Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2022 June 20

= June 20 =

hair care
just reading this article and wondering under hair cleaning section it says Sulfate free shampoos are less harming on color treated hair than normal shampoos that contain sulfates. Sulfates strip away natural oils as well as hair dye. Sulfates are also responsible for the foaming effect of shampoos. Shampoos have a pH of between 4 & 6. Acidic shampoos are the most common type used and maintain or improve the condition of the hair as they don't swell the hairshaft and don't strip the natural oils. My question is this saying that sulfate free shampoos are better for you and how do you know if shampoo is acidic by what this is saying in reference? In the reference it says Shampoos have a ph of between 4 and 6 and don’t contain soap. Sapless shampoos are acidic and therefore closer to the natural ph of hair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_care 124.148.99.241 (talk) 17:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * "Sapless" is a typo for "soapless". The cited source actually copied its information literally from Wikipedia (not acknowledging its origin), so citing it on Wikipedia to support the information in our article is an instance of citogenesis. I have therefore removed the reference. The "harm" supposedly done by sulfates is specifically for colour-treated hair, and from the next sentence I understand that the "harm" is that they wash away the dye – which is actually a good thing if you have gotten tired of having blue hair. Unless the manufacturer writes the pH of their product on the bottle or package, or publishes it on their website, your best bet is to write them for the information, or to find a chemist who sells blue litmus paper, which you can use at home to test if a solution is acidic – if it is, the paper will turn red. --Lambiam 07:12, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Or you can squeeze out the juice of a red cabbage and mix it with some water and shampoo. If it turns a reddish purple, the shampoo solution is acidic; it it remains bluish, it is pH-neutral or basic. --Lambiam 07:24, 21 June 2022 (UTC)