Do deep conditioning products work better on damp hair?

DaveStone

Many of those deep conditioner masks advise you to use while hair is damp. Would they not be effective if hair is dry?

Abdullah

Who advise so?

I think it works better if hair is dry.

grapefruit22

You mean rinse-off hair masks? It's definitely easier to spread them on wet hair, and you have to rinse them anyway, so it's better to do it after washing your hair instead of before.

Paprik

I guess the water lifts hair cuticles, therefore the product can "get in" easier. 

ketchito

Also, you need some media to let conditioning agents diffuse...it'd be like trying to swim in a pool with no water (not sure this is a good analogy, though 😅)

Paprik

Lol @ketchito, I am reading this at little bit after 6 am and ... it is a deep thought ... 

ketchito

Paprik said:

Lol @ketchito, I am reading this at little bit after 6 am and ... it is a deep thought ... 

  

Abdullah

ketchito said:

Also, you need some media to let conditioning agents diffuse...it'd be like trying to swim in a pool with no water (not sure this is a good analogy, though 😅)

Can you explain it a bit more. 

I couldn't understand it 😁

ketchito

@Abdullah No worries! So, conditioning agents to go where they're supposed to go, need certain media (polar) to move and diffuse, and water is the perfect media...also, to keep both hair and conditioning agents in the right ionic state for deposition to occur. If your hair is dry, you won't have this available (except for the water from your product and the one that is bound to the most external layer of your hair, which is barely enough). An exception to this are anhydrous oils, which composition is obviously water free (natural oils, esters, silicones) and whose coating function requires no charge interaction.

Abdullah

ketchito said:

@Abdullah No worries! So, conditioning agents to go where they're supposed to go, need certain media (polar) to move and diffuse, and water is the perfect media...also, to keep both hair and conditioning agents in the right ionic state for deposition to occur. If your hair is dry, you won't have this available (except for the water from your product and the one that is bound to the most external layer of your hair, which is barely enough). An exception to this are anhydrous oils, which composition is obviously water free (natural oils, esters, silicones) and whose coating function requires no charge interaction.

Isn't the water in conditioner enough? 

Conditioners are more than 90% water.

ketchito

@Abdullah If your hair is dry, part of the water would be absorbed and adsorbed (bound) by hair. Also, you'd need to make sure you're covering all your hair with the product. Keep in mind that deposition of actives is a surface phenomena.

Abdullah

@ketchito i was thinking hair is different from the skin. If it is dry, it meaans it lacks lipids, not water. 

ketchito

@Abdullah By dry hair I was just referring to free water (there will always be some water within the cortex, but that's bound water, and won't act as solvent for actives). When hair loses lipids, it loses insulation, which means water exchange with the environment is more constant and dependent on factors like temperature. 

Abdullah

ketchito said:

@Abdullah By dry hair I was just referring to free water (there will always be some water within the cortex, but that's bound water, and won't act as solvent for actives). When hair loses lipids, it loses insulation, which means water exchange with the environment is more constant and dependent on factors like temperature. 

Thanks