This 18th-century porcelain figure of the goddess Ceres Is a real celebration of wheat. This Ceres loves wheat. Consider her hair. It’s an exuberant wheaty, red-carpety ‘do. As much as I appreciate the goddess of agriculture, grain, fertility and motherhood, I avoid some of her bounty, mostly grain. (And turnips.)
I hadn’t given beauty products much thought when I was diagnosed with Celiac, as I used mostly natural and organic lines, but here’s the story of why I changed my mind, and why I now take my own products to the hair salon.
Gluten allergies can sometimes be related to excessive hair loss. The hair-loss might be severe, caused by the autoimmune disease alopecia, or it might be gradual, caused by the poor absorption of nutrition owing to an unhealthy gut.[1]
For whatever reason, celiac patients often find themselves with thin hair, and among women, the onset of male-pattern baldness.
My first bout with hair loss happened when I was 16, and nearly died from a burst appendix. Whatever meds they gave me saved my life, but also caused a significant amount of hair loss during my recovery. Still, I then had a normal head of hair rather than a mad-thick mane.
Before that hospitalization, my hair was, well, beautiful. It was also unusually thick, although fine in texture. A not uncommon event during the school day was the cha-ching of yet another exploding barrette that had given up the attempt to contain my ponytail, which caused a lot of hilarity among classmates unless they got hit by shrapnel.
Forward a few decades. With the ill health caused by the Celiac and the MS, and the tough year I had with the disease-modifying drugs, I wasn’t surprised to find my hair thinning. Seriously thinning.
My hairdresser and I tried some various cuts to move the part occasionally, but there was no denying the start of a bald spot. I had a lot of breakage in the front and an increasing circle of baldness just behind the hairline to the right side of a center part.
My hair-care routine got cleaned up with the rest of my life – or so I thought. I used minimal salon products, and various castile-types of soap to wash my hair. It was hard to find any product that gave my hair body that did not also weigh it down. I finally found a favorite product, a Redken styling cream called Be Groomed, designed for men, which has a wonderful smell and light hold. However, I did begin to notice that it was making my eyes run and itch on days I wore it.
I checked the ingredients. What gave it the volumizing power? Wheat. Wheat germ oil is a great moisturizer. Wheat starch is a great volumizer. A lot of natural products use wheat ingredients. Most volumizing products have some kind of starch in them, and wheat is cheap.
So I started investigating gluten-free hair products.
The Doctors
Dr. Bronner’s is the house soap around here, and there’s a pump-bottle of it next to every sink.
I used to use it for both skin and hair in the shower, but my hair was getting dry. So, I switched to the Dr. Woods brand which is a bit more moisturizing. They are both natural castile soaps.
Dr. Bronner’s has some very nice hair products that are gluten-free including the Shikakai conditioner shown above, which you mix with water to your own preference. The leave-in conditioner in the purple bottle is a good weekend treatment. It’s a bit heavy for daily wear now that my hair is short.I still use the Dr. Woods as a shower soap.
The posh route: Surface Hair
Next, I decided to try some high-end salon products. This entire line is gluten-free. I tried the kind that was for thinning hair. I gave it a weird glam shot so you can see how fancy it it. It’s so fancy that the vase in the background is a vhaase, not a vayyze:
If you like salon products, this line is for you. I have never had much patience for the two-step shampoo and conditioner routine, and this product specifies a minute-long interval–at least– for each product to get results. It didn’t much help my hair loss, but the shampoo and conditioner are luxurious. That styling cream is heaven. As I said, I take my own products to the hairdresser, and she swoons over that cream.
More posh: Wen
Next, I tried the famous info-mercial brand. One of their flavors, Pomegranate, is soy-based and gluten-free. The rest of the formulas contain wheat products.
I really liked this product, but it was too heavy for my hair. I gave this one away to a gluten-free gal with nice thick hair. She loves it. She won’t give it back. NO WAY. I know a few dedicated Wen-heads, and if you’ve always wanted to try it but didn’t want the wheat base, the Pomegranate line is now an option for you. This got me started on the no-poo, co-wash thing.
With that in mind, I decided to give another brand a try:
Not particularly posh, but completely awesome: Renpure
Here’s the rest of their Renpure cleansing conditioner line-up:
The price-point on Renpure is unbelievably reasonable for the quality. I am almost out of the coconut (one bottle lasts about 3 months for me), and I’m about to try the rosemary-mint cleansing conditioner next. I’m sticking with this brand for a while, as it conditions well, without weighing down my fine hair. Win, win, win.
Giovanni
Another inexpensive, high quality line, and also one of the first natural hair-care lines in the US. Many of their products have no gluten–I haven’t run across one yet that has any. Here are my two favorites:
So, apart from proving I have a lot of bottles in my bathroom closet, what do I use most? I change by the season, but here’s the current line-up:
All smell great, are easy and quick, and sorry, Ceres, NO GLUTEN.
Always gluten-free, and a nice little luxury
In order to get my hair to the optimum dryness for styling after my co-wash, I wear one of these while I get dressed and make the bed. No more cold drips down your back after washing your hair.
Oh, and start with chlorine-free water to go with your gluten-free hair
Here’s a great article from the Culligan blog, explaining why you might want to use a shower filter.
So apologies to Ceres, and a testament to the size of my bathroom closet, here’s to gluten-free hair!
[1] https://www.glutenfreesociety.org/is-gluten-linked-to-hair-loss-alopecia/
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