Speaker 3: because it's expensive.
Speaker 4: You're in the chair for a while.
Speaker 3: Also because you're just applying heat to your hair over
Speaker 3: and over again, which can be damaging to the hair.
Speaker 3: So dry shampoo can elongate the time between styling your hair,
Speaker 3: which is overall like a pretty good thing for people
Speaker 3: who don't want to add heat to their hair every day.
Speaker 1: Who really did give us a heck? Okay, now I'm
Speaker 1: using dry shampoo after I'm like, oh, it's already gotten bad.
Speaker 1: But when you said before the gym and before ben
Speaker 1: because the way I'm sweating at the back of my
Speaker 1: neck needs to be studied. Okay, you talked about those glands,
Speaker 1: but it's not right back there.
Speaker 3: There's also a lot of things that like make dry
Speaker 3: shampoo specifically special. You know, we want to have the
Speaker 3: right particle size so it distributes nicely. It's propelled nicely
Speaker 3: out of a can, so you can really get it
Speaker 3: all up in your hair. Some starches like can be
Speaker 3: too gritty, you know, some don't observe enough, so it's
Speaker 3: just getting that formulation just right, and then you get
Speaker 3: a nice burst of fragrance.
Speaker 1: Yees, Pascal'll say, so.
Speaker 4: Your hair smells nice and fresh.
Speaker 1: And talking about cleaning your scalp. It really felt like
Speaker 1: over the last like fifteen or twenty years that now
Speaker 1: everything says salt fate free. Before then, no one was
Speaker 1: ever talking about it, and now everything it's like, is
Speaker 1: it saltfate free. I'm not gonna use it if it's
Speaker 1: not salt fate free. I feel like salt fate free
Speaker 1: is like a buzzword right now and has been for
Speaker 1: a little while. Can you talk about why there was
Speaker 1: a shift to salt fate free and what that means
Speaker 1: for washing your hair?
Speaker 3: A sulfate is a type of surfactant, and a surfactant
Speaker 3: is this word is actually a portmanteau, which is a treat.
Speaker 4: When I get to use the word portmanteau, it means
Speaker 4: three academics walk into a room.
Speaker 1: Somebody's gonna say port monteau. Okay, somebody port.
Speaker 3: So it means surfactant means surface active agent with surfactants.
Speaker 3: One part of it is water soluble and one part
Speaker 3: of it is oil soluble. And so when you put
Speaker 3: a surfactant in water, the oil soluble parts are like
Speaker 3: I didn't sign up for this, and they just form
Speaker 3: together into a group into a circle, and they put
Speaker 3: all their little oily bits in a circle together and
Speaker 3: kick out all the water, and then the water protects them.
Speaker 3: It's like it forms a barricade. And this is called
Speaker 3: a my cell. And if any of y'all have used
Speaker 3: my cellar waters, perhaps yes. My cellar waters are basically
Speaker 3: like very low levels of surfactin and an aqueous product
Speaker 3: and you use it as like a no rinse makeup remover.
Speaker 3: That's what the words what the word my cell means.
Speaker 3: So my cell's form and these my cells are basically
Speaker 3: able to grab onto all the oily bits and also
Speaker 3: dissolve all the watery bits, so it can clean stuff,
Speaker 3: so soaps, detergents, dishwashing detergent, all this stuff has my
Speaker 3: cell's hand wash. So sulfates just happen to be some
Speaker 3: of the stronger surfactants. Every survactant lives somewhere on this gradient.
Speaker 3: Some people don't like strong cleansers because they can be
Speaker 3: stripping right. However, it's it's very nuanced. Sulfates can be strong.
Speaker 3: They can also not be that strong because sulfates are
Speaker 3: a broad class of potentials or factors. It really just
Speaker 3: depends on the structure of the molecules. So when we say,
Speaker 3: like all selfates are bad, no, don't be silly.
Speaker 4: Molecules are diverse.
Speaker 3: However, in the cosmetic space and the beauty space, certain
Speaker 3: molecules tend to just get a bad reputation. You're looking
Speaker 3: at any ingredient list and you're standing in the row
Speaker 3: at Target trying to figure out your business. You don't
Speaker 3: have time to be reading somebody's.
Speaker 4: Thesis on solvate.
Speaker 3: So right, yeah, you know, it's a little easier for
Speaker 3: consumer to be like, okay, solfates, I heard the bad
Speaker 3: I'm not going to buy them and make that decision
Speaker 3: for them. Doesn't necessarily mean the formula is super stripping.
Speaker 3: It could actually be if you put one little drop
Speaker 3: of sulfate in the ocean, it's a sulfated ocean, but
Speaker 3: it's not going to be a strong shampoo. Hair is
Speaker 3: also very emotional. You know, the whole experience of styling
Speaker 3: your hair and it is your hair braking and hair
Speaker 3: loss is very emotional. So purchasing products is emotional. As well,
Speaker 3: and things are expensive, so we want people to feel
Speaker 3: good about what they're buying, which means in some parts
Speaker 3: like meeting them where they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we want them to be informed like you
Speaker 1: just informed everybody that's listening to Dope Labs. Basically, if
Speaker 1: you've been washing your hair and it's not it's still
Speaker 1: feeling greasy, it's still feeling whatever. Maybe you need more sulfate.
Speaker 3: You gotta do what's right for you. Yeah, And sometimes
Speaker 3: you might really need a deep cleanse. Like it's a
Speaker 3: hot summer day, you've been at the beach, you have
Speaker 3: twenty five layers of dry shampoo up and there.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, which I just posted about yesterday.
Speaker 1: My hairstylist is an Amica Girley, but she was telling
Speaker 1: me the same way that you talked.
Speaker 2: About how the dry shampoo worked. She was telling me
Speaker 2: about this anti humidity spray. Because I'm in Atlanta and
Speaker 2: the girls are wearing you know, bust down part in
Speaker 2: the middle thirty inches. Now, that's okay if that's a
Speaker 2: quick weave or sewing or something, right, But when it's
Speaker 2: your hair and you hit that humidity and my cuticle
Speaker 2: begins to swell as you said, and from point A
Speaker 2: to point now, when I do it, my hair is poofy.
Speaker 2: But when she does it and I go out, it
Speaker 2: could be drizzling. I could just put a little paper
Speaker 2: up and I'm okay. And I was like, what are
Speaker 2: you using?
Speaker 1: And so she sent me this picture like this is
Speaker 1: what you need, and it was the Mica anti humidity spray.
Speaker 1: The shield.
Speaker 4: The shield. The shield is so good. She really is
Speaker 4: that girl. She is shielding your hair from humidity.
Speaker 3: So we we actually just launched a new anti frize
Speaker 3: humidity product.
Speaker 4: So how does the shield work?
Speaker 3: And so both products they work similarly, but they're different
Speaker 3: formats for different use cases, but you can also use
Speaker 3: them together. So the shield essentially has technology in there
Speaker 3: that when you spray it onto your hair. I would
Speaker 3: spray it on when it's like almost dryer dry style
Speaker 3: to finish it and lock it in when you're doing
Speaker 3: your last couple presses with the flat iron, because it's
Speaker 3: got this technology that is going to crosslink once you
Speaker 3: apply heat to it and form what's essentially like a
Speaker 3: bit of a plasticized layer on the surface of your
Speaker 3: hair that provides like an umbrella for shield. Yes, and
Speaker 3: then we took this to the next level with our
Speaker 3: newest product, which is more of a leven. So you
Speaker 3: put it on when your hair is damp, and you
Speaker 3: can use them both at the same time. You put
Speaker 3: on when your hair is damp. It has these next
Speaker 3: generations silicone polymers in there that have multiple blocks on
Speaker 3: them for different reasons. You've got silicone blocks that basically
Speaker 3: provide softness to the hair. You've got a cross linking
Speaker 3: block that when you apply heat, these polymers basically stick
Speaker 3: to each other. They cross link and they form a
Speaker 3: flexible film on the hair. And when you form this
Speaker 3: film on the hair and you heat treat it into
Speaker 3: the hair, you're basically creating a layer on the surface
Speaker 3: of the cuticle that's going to prevent humidity from getting
Speaker 3: into the hair.
Speaker 1: No weapon formed against me, no weapon. This is actually
Speaker 1: the weapon. As soon as as a kid tells me
Speaker 1: to get something, I get it. And so I am
Speaker 1: using all those things, and my shield spray is on
Speaker 1: the web. TT is using a lot of product in general.
Speaker 1: I use a lot of product in general all the
Speaker 1: time for everything, and I'm just I really need to
Speaker 1: dial some of this stuff back.
Speaker 2: I think what we've learned is that not every product
Speaker 2: works for everybody, And so I would love for you
Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about what you're gonna find
Speaker 2: working for different people, like porosity, pH texture, Like you
Speaker 2: just said, like if you have curly hair, you're gonna
Speaker 2: want more conditioner to reduce that strain that's already inherent
Speaker 2: in that curl pattern. So I think you just want
Speaker 2: to help people understand, like what might work for this
Speaker 2: general class or this general feature, what kind of products
Speaker 2: might work for you versus others.
Speaker 3: Hair is so complex because when you think about skincare,
Speaker 3: it's kind of easier to work in product development. Everybody
Speaker 3: has the same goals clear skin, no dark spots, no wrinkles.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, with hair, everybody has different goals and everybody has
Speaker 3: different starting points, which means there's so many concoctions and
Speaker 3: things you can do and routines and what you might
Speaker 3: want your hair to look like on Monday might be
Speaker 3: different than on Tuesday, and say there'sday Friday. It's always changing.
Speaker 1: You might want to serve in different personalities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's also kind of the beauty of afrotectured
Speaker 3: hair because there's so many possibilities you can be so
Speaker 3: many different people, and it's so versatile. I really like
Speaker 3: the way that Amika structures our products because they're by
Speaker 3: goals thereby objectives. So when you shop for our products,
Speaker 3: it's I want volume, I want detox, I want strength, repair,
Speaker 3: I will need hydration, I need more moisture, and you
Speaker 3: kind of shop based on the benefit that you're searching for,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of like one way to figure out
Speaker 3: what makes sense for you, what do you want your
Speaker 3: hair to do? And then styling it gets even more complicated.
Speaker 4: Is it straight? Is it this?
Speaker 3: Do I need humidity? What climate do I live? And
Speaker 3: it's if you all talk about needing the shield and
Speaker 3: anti frizz as a function of your environment, So you
Speaker 3: reach for those products that serve those specific needs. So
Speaker 3: there's no right and wrong product for people. I really
Speaker 3: think it's based off of what does.
Speaker 4: Your hair need?
Speaker 3: What are your goals? What do you want to do
Speaker 3: with your hair? And then the second layer of it
Speaker 3: is like what is the condition of your hair? And
Speaker 3: that's going to also help you choose. So I have
Speaker 3: very thin, fine, very porous hair, and when your hair
Speaker 3: is porous, that basically means have bigger gaps in your cuticle.
Speaker 3: That could be one reason. It could also be porous
Speaker 3: because it's been damaged by bleach or by pollution or
Speaker 3: by sheets that m Yeah, because we got free radicals
Speaker 3: up in here. I live in New York City. We
Speaker 3: got sun damage. We have free radicals getting in there
Speaker 3: and damage and all the caratan and all that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff. So your hair ages as well because you
Speaker 3: know of the environment. A lot of how your hair
Speaker 3: shows up is just the techniques you use to style it,
Speaker 3: especially as someone who wears my hair naturally curly, like
Speaker 3: pretty much one hundred percent of the time. So you
Speaker 3: could have really super super fine hair and you don't
Speaker 3: want to weigh it down, so you want to look
Speaker 3: for products that are going to not weigh the hair down.
Speaker 3: Or My sister, on the other hand, has very low
Speaker 3: porosity hair. I have high perosity hair, which means that
Speaker 3: if you put a lightweight gel on her hair, it's
Speaker 3: just like, nope, not today. It just rolls right off
Speaker 3: into the garbage. It does not staying on the hair
Speaker 3: because her hair is so like the lipid coating on
Speaker 3: the surface of her hair and the primary lipid on
Speaker 3: the surface of your hair by the way is called
Speaker 3: eighteen MEA. That's eighteen methyl like heisenoic acid that lipid layers.
Speaker 3: For some people is just it's just stuck on there.
Speaker 3: It's happy, it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: We have a mutual friend Britney. She will put that
Speaker 1: edge control, that hair will lay down. They'll let jail
Speaker 1: and swoop. I don't like skin.
Speaker 2: Yes, I had a silk press. She put that whatever
Speaker 2: she was using on her, that jail she was using.
Speaker 2: My hair curled right up at the root. I was like,
Speaker 2: too much moisture. I don't know what you did, but
Speaker 2: now swollen cuticles.
Speaker 1: Okay, now I have a problem. Can you talk to
Speaker 1: us more about like hair technology that you see like
Speaker 1: coming down the pike, or hair technology that excites you
Speaker 1: that you want people to know about.
Speaker 3: I am really excited about some of the sustainability innovations.
Speaker 4: That's what gets me going personally.
Speaker 3: I would love to see a lot of the materials
Speaker 3: that we use in haircare us continuing to find regenerative
Speaker 3: sources of those materials that are.
Speaker 4: Going to continue to be fantastic for the Earth.
Speaker 3: Something I came across the other day that was really
Speaker 3: interesting was a company that's using photosynthesis to create materials.
Speaker 3: So they have this synthetic photosynthesis process that is a
Speaker 3: carbon capture process, So you use carbon and water as
Speaker 3: your feedstocks CO two and water and you're able to
Speaker 3: create ingredients via photosynthetic mechanisms by using these like bioengineered plants,
Speaker 3: so you can create a carbon negative ingredient for the
Speaker 3: cosmetics industry. Like, how amazing would that be? I think
Speaker 3: the company is called Arborea, So shout out to Arborea.
Speaker 3: Hopefully I represented your technology correctly because I saw it
Speaker 3: and I thought it was so cool. Something else that
Speaker 3: we're doing at a MICA, which is a partnership that
Speaker 3: will continue to roll out and chat about in the
Speaker 3: coming months and years, but we're working with a regenerative
Speaker 3: agriculture company that space in Africa, which regenerative agriculture essentially
Speaker 3: means that we're ensuring that the soil is regenerative, that
Speaker 3: the communities are regenerative, that the farmers are regenerative for
Speaker 3: generations to come. We're able to actually support local economies
Speaker 3: in various farms in Africa, and they are creating ingredients
Speaker 3: that are very common to the cosmetics industry and in
Speaker 3: dogens to the regions, such as shade butter and avocado
Speaker 3: oil and babbab oil. So we're working to actually integrate
Speaker 3: some of their materials into our supply chain, not just
Speaker 3: because we love shade butter and it's great for the hair,
Speaker 3: but because we want them to get into the US
Speaker 3: supply chain. We want to enable them to not just
Speaker 3: provide us with ingredients, but to provide other brands with ingredients.
Speaker 3: You'll hear people talking about biotech derived ingredients, which is
Speaker 3: like the new way we're describing kind of fermentation derived materials,
Speaker 3: and like fermentation has been happening since the beginning of time.
Speaker 3: People have been drinking wine for a very long time,
Speaker 3: but we've sort of rebranded it as biotech, which it
Speaker 3: is biotech, I mean ultimately, but really it's kind of
Speaker 3: engineered fermentation to tell a microorganism to produce a certain
Speaker 3: protein or a certain peptide. So examples of this are
Speaker 3: there's an interesting company called Both Threads. They're producing this
Speaker 3: bioengineered spider silk, which is like very cool, very interesting
Speaker 3: material for skin and hair.
Speaker 1: So put wine in your hair. I got it, Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's not what she's said.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can packet with some resveratrol.
Speaker 3: You polyphenols protect from those free radicals you know.
Speaker 1: Tit and I have seen you go from graduate student
Speaker 1: who now product development extraordinary in the haircare industry. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the things we love is for
Speaker 1: people to understand, like the day to day what you're
Speaker 1: using around you, there's science all in it, and so
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: how you're leveraging some of the science you know in
Speaker 1: your role.
Speaker 3: I love to talk about science, and I do use
Speaker 3: science all the time. Understanding that hair is a material
Speaker 3: is very important in my role, and I actually started
Speaker 3: my career in material science and materials engineering creating surfaces
Speaker 3: that are super hydrophobic, meaning they can repel water and
Speaker 3: other complex liquids as well. And most of hair care,
Speaker 3: as we described with the Shield and our new Frisbee,
Speaker 3: not antiphrase hydrating treatment, is about making the hair hydrophobic
Speaker 3: and protected so that you can have shiny hair, softer hair,
Speaker 3: conditioned hair, hair that resists humidity. That's a pretty much
Speaker 3: the goal of a lot of styling products. So my
Speaker 3: career in material science has been really helpful in my
Speaker 3: understanding of hair care. It's very related and I am
Speaker 3: my PhD. I studied colloid chemistry, surfactants, the underlying mechanisms
Speaker 3: of how products are made. I mean we have to
Speaker 3: use emulsion chemistry all the time with product development, and
Speaker 3: by and large, I would say doing a PhD just
Speaker 3: helps me learn and understand science very quickly and like
Speaker 3: logically think through whether something is feasible. A lot of
Speaker 3: formula development product development, Like there's a lot of ideas
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of good ideas, and I mean
Speaker 3: all ideas are good ideas, but not all ideas like
Speaker 3: will abide by the laws of science, physics and chemistry.
Speaker 3: Product development's also about quality, you know, stability of products,
Speaker 3: all that stuff. It's it's helpful to have a technical
Speaker 3: background for sure.
Speaker 1: You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Speaker 1: Labs podcast dt is on X and Instagram at dr Underscore,
Speaker 1: t Shoe, and you can find Takiya at Z said so.
Speaker 1: Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our senior
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