The "Formula" in my Hair

I'm going to tell you ladies a secret... are you ready? Here it goes: One night while I was asleep, my son decided to rest his bottle in my hair. I woke up with a mane full of formula! I know what you're thinking... "That is so gross!" "I hope you washed your hair immediately" The answers-- "Not really all that gross." "I washed my hair, eventually."

Allow me to explain. My son suffers from multiple food allergies-- milk and soy included. So instead of drinking the typical milk based formula, cow's milk or soy milk, he drinks a hypoallergenic formula made solely of amino acids. It comes in powder form and I mix it with water. In essence, I had a fantastic conditioning treatment in my hair! Plus it's tropical flavor, so it smells good too. If you'll recall from your high school science classes, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins... and hair is made of a fibrous protein better known as keratin. Put simply, amino acids are hair food.

Amino acids combine to form proteins that will strengthen the hair and possibly help promote hair growth. Keep in mind, everyone's hair growth cycle is different. You can't grow waist length hair if that's not in your DNA. See previous post Long, Luxurious Hair: The Science. Fortunately, you don't have to have a formula incident to reap the benefits of amino acids and/or proteins. The claim to fame for those mayonnaise and egg kitchen conditioning treatments is the fact that they are rich in proteins, thus also rich in amino acids.

These days, cosmeceuticals are growing in popularity. They are no more than a collection of vitamins, minerals, etc that can be taken in pill form or have been packed into special beauty drinks. I'm all for cosmeceuticals-- anything to keep it pretty. Just remember that you can add the same vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, etc to your diet just by incorporating the right foods. Amino acids are included in the list of beauty must haves that you can get find in your foods. Out of 22 amino acids, our bodies can produce 13. The remaining 9 need to be supplemented and are referred to as essential amino acids. Foods such as milk and meat contain all 9 essential amino acids. Remember the tagline for milk? "--it does a body good." Add to that "--it gives you strong, healthy, pretty hair." What woman doesn't want great hair?! Other foods that contain essential amino acids are nuts, beans, soy, peas, rice, wheat and other grains. Alone these sources don't contain all the essential amino acids, but combined you will get all that you need.

The next time you're in the beauty supply, you can be confident in picking up products with amino acids listed in the ingredients. Until then, make sure your diet is giving you all the beauty food you need.

Here's to the Glam Life!