Body/face cream in hair?

[SapphiraSilver]

Hello.
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I have never tried using a face cream for example on the hair instead of a leave in conditioner.

My hair is very dry and very bleach damaged. I wondered, after washing and towel drying, just before blow drying, could I use my Nivea face cream or body lotion in my hair while its towel dried, then blow dry after that? only problem is that I need some heat protection and I am not sure if that would provide enough protection.

What about on dry hair? what about face/body cream that has sunscreen in it? I am curious. Has anyone tried this? please share, thank you :)

-Sapphira.

[millyaulait]

I think this really depends on the specific product. A lot of face/body creams have lots of parabens, alcohol, cones, paraffin, sometimes way worse things (for hair) like strong acids.

I don't think they would do much for hair, besides weigh it down, but you could always do a 'patch test' of sorts and just try it on a small amount of your hair and see how it fares.

I think for heat protection you really just need a good heat protectant spray, I'm not sure if you are cone-free or not but tresemme heat defence spray is highly rated. I don't think a face cream would provide any protection whatsoever, sorry. :(

[chen bao jun]

About the heat protection, forget it. But I used to use Vaseline Intensive care lotion as a leave in, did no harm and was moisturizing. I also used another body cream after that. But I'm not cone free. Also, I have heavy hair, type 3c, very coarse strands and it sucks up moisture. I stopped because my hair was getting over moisturized but I wouldn't say that I would never do this again. there are other ladies on here who have used the intensive care also. I would say, if your hair is dry enough that you have to use a leave-in, you could try this but as I said, don't expect any heat protection, in fact all the grease might make it easier to fry your hair.

[jacqueline101]

I used lotion one time years ago in my hair when I had dandruff really badly.

[Seeshami]

I have not found that my hair likes lotion. It normally gets very crunchy and straw like when I put lotion in it.

[earthnut]

I put sunscreen in my hair during the summer for sun protection. For shine and frizz control, it seems to work just as well as any other oil or conditioner I've used as a leave-in. And it's loads cheaper than sun protecting hair products.

Perhaps a coney lotion would provide some heat protection, since my understanding is that it's the cones that are the active ingredients in a heat protectant. But I think a product specifically for that would probably do a better job in that respect.

I found plain coconut oil was better for hygral fatigue (water damage) than lotion.

Conditioners are used for hair because the emulsifier (conditioning agent) has a positive charge that sticks to your hair well. The emulsifier in skin lotions have a negative or neutral charge, so they don't stick to the hair particularly well. So they wouldn't in general provide as much protection.

But, that doesn't mean your hair will hate it. It depends on your particular hair and what other products you use.

[Iolanthe13]

I wouldn't recommend using coconut oil OR face cream for heat protection. I imagine either one might literally deep-fry your hair...

I've used hand cream once or twice in my hair in times of desperation (i.e. after running out of conditioner) - always a cheap kind without fancy resurfacing ingredients - and it didn't seem to hurt anything. I'd be careful of anything that claims to resurface skin, like retinol or even vitamin c, as hair cells don't get replaced from underneath like skin cells do, but that's just a hunch.