July 6, 2025 • 34 mins
Zakiya and Titi chat with Dr. Cicely Shillingford from Amika to break down the real science behind hair care. From personal hair wins (and fails) to the latest product innovations, they’re getting to the root of what it means to have “healthy hair.”
What’s discussed:
- What’s actually happening on your scalp and with your hair at a microscopic level
- The truth about popular ingredients and buzzwords (sulfate-free, ceramides, dry shampoo & more)
- Cool new trends in hair care, like sustainable ingredients and innovative hair tech
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Me and you have had a lot of hair adventures together.
(00:29):
Yes we have, Okay, okay, so like from cutting our
own hair, we both did that. I remember the last
time I cut my own hair. I facetimed you and
was like, I'm about to cut my hair. Watch. Yes,
it looked good. I remember you cut my hair. Oh
my gosh. We were doing things that really could just
(00:49):
be described as edgy. Yes, I mean, in the beginning
of our friendship, we were putting a lot of stuff
on our hair. I have to admit that I was
giving some not so awesome. You were driving advice, you
had me. I was making pastries and then you were
talking about greenhousing, putting a bag on there from my head, yes,
(01:13):
growing mold on our scalps. It was a tough time,
but it was a sign of the times because we
were all on YouTube just taking advice from anybody, anyone.
It felt like they were experts, but really they just
had a YouTube channel. But my bad for all of them,
I trusted your tt I trusted you. All this thinking
about hair, where we've come from, what we're still doing
(01:35):
and is questionable.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, we're doing all this stuff just to get
healthy hair right, and that feels like a great topic.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, I love that. So let's jump into the recitation.
Let's start with what we know. Okay, So we know
that the haircare industry has their hands deep down in
our pockets. Oh, that's what we know. I know that
they're making a lot of money, and it feels like
(02:03):
every five to ten business days there's a new product
claiming that it's going to revolutionize our lives. And we've
never seen anything so good, and my bank account feels it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I said, you're trying to many things. You're trying too
many things. But I think we've also seen hair go
through this like scientification process. I don't know if that's
really the word I'm looking for, but where we see
people understanding that all hair is not created equal and
there's different you know, curl types, porosity, texture. So I
feel like we know hair is different from one person
(02:35):
to the next.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Absolutely, my friend Zakia can literally shave her head in
January and have hair down her back by March. Okay,
bust out. Okay, this hair does grow back fast, it does.
And me, on the other hand, I'm babies in these
twelve hairs that I got honey stock. I'm just taking
care of my little children here.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
No, no, because I've seen the twist out and it's glorious.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, I've seen the washing and go. When you do
that too, it has washed and left.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Okay, it's no longer here. Well, what do we want
to know aside from what happened to those hairs?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Right? I'm not a biologist, you know, I'm an engineer,
So I want to know the biology breakdown of hair,
Like what is it made of? People say it's dead cells,
but then they're like, cut off your dead ends. I'm like,
is it doubly dead?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Like?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
How can both these things be true at the same time.
I don't know. I think I want to understand, Like
I understand the biology, but I want to understand the
chemistry of like what are we putting on our hair?
What can help it be healthy if it is dead?
What should we be thinking about when I'm standing in
Alta looking at all the different products Because me, I'm
(03:44):
a sucker for design I'm like, what does a bottle
look like? Okay, but aesthetics, but I need.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
To know functional, what's happening in these bottles and what
do I need to have on my hair?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well. I also want to know more about hair technology
and what we should be thinking about when we are
using products and how it affects our hair in the
long term and our bodies too. Yes, yes, that is
such a good point. I think that's a great place
for us to jump right into the dissection. Yes, and
(04:17):
this is another really special lab for us because we
have it with one of our longtime friends, doctor Sicily
shilling Ford.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I am doctor Cicely shilling Forward. I'm the Associate vice
president of Product Development, Innovation and Regulatory at Amica. We
are a global prestige haircare company that makes hair products
for all hair types and textures. You can find us
sets of Foura on Amazon if you are a cosmetologist
at cosmoprof and salon Centric. You can follow me on
(04:51):
Instagram at Cicely shilling Ford or on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I think we want to just set the stage, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I think people are always used in the term healthy here,
good here, and they all mean different things. But we
want you to walk us through what's actually happening on
a healthy scalp, like at the microscopic level, so we
can all get on the same page. I think sometimes
people think it's too early, it's too dry, it should
be slicked down. I'm like, none of that probably has
(05:18):
anything to do well, at least not the edge just
part with a healthy scalp.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But we'll have you orient us first.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I think, first of all, health can be a little
bit subjective, obviously in a lot of ways. So what
might feel healthy to someone might not be exactly healthy
to somebody else. But I think there's some basic things
that like are probably pretty obvious, Like a healthy scalp
is a clean scalp.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
We can start there.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
You know, one that's free of product build up, that's
not caked in conditioning agents and oils and.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
All that stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
A healthy scalp is also going to be a scalp
that is balanced. And I know we got some micro
biologists up in here. Your scalp has its own microbiome.
As both of you probably know, throughout your body, you
have different micro environments everywhere, and the scalp is its
own unique micro environment, and that means you want certain
(06:14):
organisms that are there, and you want certain organisms that
are not there, and you want to maintain that balance.
And that balance might be different for different people, and
that's totally okay. You have super thick, dense hair. I mean,
those bacteria they love hanging out in there. It's like
the Amazon rainforest, so there's moisture oil and they have
(06:36):
everything they need to drive. So that means you have
to treat your scalp differently depending on your hair type.
Hair that's clean hair that has a robust barrier that
can protect it from the external environment and from external stressors.
But in general, you want your hair to be protected
because we're exposed to sun pollution, and healthy hair has
(06:56):
that protective barrier, so that's what's going to keep it
healthy as well. And then the healthy hair is also strong.
It's robust, it's able to resist breakage and can be
stretched and maintain its elasticity without breaking easily.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
First of all, I hear about here all the time,
but nobody's getting into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So we have hair follicles all of our scalp, right,
And I like to describe the structure of the hair
as akin to a scallion. So we've all seen a scallion.
There's like a little white bulb at the bottom, there's
the little dangly roots hanging off, and then you have
like these layers of green, concentric kind of things coming out,
(07:36):
and it's the shaft of the hair as well, right,
And if when scallions grow, they're under a layer of
soil and the bulb is under the layer of soil,
it literally looks just like a hair follicle. So picture
that your soil is your skin, the roots of the
scallion are your blood vessels, you know, all the nutrients
that are being provided. And then the bulb is quite
(07:56):
literally called your hair bulb. And so that hair bulb
has multiple layers, similar to a scalion. Like you can
peel back all the layers, and that first outer layer
is called your outer root sheath, and that's going to
contain a lot of the stem cells that differentiate into
hair cells.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Now, if you've listened to some of our previous episodes,
you'll know that stem cells have important properties. They can
make more cells like themselves, and they can make different
types of seals, and that's called differentiation, So they can
go on to be different types of sale, not just
the one that they start out as they choose in.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And then you have the inner root sheath, which is
like one layer in and that's really what's surrounding kind
of the base of the actual hair that's being formed.
And at the very bottom of the inner root sheath,
it encases the hair bulb. And within the hair bulb
you have the dermal papilla. That part is the super
important place in the inside the hair bulb. That is
(08:55):
basically what's delivering all the nutrients to the growing hair.
And that dermal pilla is made up of mesenchymal cells.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
So we just talked about stem cells, which can differentiate
into lots of different types of cells. Mesenchymal stem cells
are limited in that they can only differentiate into a
few different types MMM. So they're being investigated for their
role in hair regeneration and treatment of hair loss.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
That's where all.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
The like kind of blood vessels are like flowing all
the nutrients in, and that's where the hair starts to form.
And the hair honestly is like ninety percent keratin. That's
predominantly what's forming inside of the hair follicle. And when
you kind of like pluck a hair out, and like
you see a little like white stuff at the bottom
and right you're pulling out the hair follicle. You're kind
(09:41):
of just like pulling out the keratin that hasn't really
formed into the hair yet, and like the other gungkin nutrients.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
That's good. See you remember I had those lemonade brightes
T T.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And the little white bulbs were just dangling, okay, And
I was like, these are follics, But those weren't follicles.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Those were hair bulbs using the wrong warbles follicle as
the whole.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
So what's left, So there's some other things happening in
the hair follicle. You've got your sebaceous glands. Those are
what produced your sebum and you're sweat.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
So what is sebum.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
It's the specific blend of oils and lipids that form
both within the hair and actually on the outside of
the hair. So you actually have two classes of lipids
in your hair. You have endogenous lipids, these are the
ones that go inside the core of the hair, and
then you've got your exogynous slippets.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Those are all the oils and.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Fats that actually like coat the outside of the hair
and sort of drip down the hair and keep your
hair lubricated and moist and shiny. And those are formed
in the hair follicle as well. And then you have
you have your erector pili muscle, and that's a little
muscle that like controlled you know, like when you get
(10:58):
startled in your hair stands up. Yeah, that's your like
your muscle. There's like a muscle in there, and it
like makes the hair stand up.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
That hair is really working. And that was all just
the follicle, right, keep going sistly. Let's move out of
the root and into the shaft.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
So now we're on the green part of the scallion
as it starts to grow out of the soil. And
your hair shaft basically has three layers within the scallion.
The innermost layer is called the medulla. And not all
hair has this innermost layer. It's not often present if
your hair is very thin. Often the thicker hairs have it.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Also, not all the hair on your body has this layer.
Then the next layer outside the medulla is the cortex,
and that's basically like your bundles of keratin that are
in all these helical formations, so they're just bundled up
nice and strong, and then the outer layer of the
hair is called the cuticle. And the cuticle is made
(11:57):
up of overlapping dead caratinocytes, which a caratinocyte is a
keratin producing cell, and those cells sort of flatten themselves
onto the hair shaft as it grows out of the skin.
And that's the outer layer of the hair. It's the
protective layer. It's like the skin on an onion. That
is the first line of defense against aggressors. And that
(12:19):
layer of hair also has a lipid layer. Now, mind you,
hair is still about ninety percent keraten. It's mostly keratin,
which is responsible for the strength of the mechanical properties.
The lipids are responsible for that barrier. They're going to
really keep the hair shiny smooth. And there are some
(12:39):
main lipids on the hair. It has seramides. We also
have fatty acids, cholesterols, and the most also important in
your skin.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
This is making me think of when TT used to
make me make hair concoctions in grad school. And I
don't know why she's that night. She doesn't understand hair
now because she was giving out prescriptions. Hey, I was
just I was on YouTube a lot and they was
saying put eggs in your hair, put mayonnaise in your hair,
put everything in your hair. So I just was dumping
my entire fridge into my hair and was telling my
(13:26):
friend to do the same thing.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
And how did that work out for you?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
You know, that's a good question. As I sit here
with my six hairs. You know there were there were
mistakes made, but we're learning from you.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
So but you know, all the aunties still be doing that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You know, they're mixing and they're kitching their shades and
their coconut oils, and you know, to.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Each their own. Sometimes you gotta find what works for you.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
When I hear you saying this stuff, like when you
mentioned cholestero, I was like, okay, I can think of
these things. When I hear you sam rhapnocyites which are
making keratin, I'm like, yes, I see all the things
that stay with keratin or this has this and ceremonise.
I see all of these terms, you know, and it feels.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Like the beauty industry just picks up one puts it down,
picks up another puts it down. And I don't know
if you feel like this. First, My my grandmother was
a hairdresser, Okay, so I was like, I didn't see
any of these terms until much much later because it
was a hot comb and blue magic.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Grease that I grew up with.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
But there's just so much innovation in hair now. I
think maybe hair is just getting a lot more weight,
so people are looking for ways to.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Do different things. T T. I'm getting ready to bring
up something that I told you about, and you were
a skeptic. What dry shampoo? Yes? I was like okay.
She was like oh, because I was like, oh, my
hair is so greasy. Just cut a bob and I
was like, I don't want to wash my hair yet,
but it's so greasy. And she was like, go pick
(15:04):
up the Amika dry shampoo. I was like, dry shampoo
is not for us, It's for someone else. She said no,
and so I was like okay, fine. So I went
and grabbed a small bottle and it has changed my life.
Like on its face, I feel like I understand what's happening,
but I really don't know what's happening because that Amika
dry shampoo has changed the game for me.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
All dry shampoos are a mixture of starches or some
sort of absorbent material. Some of them have silica Mika
dry shampoos. We tend to use rice starch, tapioca starch,
arrowroot starch. You'll see a few different ones across the collection,
and it's one of our number one products. I mean,
our dry shampoo, if I may be so bold us
(15:49):
to say, is the best.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
It is so good.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is so good, And what you want to achieve
with the dry shampoo is essentially the removal of like
oil and moisture from the root and from the scalp.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
These starches.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
If you've ever thickened a soup, you'll know that the
starches like to grab onto water and oils and that's
how they operate as a thickener, and that's pretty much
what's happening in your scalp. You put these absorbent materials
on your scalp when it's starting to get oily, or
before a workout, or even before you go to bed.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Which is a hack.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And as you start producing oils, it's going to latch
onto those oils and you can basically brush them out
of your hair, shake them out of your hair so
that you don't get a build up of oil on
the scalp. And this is beneficial for a lot of reasons,
especially for black women who press their hair, this could
be a very expensive process.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
It can take a long time.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You don't want to be doing this every two days
because it's expensive.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
You're in the chair for a while.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Also because you're just applying heat to your hair over
and over again, which can be damaging to the hair.
So dry shampoo can elongate the time between styling your hair,
which is overall like a pretty good thing for people
who don't want to add heat to their hair every day.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Who really did give us a heck? Okay, now I'm
using dry shampoo after I'm like, oh, it's already gotten bad.
But when you said before the gym and before ben
because the way I'm sweating at the back of my
neck needs to be studied. Okay, you talked about those glands,
but it's not right back there.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
There's also a lot of things that like make dry
shampoo specifically special. You know, we want to have the
right particle size so it distributes nicely. It's propelled nicely
out of a can, so you can really get it
all up in your hair. Some starches like can be
too gritty, you know, some don't observe enough, so it's
just getting that formulation just right, and then you get
(17:45):
a nice burst of fragrance.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yees, Pascal'll say, so.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Your hair smells nice and fresh.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And talking about cleaning your scalp. It really felt like
over the last like fifteen or twenty years that now
everything says salt fate free. Before then, no one was
ever talking about it, and now everything it's like, is
it saltfate free. I'm not gonna use it if it's
not salt fate free. I feel like salt fate free
is like a buzzword right now and has been for
a little while. Can you talk about why there was
(18:14):
a shift to salt fate free and what that means
for washing your hair?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
A sulfate is a type of surfactant, and a surfactant
is this word is actually a portmanteau, which is a treat.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
When I get to use the word portmanteau, it means
three academics walk into a room.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Somebody's gonna say port monteau. Okay, somebody port.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So it means surfactant means surface active agent with surfactants.
One part of it is water soluble and one part
of it is oil soluble. And so when you put
a surfactant in water, the oil soluble parts are like
I didn't sign up for this, and they just form
together into a group into a circle, and they put
(19:03):
all their little oily bits in a circle together and
kick out all the water, and then the water protects them.
It's like it forms a barricade. And this is called
a my cell. And if any of y'all have used
my cellar waters, perhaps yes. My cellar waters are basically
like very low levels of surfactin and an aqueous product
and you use it as like a no rinse makeup remover.
(19:28):
That's what the words what the word my cell means.
So my cell's form and these my cells are basically
able to grab onto all the oily bits and also
dissolve all the watery bits, so it can clean stuff,
so soaps, detergents, dishwashing detergent, all this stuff has my
cell's hand wash. So sulfates just happen to be some
(19:50):
of the stronger surfactants. Every survactant lives somewhere on this gradient.
Some people don't like strong cleansers because they can be
stripping right. However, it's it's very nuanced. Sulfates can be strong.
They can also not be that strong because sulfates are
a broad class of potentials or factors. It really just
depends on the structure of the molecules. So when we say,
(20:12):
like all selfates are bad, no, don't be silly.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Molecules are diverse.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
However, in the cosmetic space and the beauty space, certain
molecules tend to just get a bad reputation. You're looking
at any ingredient list and you're standing in the row
at Target trying to figure out your business. You don't
have time to be reading somebody's.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Thesis on solvate.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
So right, yeah, you know, it's a little easier for
consumer to be like, okay, solfates, I heard the bad
I'm not going to buy them and make that decision
for them. Doesn't necessarily mean the formula is super stripping.
It could actually be if you put one little drop
of sulfate in the ocean, it's a sulfated ocean, but
it's not going to be a strong shampoo. Hair is
(20:54):
also very emotional. You know, the whole experience of styling
your hair and it is your hair braking and hair
loss is very emotional. So purchasing products is emotional. As well,
and things are expensive, so we want people to feel
good about what they're buying, which means in some parts
like meeting them where they are.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and we want them to be informed like you
just informed everybody that's listening to Dope Labs. Basically, if
you've been washing your hair and it's not it's still
feeling greasy, it's still feeling whatever. Maybe you need more sulfate.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
You gotta do what's right for you. Yeah, And sometimes
you might really need a deep cleanse. Like it's a
hot summer day, you've been at the beach, you have
twenty five layers of dry shampoo up and there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I want to talk about, which I just posted about yesterday.
My hairstylist is an Amica Girley, but she was telling
me the same way that you talked.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
About how the dry shampoo worked. She was telling me
about this anti humidity spray. Because I'm in Atlanta and
the girls are wearing you know, bust down part in
the middle thirty inches. Now, that's okay if that's a
quick weave or sewing or something, right, But when it's
your hair and you hit that humidity and my cuticle
(22:09):
begins to swell as you said, and from point A
to point now, when I do it, my hair is poofy.
But when she does it and I go out, it
could be drizzling. I could just put a little paper
up and I'm okay. And I was like, what are
you using?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And so she sent me this picture like this is
what you need, and it was the Mica anti humidity spray.
The shield.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
The shield. The shield is so good. She really is
that girl. She is shielding your hair from humidity.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So we we actually just launched a new anti frize
humidity product.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
So how does the shield work?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And so both products they work similarly, but they're different
formats for different use cases, but you can also use
them together. So the shield essentially has technology in there
that when you spray it onto your hair. I would
spray it on when it's like almost dryer dry style
to finish it and lock it in when you're doing
your last couple presses with the flat iron, because it's
(23:06):
got this technology that is going to crosslink once you
apply heat to it and form what's essentially like a
bit of a plasticized layer on the surface of your
hair that provides like an umbrella for shield. Yes, and
then we took this to the next level with our
newest product, which is more of a leven. So you
put it on when your hair is damp, and you
(23:27):
can use them both at the same time. You put
on when your hair is damp. It has these next
generations silicone polymers in there that have multiple blocks on
them for different reasons. You've got silicone blocks that basically
provide softness to the hair. You've got a cross linking
block that when you apply heat, these polymers basically stick
to each other. They cross link and they form a
(23:47):
flexible film on the hair. And when you form this
film on the hair and you heat treat it into
the hair, you're basically creating a layer on the surface
of the cuticle that's going to prevent humidity from getting
into the hair.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
No weapon formed against me, no weapon. This is actually
the weapon. As soon as as a kid tells me
to get something, I get it. And so I am
using all those things, and my shield spray is on
the web. TT is using a lot of product in general.
(24:30):
I use a lot of product in general all the
time for everything, and I'm just I really need to
dial some of this stuff back.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I think what we've learned is that not every product
works for everybody, And so I would love for you
to talk a little bit about what you're gonna find
working for different people, like porosity, pH texture, Like you
just said, like if you have curly hair, you're gonna
want more conditioner to reduce that strain that's already inherent
(24:57):
in that curl pattern. So I think you just want
to help people understand, like what might work for this
general class or this general feature, what kind of products
might work for you versus others.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Hair is so complex because when you think about skincare,
it's kind of easier to work in product development. Everybody
has the same goals clear skin, no dark spots, no wrinkles.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Well, with hair, everybody has different goals and everybody has
different starting points, which means there's so many concoctions and
things you can do and routines and what you might
want your hair to look like on Monday might be
different than on Tuesday, and say there'sday Friday. It's always changing.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You might want to serve in different personalities.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, and that's also kind of the beauty of afrotectured
hair because there's so many possibilities you can be so
many different people, and it's so versatile. I really like
the way that Amika structures our products because they're by
goals thereby objectives. So when you shop for our products,
(26:00):
it's I want volume, I want detox, I want strength, repair,
I will need hydration, I need more moisture, and you
kind of shop based on the benefit that you're searching for,
and that's kind of like one way to figure out
what makes sense for you, what do you want your
hair to do? And then styling it gets even more complicated.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Is it straight? Is it this?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Do I need humidity? What climate do I live? And
it's if you all talk about needing the shield and
anti frizz as a function of your environment, So you
reach for those products that serve those specific needs. So
there's no right and wrong product for people. I really
think it's based off of what does.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Your hair need?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
What are your goals? What do you want to do
with your hair? And then the second layer of it
is like what is the condition of your hair? And
that's going to also help you choose. So I have
very thin, fine, very porous hair, and when your hair
is porous, that basically means have bigger gaps in your cuticle.
That could be one reason. It could also be porous
(27:01):
because it's been damaged by bleach or by pollution or
by sheets that m Yeah, because we got free radicals
up in here. I live in New York City. We
got sun damage. We have free radicals getting in there
and damage and all the caratan and all that kind
of stuff. So your hair ages as well because you
(27:24):
know of the environment. A lot of how your hair
shows up is just the techniques you use to style it,
especially as someone who wears my hair naturally curly, like
pretty much one hundred percent of the time. So you
could have really super super fine hair and you don't
want to weigh it down, so you want to look
for products that are going to not weigh the hair down.
(27:44):
Or My sister, on the other hand, has very low
porosity hair. I have high perosity hair, which means that
if you put a lightweight gel on her hair, it's
just like, nope, not today. It just rolls right off
into the garbage. It does not staying on the hair
because her hair is so like the lipid coating on
(28:05):
the surface of her hair and the primary lipid on
the surface of your hair by the way is called
eighteen MEA. That's eighteen methyl like heisenoic acid that lipid layers.
For some people is just it's just stuck on there.
It's happy, it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
We have a mutual friend Britney. She will put that
edge control, that hair will lay down. They'll let jail
and swoop. I don't like skin.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yes, I had a silk press. She put that whatever
she was using on her, that jail she was using.
My hair curled right up at the root. I was like,
too much moisture. I don't know what you did, but
now swollen cuticles.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Okay, now I have a problem. Can you talk to
us more about like hair technology that you see like
coming down the pike, or hair technology that excites you
that you want people to know about.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
I am really excited about some of the sustainability innovations.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
That's what gets me going personally.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I would love to see a lot of the materials
that we use in haircare us continuing to find regenerative
sources of those materials that are.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Going to continue to be fantastic for the Earth.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Something I came across the other day that was really
interesting was a company that's using photosynthesis to create materials.
So they have this synthetic photosynthesis process that is a
carbon capture process, So you use carbon and water as
your feedstocks CO two and water and you're able to
create ingredients via photosynthetic mechanisms by using these like bioengineered plants,
(29:37):
so you can create a carbon negative ingredient for the
cosmetics industry. Like, how amazing would that be? I think
the company is called Arborea, So shout out to Arborea.
Hopefully I represented your technology correctly because I saw it
and I thought it was so cool. Something else that
we're doing at a MICA, which is a partnership that
will continue to roll out and chat about in the
(29:59):
coming months and years, but we're working with a regenerative
agriculture company that space in Africa, which regenerative agriculture essentially
means that we're ensuring that the soil is regenerative, that
the communities are regenerative, that the farmers are regenerative for
generations to come. We're able to actually support local economies
(30:20):
in various farms in Africa, and they are creating ingredients
that are very common to the cosmetics industry and in
dogens to the regions, such as shade butter and avocado
oil and babbab oil. So we're working to actually integrate
some of their materials into our supply chain, not just
because we love shade butter and it's great for the hair,
(30:40):
but because we want them to get into the US
supply chain. We want to enable them to not just
provide us with ingredients, but to provide other brands with ingredients.
You'll hear people talking about biotech derived ingredients, which is
like the new way we're describing kind of fermentation derived materials,
and like fermentation has been happening since the beginning of time.
(31:02):
People have been drinking wine for a very long time,
but we've sort of rebranded it as biotech, which it
is biotech, I mean ultimately, but really it's kind of
engineered fermentation to tell a microorganism to produce a certain
protein or a certain peptide. So examples of this are
there's an interesting company called Both Threads. They're producing this
(31:24):
bioengineered spider silk, which is like very cool, very interesting
material for skin and hair.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
So put wine in your hair. I got it, Okay,
So that's not what she's said.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I mean, you can packet with some resveratrol.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
You polyphenols protect from those free radicals you know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Tit and I have seen you go from graduate student
who now product development extraordinary in the haircare industry. And
I think one of the things we love is for
people to understand, like the day to day what you're
using around you, there's science all in it, and so
I'd love for you to talk a little bit about
how you're leveraging some of the science you know in
(32:05):
your role.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I love to talk about science, and I do use
science all the time. Understanding that hair is a material
is very important in my role, and I actually started
my career in material science and materials engineering creating surfaces
that are super hydrophobic, meaning they can repel water and
(32:27):
other complex liquids as well. And most of hair care,
as we described with the Shield and our new Frisbee,
not antiphrase hydrating treatment, is about making the hair hydrophobic
and protected so that you can have shiny hair, softer hair,
conditioned hair, hair that resists humidity. That's a pretty much
(32:48):
the goal of a lot of styling products. So my
career in material science has been really helpful in my
understanding of hair care. It's very related and I am
my PhD. I studied colloid chemistry, surfactants, the underlying mechanisms
of how products are made. I mean we have to
use emulsion chemistry all the time with product development, and
(33:13):
by and large, I would say doing a PhD just
helps me learn and understand science very quickly and like
logically think through whether something is feasible. A lot of
formula development product development, Like there's a lot of ideas
and there's a lot of good ideas, and I mean
all ideas are good ideas, but not all ideas like
(33:33):
will abide by the laws of science, physics and chemistry.
Product development's also about quality, you know, stability of products,
all that stuff. It's it's helpful to have a technical
background for sure.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Labs podcast dt is on X and Instagram at dr Underscore,
t Shoe, and you can find Takiya at Z said so.
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our senior
supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate producer is
Isara Savez. Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed
(34:18):
by James farber Lamanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and
Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is
Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed
and produced by Taka Yatsuzawa and Alex suji Ura, with
additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs is executive produced
(34:41):
by US T T Show, Dia and Kia Wattley.
I'm t T and I'm Zakiyah and this is Dope Labs.
Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore
science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.
Me and you have had a lot of hair adventures together.
(00:29):
Yes we have, Okay, okay, so like from cutting our
own hair, we both did that. I remember the last
time I cut my own hair. I facetimed you and
was like, I'm about to cut my hair. Watch. Yes,
it looked good. I remember you cut my hair. Oh
my gosh. We were doing things that really could just
(00:49):
be described as edgy. Yes, I mean, in the beginning
of our friendship, we were putting a lot of stuff
on our hair. I have to admit that I was
giving some not so awesome. You were driving advice, you
had me. I was making pastries and then you were
talking about greenhousing, putting a bag on there from my head, yes,
(01:13):
growing mold on our scalps. It was a tough time,
but it was a sign of the times because we
were all on YouTube just taking advice from anybody, anyone.
It felt like they were experts, but really they just
had a YouTube channel. But my bad for all of them,
I trusted your tt I trusted you. All this thinking
about hair, where we've come from, what we're still doing
(01:35):
and is questionable.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You know, we're doing all this stuff just to get
healthy hair right, and that feels like a great topic.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, I love that. So let's jump into the recitation.
Let's start with what we know. Okay, So we know
that the haircare industry has their hands deep down in
our pockets. Oh, that's what we know. I know that
they're making a lot of money, and it feels like
(02:03):
every five to ten business days there's a new product
claiming that it's going to revolutionize our lives. And we've
never seen anything so good, and my bank account feels it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I said, you're trying to many things. You're trying too
many things. But I think we've also seen hair go
through this like scientification process. I don't know if that's
really the word I'm looking for, but where we see
people understanding that all hair is not created equal and
there's different you know, curl types, porosity, texture. So I
feel like we know hair is different from one person
(02:35):
to the next.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Absolutely, my friend Zakia can literally shave her head in
January and have hair down her back by March. Okay,
bust out. Okay, this hair does grow back fast, it does.
And me, on the other hand, I'm babies in these
twelve hairs that I got honey stock. I'm just taking
care of my little children here.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
No, no, because I've seen the twist out and it's glorious.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, I've seen the washing and go. When you do
that too, it has washed and left.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Okay, it's no longer here. Well, what do we want
to know aside from what happened to those hairs?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Right? I'm not a biologist, you know, I'm an engineer,
So I want to know the biology breakdown of hair,
Like what is it made of? People say it's dead cells,
but then they're like, cut off your dead ends. I'm like,
is it doubly dead?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Like?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
How can both these things be true at the same time.
I don't know. I think I want to understand, Like
I understand the biology, but I want to understand the
chemistry of like what are we putting on our hair?
What can help it be healthy if it is dead?
What should we be thinking about when I'm standing in
Alta looking at all the different products Because me, I'm
(03:44):
a sucker for design I'm like, what does a bottle
look like? Okay, but aesthetics, but I need.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
To know functional, what's happening in these bottles and what
do I need to have on my hair?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well. I also want to know more about hair technology
and what we should be thinking about when we are
using products and how it affects our hair in the
long term and our bodies too. Yes, yes, that is
such a good point. I think that's a great place
for us to jump right into the dissection. Yes, and
(04:17):
this is another really special lab for us because we
have it with one of our longtime friends, doctor Sicily
shilling Ford.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I am doctor Cicely shilling Forward. I'm the Associate vice
president of Product Development, Innovation and Regulatory at Amica. We
are a global prestige haircare company that makes hair products
for all hair types and textures. You can find us
sets of Foura on Amazon if you are a cosmetologist
at cosmoprof and salon Centric. You can follow me on
(04:51):
Instagram at Cicely shilling Ford or on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I think we want to just set the stage, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I think people are always used in the term healthy here,
good here, and they all mean different things. But we
want you to walk us through what's actually happening on
a healthy scalp, like at the microscopic level, so we
can all get on the same page. I think sometimes
people think it's too early, it's too dry, it should
be slicked down. I'm like, none of that probably has
(05:18):
anything to do well, at least not the edge just
part with a healthy scalp.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
But we'll have you orient us first.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I think, first of all, health can be a little
bit subjective, obviously in a lot of ways. So what
might feel healthy to someone might not be exactly healthy
to somebody else. But I think there's some basic things
that like are probably pretty obvious, Like a healthy scalp
is a clean scalp.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
We can start there.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
You know, one that's free of product build up, that's
not caked in conditioning agents and oils and.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
All that stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
A healthy scalp is also going to be a scalp
that is balanced. And I know we got some micro
biologists up in here. Your scalp has its own microbiome.
As both of you probably know, throughout your body, you
have different micro environments everywhere, and the scalp is its
own unique micro environment, and that means you want certain
(06:14):
organisms that are there, and you want certain organisms that
are not there, and you want to maintain that balance.
And that balance might be different for different people, and
that's totally okay. You have super thick, dense hair. I mean,
those bacteria they love hanging out in there. It's like
the Amazon rainforest, so there's moisture oil and they have
(06:36):
everything they need to drive. So that means you have
to treat your scalp differently depending on your hair type.
Hair that's clean hair that has a robust barrier that
can protect it from the external environment and from external stressors.
But in general, you want your hair to be protected
because we're exposed to sun pollution, and healthy hair has
(06:56):
that protective barrier, so that's what's going to keep it
healthy as well. And then the healthy hair is also strong.
It's robust, it's able to resist breakage and can be
stretched and maintain its elasticity without breaking easily.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
First of all, I hear about here all the time,
but nobody's getting into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
So we have hair follicles all of our scalp, right,
And I like to describe the structure of the hair
as akin to a scallion. So we've all seen a scallion.
There's like a little white bulb at the bottom, there's
the little dangly roots hanging off, and then you have
like these layers of green, concentric kind of things coming out,
(07:36):
and it's the shaft of the hair as well, right,
And if when scallions grow, they're under a layer of
soil and the bulb is under the layer of soil,
it literally looks just like a hair follicle. So picture
that your soil is your skin, the roots of the
scallion are your blood vessels, you know, all the nutrients
that are being provided. And then the bulb is quite
(07:56):
literally called your hair bulb. And so that hair bulb
has multiple layers, similar to a scalion. Like you can
peel back all the layers, and that first outer layer
is called your outer root sheath, and that's going to
contain a lot of the stem cells that differentiate into
hair cells.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Now, if you've listened to some of our previous episodes,
you'll know that stem cells have important properties. They can
make more cells like themselves, and they can make different
types of seals, and that's called differentiation, So they can
go on to be different types of sale, not just
the one that they start out as they choose in.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And then you have the inner root sheath, which is
like one layer in and that's really what's surrounding kind
of the base of the actual hair that's being formed.
And at the very bottom of the inner root sheath,
it encases the hair bulb. And within the hair bulb
you have the dermal papilla. That part is the super
important place in the inside the hair bulb. That is
(08:55):
basically what's delivering all the nutrients to the growing hair.
And that dermal pilla is made up of mesenchymal cells.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
So we just talked about stem cells, which can differentiate
into lots of different types of cells. Mesenchymal stem cells
are limited in that they can only differentiate into a
few different types MMM. So they're being investigated for their
role in hair regeneration and treatment of hair loss.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
That's where all.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
The like kind of blood vessels are like flowing all
the nutrients in, and that's where the hair starts to form.
And the hair honestly is like ninety percent keratin. That's
predominantly what's forming inside of the hair follicle. And when
you kind of like pluck a hair out, and like
you see a little like white stuff at the bottom
and right you're pulling out the hair follicle. You're kind
(09:41):
of just like pulling out the keratin that hasn't really
formed into the hair yet, and like the other gungkin nutrients.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
That's good. See you remember I had those lemonade brightes
T T.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And the little white bulbs were just dangling, okay, And
I was like, these are follics, But those weren't follicles.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Those were hair bulbs using the wrong warbles follicle as
the whole.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
So what's left, So there's some other things happening in
the hair follicle. You've got your sebaceous glands. Those are
what produced your sebum and you're sweat.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
So what is sebum.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
It's the specific blend of oils and lipids that form
both within the hair and actually on the outside of
the hair. So you actually have two classes of lipids
in your hair. You have endogenous lipids, these are the
ones that go inside the core of the hair, and
then you've got your exogynous slippets.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Those are all the oils and.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Fats that actually like coat the outside of the hair
and sort of drip down the hair and keep your
hair lubricated and moist and shiny. And those are formed
in the hair follicle as well. And then you have
you have your erector pili muscle, and that's a little
muscle that like controlled you know, like when you get
(10:58):
startled in your hair stands up. Yeah, that's your like
your muscle. There's like a muscle in there, and it
like makes the hair stand up.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
That hair is really working. And that was all just
the follicle, right, keep going sistly. Let's move out of
the root and into the shaft.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
So now we're on the green part of the scallion
as it starts to grow out of the soil. And
your hair shaft basically has three layers within the scallion.
The innermost layer is called the medulla. And not all
hair has this innermost layer. It's not often present if
your hair is very thin. Often the thicker hairs have it.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Also, not all the hair on your body has this layer.
Then the next layer outside the medulla is the cortex,
and that's basically like your bundles of keratin that are
in all these helical formations, so they're just bundled up
nice and strong, and then the outer layer of the
hair is called the cuticle. And the cuticle is made
(11:57):
up of overlapping dead caratinocytes, which a caratinocyte is a
keratin producing cell, and those cells sort of flatten themselves
onto the hair shaft as it grows out of the skin.
And that's the outer layer of the hair. It's the
protective layer. It's like the skin on an onion. That
is the first line of defense against aggressors. And that
(12:19):
layer of hair also has a lipid layer. Now, mind you,
hair is still about ninety percent keraten. It's mostly keratin,
which is responsible for the strength of the mechanical properties.
The lipids are responsible for that barrier. They're going to
really keep the hair shiny smooth. And there are some
(12:39):
main lipids on the hair. It has seramides. We also
have fatty acids, cholesterols, and the most also important in
your skin.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
This is making me think of when TT used to
make me make hair concoctions in grad school. And I
don't know why she's that night. She doesn't understand hair
now because she was giving out prescriptions. Hey, I was
just I was on YouTube a lot and they was
saying put eggs in your hair, put mayonnaise in your hair,
put everything in your hair. So I just was dumping
my entire fridge into my hair and was telling my
(13:26):
friend to do the same thing.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
And how did that work out for you?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
You know, that's a good question. As I sit here
with my six hairs. You know there were there were
mistakes made, but we're learning from you.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
So but you know, all the aunties still be doing that.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You know, they're mixing and they're kitching their shades and
their coconut oils, and you know, to.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Each their own. Sometimes you gotta find what works for you.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
When I hear you saying this stuff, like when you
mentioned cholestero, I was like, okay, I can think of
these things. When I hear you sam rhapnocyites which are
making keratin, I'm like, yes, I see all the things
that stay with keratin or this has this and ceremonise.
I see all of these terms, you know, and it feels.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Like the beauty industry just picks up one puts it down,
picks up another puts it down. And I don't know
if you feel like this. First, My my grandmother was
a hairdresser, Okay, so I was like, I didn't see
any of these terms until much much later because it
was a hot comb and blue magic.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Grease that I grew up with.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
But there's just so much innovation in hair now. I
think maybe hair is just getting a lot more weight,
so people are looking for ways to.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Do different things. T T. I'm getting ready to bring
up something that I told you about, and you were
a skeptic. What dry shampoo? Yes? I was like okay.
She was like oh, because I was like, oh, my
hair is so greasy. Just cut a bob and I
was like, I don't want to wash my hair yet,
but it's so greasy. And she was like, go pick
(15:04):
up the Amika dry shampoo. I was like, dry shampoo
is not for us, It's for someone else. She said no,
and so I was like okay, fine. So I went
and grabbed a small bottle and it has changed my life.
Like on its face, I feel like I understand what's happening,
but I really don't know what's happening because that Amika
dry shampoo has changed the game for me.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
All dry shampoos are a mixture of starches or some
sort of absorbent material. Some of them have silica Mika
dry shampoos. We tend to use rice starch, tapioca starch,
arrowroot starch. You'll see a few different ones across the collection,
and it's one of our number one products. I mean,
our dry shampoo, if I may be so bold us
(15:49):
to say, is the best.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
It is so good.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is so good, And what you want to achieve
with the dry shampoo is essentially the removal of like
oil and moisture from the root and from the scalp.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
These starches.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
If you've ever thickened a soup, you'll know that the
starches like to grab onto water and oils and that's
how they operate as a thickener, and that's pretty much
what's happening in your scalp. You put these absorbent materials
on your scalp when it's starting to get oily, or
before a workout, or even before you go to bed.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Which is a hack.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And as you start producing oils, it's going to latch
onto those oils and you can basically brush them out
of your hair, shake them out of your hair so
that you don't get a build up of oil on
the scalp. And this is beneficial for a lot of reasons,
especially for black women who press their hair, this could
be a very expensive process.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
It can take a long time.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
You don't want to be doing this every two days
because it's expensive.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
You're in the chair for a while.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Also because you're just applying heat to your hair over
and over again, which can be damaging to the hair.
So dry shampoo can elongate the time between styling your hair,
which is overall like a pretty good thing for people
who don't want to add heat to their hair every day.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Who really did give us a heck? Okay, now I'm
using dry shampoo after I'm like, oh, it's already gotten bad.
But when you said before the gym and before ben
because the way I'm sweating at the back of my
neck needs to be studied. Okay, you talked about those glands,
but it's not right back there.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
There's also a lot of things that like make dry
shampoo specifically special. You know, we want to have the
right particle size so it distributes nicely. It's propelled nicely
out of a can, so you can really get it
all up in your hair. Some starches like can be
too gritty, you know, some don't observe enough, so it's
just getting that formulation just right, and then you get
(17:45):
a nice burst of fragrance.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yees, Pascal'll say, so.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
Your hair smells nice and fresh.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
And talking about cleaning your scalp. It really felt like
over the last like fifteen or twenty years that now
everything says salt fate free. Before then, no one was
ever talking about it, and now everything it's like, is
it saltfate free. I'm not gonna use it if it's
not salt fate free. I feel like salt fate free
is like a buzzword right now and has been for
a little while. Can you talk about why there was
(18:14):
a shift to salt fate free and what that means
for washing your hair?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
A sulfate is a type of surfactant, and a surfactant
is this word is actually a portmanteau, which is a treat.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
When I get to use the word portmanteau, it means
three academics walk into a room.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Somebody's gonna say port monteau. Okay, somebody port.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So it means surfactant means surface active agent with surfactants.
One part of it is water soluble and one part
of it is oil soluble. And so when you put
a surfactant in water, the oil soluble parts are like
I didn't sign up for this, and they just form
together into a group into a circle, and they put
(19:03):
all their little oily bits in a circle together and
kick out all the water, and then the water protects them.
It's like it forms a barricade. And this is called
a my cell. And if any of y'all have used
my cellar waters, perhaps yes. My cellar waters are basically
like very low levels of surfactin and an aqueous product
and you use it as like a no rinse makeup remover.
(19:28):
That's what the words what the word my cell means.
So my cell's form and these my cells are basically
able to grab onto all the oily bits and also
dissolve all the watery bits, so it can clean stuff,
so soaps, detergents, dishwashing detergent, all this stuff has my
cell's hand wash. So sulfates just happen to be some
(19:50):
of the stronger surfactants. Every survactant lives somewhere on this gradient.
Some people don't like strong cleansers because they can be
stripping right. However, it's it's very nuanced. Sulfates can be strong.
They can also not be that strong because sulfates are
a broad class of potentials or factors. It really just
depends on the structure of the molecules. So when we say,
(20:12):
like all selfates are bad, no, don't be silly.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Molecules are diverse.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
However, in the cosmetic space and the beauty space, certain
molecules tend to just get a bad reputation. You're looking
at any ingredient list and you're standing in the row
at Target trying to figure out your business. You don't
have time to be reading somebody's.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Thesis on solvate.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
So right, yeah, you know, it's a little easier for
consumer to be like, okay, solfates, I heard the bad
I'm not going to buy them and make that decision
for them. Doesn't necessarily mean the formula is super stripping.
It could actually be if you put one little drop
of sulfate in the ocean, it's a sulfated ocean, but
it's not going to be a strong shampoo. Hair is
(20:54):
also very emotional. You know, the whole experience of styling
your hair and it is your hair braking and hair
loss is very emotional. So purchasing products is emotional. As well,
and things are expensive, so we want people to feel
good about what they're buying, which means in some parts
like meeting them where they are.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, and we want them to be informed like you
just informed everybody that's listening to Dope Labs. Basically, if
you've been washing your hair and it's not it's still
feeling greasy, it's still feeling whatever. Maybe you need more sulfate.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
You gotta do what's right for you. Yeah, And sometimes
you might really need a deep cleanse. Like it's a
hot summer day, you've been at the beach, you have
twenty five layers of dry shampoo up and there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I want to talk about, which I just posted about yesterday.
My hairstylist is an Amica Girley, but she was telling
me the same way that you talked.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
About how the dry shampoo worked. She was telling me
about this anti humidity spray. Because I'm in Atlanta and
the girls are wearing you know, bust down part in
the middle thirty inches. Now, that's okay if that's a
quick weave or sewing or something, right, But when it's
your hair and you hit that humidity and my cuticle
(22:09):
begins to swell as you said, and from point A
to point now, when I do it, my hair is poofy.
But when she does it and I go out, it
could be drizzling. I could just put a little paper
up and I'm okay. And I was like, what are
you using?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And so she sent me this picture like this is
what you need, and it was the Mica anti humidity spray.
The shield.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
The shield. The shield is so good. She really is
that girl. She is shielding your hair from humidity.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So we we actually just launched a new anti frize
humidity product.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
So how does the shield work?
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And so both products they work similarly, but they're different
formats for different use cases, but you can also use
them together. So the shield essentially has technology in there
that when you spray it onto your hair. I would
spray it on when it's like almost dryer dry style
to finish it and lock it in when you're doing
your last couple presses with the flat iron, because it's
(23:06):
got this technology that is going to crosslink once you
apply heat to it and form what's essentially like a
bit of a plasticized layer on the surface of your
hair that provides like an umbrella for shield. Yes, and
then we took this to the next level with our
newest product, which is more of a leven. So you
put it on when your hair is damp, and you
(23:27):
can use them both at the same time. You put
on when your hair is damp. It has these next
generations silicone polymers in there that have multiple blocks on
them for different reasons. You've got silicone blocks that basically
provide softness to the hair. You've got a cross linking
block that when you apply heat, these polymers basically stick
to each other. They cross link and they form a
(23:47):
flexible film on the hair. And when you form this
film on the hair and you heat treat it into
the hair, you're basically creating a layer on the surface
of the cuticle that's going to prevent humidity from getting
into the hair.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
No weapon formed against me, no weapon. This is actually
the weapon. As soon as as a kid tells me
to get something, I get it. And so I am
using all those things, and my shield spray is on
the web. TT is using a lot of product in general.
(24:30):
I use a lot of product in general all the
time for everything, and I'm just I really need to
dial some of this stuff back.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
I think what we've learned is that not every product
works for everybody, And so I would love for you
to talk a little bit about what you're gonna find
working for different people, like porosity, pH texture, Like you
just said, like if you have curly hair, you're gonna
want more conditioner to reduce that strain that's already inherent
(24:57):
in that curl pattern. So I think you just want
to help people understand, like what might work for this
general class or this general feature, what kind of products
might work for you versus others.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Hair is so complex because when you think about skincare,
it's kind of easier to work in product development. Everybody
has the same goals clear skin, no dark spots, no wrinkles.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Well, with hair, everybody has different goals and everybody has
different starting points, which means there's so many concoctions and
things you can do and routines and what you might
want your hair to look like on Monday might be
different than on Tuesday, and say there'sday Friday. It's always changing.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You might want to serve in different personalities.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, and that's also kind of the beauty of afrotectured
hair because there's so many possibilities you can be so
many different people, and it's so versatile. I really like
the way that Amika structures our products because they're by
goals thereby objectives. So when you shop for our products,
(26:00):
it's I want volume, I want detox, I want strength, repair,
I will need hydration, I need more moisture, and you
kind of shop based on the benefit that you're searching for,
and that's kind of like one way to figure out
what makes sense for you, what do you want your
hair to do? And then styling it gets even more complicated.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Is it straight? Is it this?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Do I need humidity? What climate do I live? And
it's if you all talk about needing the shield and
anti frizz as a function of your environment, So you
reach for those products that serve those specific needs. So
there's no right and wrong product for people. I really
think it's based off of what does.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Your hair need?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
What are your goals? What do you want to do
with your hair? And then the second layer of it
is like what is the condition of your hair? And
that's going to also help you choose. So I have
very thin, fine, very porous hair, and when your hair
is porous, that basically means have bigger gaps in your cuticle.
That could be one reason. It could also be porous
(27:01):
because it's been damaged by bleach or by pollution or
by sheets that m Yeah, because we got free radicals
up in here. I live in New York City. We
got sun damage. We have free radicals getting in there
and damage and all the caratan and all that kind
of stuff. So your hair ages as well because you
(27:24):
know of the environment. A lot of how your hair
shows up is just the techniques you use to style it,
especially as someone who wears my hair naturally curly, like
pretty much one hundred percent of the time. So you
could have really super super fine hair and you don't
want to weigh it down, so you want to look
for products that are going to not weigh the hair down.
(27:44):
Or My sister, on the other hand, has very low
porosity hair. I have high perosity hair, which means that
if you put a lightweight gel on her hair, it's
just like, nope, not today. It just rolls right off
into the garbage. It does not staying on the hair
because her hair is so like the lipid coating on
(28:05):
the surface of her hair and the primary lipid on
the surface of your hair by the way is called
eighteen MEA. That's eighteen methyl like heisenoic acid that lipid layers.
For some people is just it's just stuck on there.
It's happy, it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
We have a mutual friend Britney. She will put that
edge control, that hair will lay down. They'll let jail
and swoop. I don't like skin.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yes, I had a silk press. She put that whatever
she was using on her, that jail she was using.
My hair curled right up at the root. I was like,
too much moisture. I don't know what you did, but
now swollen cuticles.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Okay, now I have a problem. Can you talk to
us more about like hair technology that you see like
coming down the pike, or hair technology that excites you
that you want people to know about.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
I am really excited about some of the sustainability innovations.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
That's what gets me going personally.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I would love to see a lot of the materials
that we use in haircare us continuing to find regenerative
sources of those materials that are.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
Going to continue to be fantastic for the Earth.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Something I came across the other day that was really
interesting was a company that's using photosynthesis to create materials.
So they have this synthetic photosynthesis process that is a
carbon capture process, So you use carbon and water as
your feedstocks CO two and water and you're able to
create ingredients via photosynthetic mechanisms by using these like bioengineered plants,
(29:37):
so you can create a carbon negative ingredient for the
cosmetics industry. Like, how amazing would that be? I think
the company is called Arborea, So shout out to Arborea.
Hopefully I represented your technology correctly because I saw it
and I thought it was so cool. Something else that
we're doing at a MICA, which is a partnership that
will continue to roll out and chat about in the
(29:59):
coming months and years, but we're working with a regenerative
agriculture company that space in Africa, which regenerative agriculture essentially
means that we're ensuring that the soil is regenerative, that
the communities are regenerative, that the farmers are regenerative for
generations to come. We're able to actually support local economies
(30:20):
in various farms in Africa, and they are creating ingredients
that are very common to the cosmetics industry and in
dogens to the regions, such as shade butter and avocado
oil and babbab oil. So we're working to actually integrate
some of their materials into our supply chain, not just
because we love shade butter and it's great for the hair,
(30:40):
but because we want them to get into the US
supply chain. We want to enable them to not just
provide us with ingredients, but to provide other brands with ingredients.
You'll hear people talking about biotech derived ingredients, which is
like the new way we're describing kind of fermentation derived materials,
and like fermentation has been happening since the beginning of time.
(31:02):
People have been drinking wine for a very long time,
but we've sort of rebranded it as biotech, which it
is biotech, I mean ultimately, but really it's kind of
engineered fermentation to tell a microorganism to produce a certain
protein or a certain peptide. So examples of this are
there's an interesting company called Both Threads. They're producing this
(31:24):
bioengineered spider silk, which is like very cool, very interesting
material for skin and hair.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
So put wine in your hair. I got it, Okay,
So that's not what she's said.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
I mean, you can packet with some resveratrol.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
You polyphenols protect from those free radicals you know.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Tit and I have seen you go from graduate student
who now product development extraordinary in the haircare industry. And
I think one of the things we love is for
people to understand, like the day to day what you're
using around you, there's science all in it, and so
I'd love for you to talk a little bit about
how you're leveraging some of the science you know in
(32:05):
your role.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I love to talk about science, and I do use
science all the time. Understanding that hair is a material
is very important in my role, and I actually started
my career in material science and materials engineering creating surfaces
that are super hydrophobic, meaning they can repel water and
(32:27):
other complex liquids as well. And most of hair care,
as we described with the Shield and our new Frisbee,
not antiphrase hydrating treatment, is about making the hair hydrophobic
and protected so that you can have shiny hair, softer hair,
conditioned hair, hair that resists humidity. That's a pretty much
(32:48):
the goal of a lot of styling products. So my
career in material science has been really helpful in my
understanding of hair care. It's very related and I am
my PhD. I studied colloid chemistry, surfactants, the underlying mechanisms
of how products are made. I mean we have to
use emulsion chemistry all the time with product development, and
(33:13):
by and large, I would say doing a PhD just
helps me learn and understand science very quickly and like
logically think through whether something is feasible. A lot of
formula development product development, Like there's a lot of ideas
and there's a lot of good ideas, and I mean
all ideas are good ideas, but not all ideas like
(33:33):
will abide by the laws of science, physics and chemistry.
Product development's also about quality, you know, stability of products,
all that stuff. It's it's helpful to have a technical
background for sure.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
You can find us on X and Instagram at Dope
Labs podcast dt is on X and Instagram at dr Underscore,
t Shoe, and you can find Takiya at Z said so.
Dope Labs is a production of Lamanada Media. Our senior
supervising producer is Kristin Lapour and our associate producer is
Isara Savez. Dope Labs is sound design, edited and mixed
(34:18):
by James farber Lamanada Media's Vice President of Partnerships and
Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart Podcast is
Katrina Norvil. Marketing lead is Alison Kanter. Original music composed
and produced by Taka Yatsuzawa and Alex suji Ura, with
additional music by Elijah Harvey. Dope Labs is executive produced
(34:41):
by US T T Show, Dia and Kia Wattley.
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