Shampoo has one main job: lifting oil, sweat and product build-up off the scalp so it rinses away with water. The ingredients that do that are surfactants, and much of what separates one shampoo from another is which surfactants it uses and what sits alongside them to offset their drying effect.
Shampoo bars and liquid shampoos can both carry the CertClean seal. A bar contains little or no water, so its ingredient list tends to start with the cleansing agents rather than water.
Reading the label
- The first few ingredients
- Ingredients are generally listed in descending order of concentration. In a liquid shampoo water usually comes first; the next few names are typically the surfactants doing the cleaning.
- Shampoo bars versus soap
- Some bars are true soap, made from saponified oils; others use the same surfactants as liquid shampoo, pressed into a solid. They behave differently on hair, and the ingredient list tells you which you have.
