The Science of Soft, Full Hair: How Hydrated Strands Achieve Volume
Unilever Product Development R&D Anna Tongco breaks down the importance
of keeping hair hydrated and how to balance it.
To achieve the ‘do of our dreams, most of us usually pay our favorite professional hair salon and stylist a visit, or else rely on our trusty hair styling tools at home. But either way, with all the heated tools and techniques used to shape and form the hair, our hair strands can lose the hydration they need. Cream Silk, with its decades as a leading hair care brand, knows this, and this dilemma moved them to create more nuanced hair care products that can meet the demand for damaged and dull hair.
“For the longest time, we focused a lot on [consumers with] straight hair, because that’s what a lot of our consumers have,” shares Anna Tongco, Unilever Product Development R&D. “But as we acknowledge that Filipino hair is not all straight, and as hair trends and consumers’ wants evolve, we wanted to see hair that has more movement, and to look at the shape of your hair structure, as well as its exterior condition, because the shape [and structure] of your hair will determine its movement and its flexibility.” For Tongco, she shares how such shifts in personal hair care and styling allowed them to focus on developing products that not only help in providing the hair’s daily hydration needs, but also encourage users to embrace their natural waves and volume.
Rojan Maguyon
But before diving into the science behind proper hair hydration and volume, Tongco first addresses the misunderstood differences between hydrating and moisturizing hair. “Hydration and moisture are similar in that they both talk about the uptake of water, but the way that they relate in the universe of hair care is very different. Hydration is about bringing in water, while moisturizing is about working with oils, emollients, and other barrier-protecting products that can help keep moisture in and prevent it from escaping.”
Tongco continues, “It’s a combination of the two that helps keep hair at its optimum shape and flexibility. When you’re working with water in relation to hair, it’s a delicate balance since overly hydrated hair becomes fragile as it swells and stretches, but dehydrated hair becomes brittle and cracked. And all of this has to take into account the amount of water present in the environment, especially in a humid climate like ours.”
In translating such nuances into hair care products such as Cream Silk’s Hydration & Volume Salon Renewal Mask, Tongco expresses how the team looked into how they can create a product that elicits a bouncy and weightless feel, all while balancing the amount of hydration the hair’s strands receive, given that the Philippines’ naturally humid and rainy environment can cause reactions to overhydration such as frizzing and becoming flat or weighed down.
Rojan Maguyon
“Apart from environmental challenges, the other challenge is how our consumers want to use hair products nowadays; sometimes there are those who want to take their time, and there are others who want it to be one-and-done in the shower and out in five minutes,” Tongco details.
She also adds how the brand took to addressing the concerns regarding the consistency and dense after-feel that hair products leave during and after use by making the hair mask light and easy to apply, while also being easy to rinse off. “We also want to give them that bounce, which means that it feels lightweight and not weighed down, and that the amount of coating or conditioning that [is applied to the hair] is not too [dense or] heavy that it causes the hair to clump together at the ends,” says Tongco.
Rojan Maguyon
“I think a lot of people assume that just because we are Filipinas and we’re in Southeast Asia, where loads of other people have thick, straight hair, that that’s all our hair can be.” While Tongco explains how Cream Silk’s Hydration & Volume Salon Renewal Mask aims to both revitalize the hair’s moisture levels and structural health through its hyaluronic acid and hydrolyzed silk formulation, she also hopes that users get to see not just how naturally voluminous their hair can be, but also how expressive they can get with styling their manes.
“A lot of language that is around thick and voluminous hair sometimes gets co-opted and used to describe what people think is not nice hair. So we’re hoping that this is something that allows people to take that power back and embrace what they feel is beautiful about their hair, no matter what shape it takes,” she ends.
