Smoothing, conditioners, absolute shine, supermarket shelves are full of all kinds of cosmetics for the scalp. The INC monthly carried out the investigation.
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A file investigating hair products. In supermarkets, the offer is plentiful, you can find cosmetics of all kinds for hair. Decryption with Sylvie Metzelard, editor-in-chief of the magazine 60 Million consumers.
franceinfo: Is hair care a growing market?
Sylvie Metzelard: And how! It is one of the cosmetic product segments that is doing the best, with skincare sales expected to increase by nearly 4% in the coming years. Products are multiplying on the shelves: treatments, scrubs, serums, masks for the day, night… Hair care has now taken over from facial care.
But the idea is that we should take care of our hair like we take care of our skin?
Exactly, we even talk about “skinification” of hair. “Skin” means skin in English, and the idea is to take care of your hair as you do your skin.
But is it effective?
At the marketing level, yes it is effective, since consumers are increasing their product purchases, and are no longer satisfied with a simple shampoo. Effectiveness is something else, it depends on the products and what we expect from them.
We are seeing more and more products that have the backing of a hairdresser, Dessange, Franck Provost to name a few, is this a guarantee of quality?
It’s the same here, we are more in marketing than in the product itself. We buy a name, a know-how. But to accurately judge the quality, we would have to test all of these products, which we have not yet done.
Let’s talk about prices, are these products expensive?
Yes, these are very expensive products. We are sold new beauty routines, with dedicated treatments, which start from the roots to the ends of the hair, as we do in a hair salon, and this adds up quickly, including for well-known brands that are not necessarily high-end. .
You can buy, for example, for long, slightly dull hair, a shampoo for 6.45 euros, plus 4.50 euros for the detangling treatment, to which you must add 9.29 euros for the mask, and another 9, 35 euros for the “Lamellar care hair drink”… We are at 29.59 euros.
Dn another brand, we have another four-step routine for 37 euros, I’m not talking about the ranges of the big names in hairdressing, where you can double or even triple the amount!
But what justifies such high prices?
A name, an incredible quantity of ingredients; we put forward, of course, technologies that we are not able to verify. We are talking about “premiumization” of products. We offer very targeted treatments, highlighting their high technicality to justify the prices.
You interviewed a dermatologist at St Louis hospital in Paris, what does he say about all these products?
That we are told great stories, but that nothing really fits into the hair fiber. You can’t really repair hair when it is damaged by coloring or straightening. Only anti-fungus and anti-dandruff products find favor in the eyes of our dermatologist.
Are there substances harmful to health in all these products?
Not necessarily in all products, but often. And as you can imagine, when you find yourself with compositions containing around twenty ingredients, you risk finding quite a few problematic substances. Irritant sulfates, certain parabens suspected of being endocrine disruptors, allergenic smoking substances, etc.
In your article you warn against the effects of Brazilian straightening, it can be dangerous for the kidneys, right?
Yes, you have to be careful with products that contain glyoxylic acidused for its smoothing powers, and which has a deleterious effect on the kidneys. An alert has been issued by the health authorities last October, but you still find it in quite a few in straightening kits, for sale on the Internet and sometimes even in salons.
In summary, the best treatment is to do as little as possible?
The ideal is to be able to get by with a mild shampoo, therefore with mild surfactants in it, which means that your shampoo will not foam much!
