Deep conditioning is a crucial aspect when trying to grow and maintain healthy hair. It aids in providing the moisture and strength that our fragile hair needs, helping it to cope against chemical services, manipulation and heat.

Using heat is a great way to deep condition hair as it allows the cuticle to open, thus allowing the conditioner to penetrate deeper into the cortex. I use a great product called LookGreat Heat Wrap, which is a head wrap with microwavable gel packs inside. It allows you to condition with heat on the go. Figure 1 (below) shows that as the temperature used to deep condition increases, so does the absorption of the conditioner into the hair strand. The graph suggests that that 60 degrees is the optimum temperature for deep conditioning. Dr Ali suggests this can be achieved by using an electric heat cap on the medium setting.

How long is best to leave the treatment on our hair? If you spend time deep conditioning for hours on end or even overnight, you might find the following results interesting:
 

Figure 2 (above) simply shows that the longer we leave the conditioner on our hair, the better it can penetrate into our strands. However, after 25 to 30 minutes, the hair reaches its maximum absorption. This means that leaving the conditioner on for any longer will give you no extra conditioning benefits.

So if you have been deep conditioning over night in the hopes that the product absorbs better, you can be safe in the knowledge that after just 30 minutes, you can rinse your hair having conditioned thoroughly. Use heat to achieve the maximum benefits.
Of course, if you like the way your hair feels after conditioning for an extended period of time, keep doing what works for you!

This post is based on the research carried out by Dr Ali Syed, president of Avlon (Keracare) Cosmetics. To read the full article, click here.