Aveda Be Curly Style Prep- Weeds in my cupboard

Aveda photo

For those of you reading this blog for the first time let me explain my, "weeds in the cupboard" analogy. It comes from my belief that certain ingredients/ chemicals in and of themselves probably aren't bad. They have their place in the world and their proper use. The problem is when they're the wrong ingredient and/ or chemical in places they don't belong. Similar to the idea of weeds. Beautiful plants are sometimes treated as weeds if they're the growing in a place they don't belong. And I've been increasingly concerned that many of the products that are in my cupboard have ingredients that don't belong - at least not for me...

So- keeping that in mind...yesterday I tried an Aveda product sample: Be Curly Style Prep with Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein. It worked so well-  smoothing, softening and defining my gray, frizzy curls. I felt so happy when I looked into the mirror and saw big, loose, natural looking waves with a nice shine.

Then I was aware of the old familiar headache. Right over my eyes. And the pressure behind my eyes started along with confusion and full, popping ears. And I realized that this had started within minutes of me working the product into my wet hair. Let me be clear here- I have no evidence that the product caused my symptoms. Just like always, the response happened while I was using the product, but could have just as easily been caused by a combination of factors or something that had nothing to do with the product. But the whole experience with these symptoms has been really annoying...

So, although Aveda Be Curly Style Prep delivered beautifully, I loved how it felt in my hair, how my hair looked and the light, pleasant fragrance I felt I had to go to the Skin Deep database to research the ingredients. Hopefully there would be some scientific reality. And that would knock some sense into me ....I did say I was confused didn't I?

So what follows is a preliminary report from the Skin Deep database.

If you don't feel like reading it I'll skip to the results. There are ingredients that MAY have been part of the problem for me...

What follows: the disclaimer from the website, the results, and finally a link to the Skin Deep database-

"PRELIMINARY REPORT: The information on this page was entered by a Skin Deep user and has not been verified by EWG.

Given the incomplete information made available by companies and the government, EWG provides additional information on personal care product ingredients from the published scientific literature. The chart below indicates that research studies have found that exposure to one or more ingredients in this product -- not the product itself -- caused the indicated health effect(s) in the studies reviewed by Skin Deep researchers. Actual health risks, if any, will vary based on the level of exposure to the ingredient and individual susceptibility -- information not available in Skin Deep." Disclaimer from Skin Deep results page for this product.

...read more after the jump...