What’s Up With Protein In Hair Care? Is It A Gimmick Or Actually Legit?

Is anyone else’s social media serving them videos of people talking about how much protein their hair needs? Maybe it’s just me because I have curly hair and am constantly looking up new products to find reviews, but I get the sense that hair care involving protein is becoming more mainstream. So, what are protein hair products, and how can you tell if your hair needs protein? What does it need it for anyway? We asked a professional product formulator for the DL. It’s a little complex, but here’s what we learned.

What are protein hair products?

If your algorithm isn’t peppering you with recommendations yet, let me catch you up: More and more products these days are specifically touting the fact that they contain protein. It seems to come up most often in products targeting people with curly hair, claiming that they repair, strengthen, or define the hair. Hair products formulated with protein will list ingredients like wheat, soy, silk, pea protein, or hydrolyzed keratin, says Devin Graciano, a professional hair stylist, product formulator, and CEO at Goldie Locks.

She adds that many hair products already contain some form of protein, but putting that information front and center is a new marketing move. “What the hair industry is sort of capitalizing on with bond builders and hair repair is that everyone’s got it; they never leave out a direct protein source. The idea behind protein is, hey, we can cover up these holes. This is going to be really good for hair because we can repair those holes. So then everyone got nutso over it, but what they didn’t consider is that protein now stops your hair from equalizing moisture, and if you don’t have moisture, you just have really dry hair. It’ll snap and break.”

Why does your hair need protein?

In short, it adds strength and structure to the hair. “If we look along your hair strand, you have a bunch of little holes throughout the hair strand from damage,” says Graciano. This damage can be caused by chemical processing, UV rays, and heat. Protein is kind of like spackle on drywall, she says — it’s sticky and can cover up those holes and prevent the hair from breaking.

However, more isn’t better when it comes to protein in hair care. “When you keep using products with protein, it keeps sticking to itself. So, what ends up happening is that protein builds up on itself on an already pre-weakened structure, and eventually it’s going to break the hair because it becomes too heavy.”

So, how can you strike a balance of giving your hair the protein it needs without doing more harm than good?

How can you tell if your hair needs protein?

If you know your hair is chemically damaged, you’d likely benefit from more protein, Graciano says. That would mean “using products with protein in them once a week or maybe twice a month,” she explains. You might use one product that is protein-heavy to repair the hair, and then swap to protein-free products for the rest of the time because, as Graciano puts it, “you’d already have one layer of spackle down.”

It used to be that your hairstylist would notice if your hair needed some rehab, and they could give you a professional protein treatment and be done with it. But now that the ingredient is built into many of our products, it’s easy to overdo it.

You might be adding too much protein to your hair if it becomes dry, frizzy, or hard to manage, feels brittle, or you get a lot of breakage when brushing, Graciano says. You might have a lot of protein buildup if a product that used to work well for you is now giving you bad results — you know, that feeling that a shampoo and conditioner used to work well for your hair, but maybe it’s gotten too used to them.

You could switch to protein-free hair care (Graciano’s brand is entirely protein-free, for example), or she recommends using an apple cider vinegar rinse to gently cleanse the buildup from your strands. You’ll know you’re striking the right balance between protein and moisture when your hair is reflective and shiny, silky soft, and if it’s curly, your curls bounce back into shape after you pull them straight.

Protein hair care isn’t a straight-up gimmick or a bad thing, Graciano clarifies. If it can repair a hole in your hair today and prevent it from breaking, great! It’s just when you use too much of a good thing that it can turn out badly, so a little consumer education goes a long way here.