New hair! I finally got a new hair colour, had my hair bleached first, and consequently needed a new routine with new products to protect my now rather stressed-out hair. Let’s deep dive into the science behind bond treatments!
My hair
My usual description: I’ve over-shoulder length colour-treated, fine, wavy (type 2A) hair. Right now, I got highlights all through my hair. Then those were dyed copper and purple with Goldwell Elumen colours.
I don’t need to wash it a lot, because it gets dry and frizzy easily. I don’t use hot tools regularly to style my hair, but will (mainly in winter) blow-dry it with a Dyson hair dryer (review). Usually, I wear my hair either in a bun or pony tail and sleep on a silk pillowcase.
My routine – updated
I wash my hair two times a week. If I truly need it, I use bumble & bumble’s dry shampoo or a dusting of any setting powder I’ve got lying around (that doubles as a dry shampoo and works really well). I use a scalp treatment once a week (The Inkey List, review here), Lush’s Fairly Traded Honey/Elumen/Ducray shampoo (whatever I feel I need that day), and a hair mask or conditioner (Briogeo Don’t Despair Repair/Living Proof Perfect Hair Day Conditioner).
Once or twice a month I use Living Proof’s Bond Treatment after that, wait the recommended 10 minutes, add a leave in (TIL Hyaluronic Acid & Peptide Treatments – review) and styling product, and blow-dry. (Review below!) When I don’t use the Living Proof Bond Treatment, I use Aveda’s heat protector instead.
What are bond treatments?!
When it comes to damaged hair, the thing to use is bond treatments. Olaplex was the forerunner in 2013, but since then, a lot more have been released. To understand bond treatments, though, we have to understand hair.
Hair structures and building blocks
Every single hair is made up of three layers. The core is made of keratin (a protein made up of peptides and amino acids). Those peptides – called polypeptides – cross with side bonds to form a complex protein that give the hair its structure. Peptides form the strongest bonds in our hair, but if they start to break, hair becomes weak and damaged.
There’re three different types of side bonds: disulfide, salt and hydrogen bonds. Those bonds can be broken by water, heat styling, high pH, mechanical and chemical damage. Disulfide bonds are the sturdiest of those side bonds and are broken by bleaching and other chemical treatments, salt bonds are damaged by high pH, and hydrogen bonds are damaged by water and heat. They’re the only ones that can be rebuild. (And are the reason your hair becomes frizzy!)
Bond treatments: how they work
Nowadays, lots of treatments call themselves ‘bond’ treatments, although they do different things with the help of different ingredients. Most of them, though, while definitely helping the hair to appear less damaged, don’t repair damaged hair.
Proteins
Bond treatments most commonly use proteins to treat damaged hair. (You can usually spot those on ingredient lists by ‘hydrolyzed xyz protein’ or ‘keratin’.) They’re absorbed by damaged hair and will improve strength and elasticity and temporarily will seal gaps in the outer layer of the hair and seal split ends. This doesn’t mean they ‘repair’ damaged hair. They temporarily strengthen and protect hair. A conditioner with proteins is a very helpful product to have. (There can be a thing called protein build-up when you use too much, though, which might lead to brittle hair.) Have a look at your haircare products and you’ll see a LOT of products using them.
Amino acids and peptides
Called the building blocks of proteins, amino acids and peptides still won’t behave in the exactly same way as proteins. (Amino acids usually end in -ine, so Arginine, Lysine, etc.) There isn’t much research, but they do strengthen hair. They too appear in conditioning products often.
Low pH
A low pH is integral for the health of hair bonds. Salt bonds will break when exposed to high pH products, so pH balanced products are important! (Citric acid is often used in products to lower the pH – look out for that.)
Cationic surfactants
Cationic surfactants are conditioning ingredients that have a positive charge. Damaged hair, on a molecular level, has a negative charge, will attract cationic surfactants and form a salt bond.
My absolute favourite hair colour of all times uses the science behind this. (Elumen by Goldwell uses negative and positive charges in the hair to cling on to the hair for longer than other, regular semi-permanent hair dyes.)
If you want to try this out (without colouring your hair!), use a lamellar water (e.g. L’Oreal’s Wonder Water).
The ingredients looking out for are quaternary ammonium compounds (called quats). They’re positively charged, no matter the pH of the surrounding solution and often used as conditioning agents because they act similar to silicones (promote shine, manageability etc.).
Silicones
Speaking of silicones… modified silicones are also often used in bond treatments. Bis-PCA-Dimethicone is the most important one: it’ll bind to damaged hair and protect from further damage. Amodimethicone is used in a lot of conditioning products, because it also has a positive charge, binding it to damaged hair. The Inkey List’s PCA Bond Repair Hair Treatment utilizes Bis-PCA-Dimethicone.
The new star product: Living Proof Triple Bond Complex
The brand doesn’t really disclose what exactly is the bond building ingredient because the patent is apparently still pending. (I call that bogus, because that’s not how patents work.)
A weekly leave-in treatment and hair mask that makes hair 8x stronger* + more resistant to future damage while adding softness, smoothness + shine.
Living Proof.
*Against grooming breakage vs untreated
It’s not a typical protein treatment, but still LP claims to be able to strengthen AND repair all three types of bond damage. They also claim that the treatment is able to strengthen bonds even if they’re not completely broken down, and that’s a huge thing. Overusing especially Olaplex on hair with non-broken disulfide bonds results on brittle hair that’s prone to breakage. LP also says that the treatment prolongs styling ‘because the complex prevents the easily broken hydrogen and ionic bonds from breaking as quickly’. (Get the Gloss)
So far it works very well for me and my hair feels noticeably sturdier after I’ve used it. 1.5 oz/15ml are $45.
Please note that this review is not sponsored in any way. We buy products ourselves, with our own money, and don’t accept exchanging goods, or money, for reviews. We are completely independent, and our reviews reflect that.
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