help please!! coconut treatment gone wrong...

[jsdolly122]

so i just finished washing out a coconut milk treatment that I had left in all day, I was expecting soft silky hair but its SO DRY and BREAKING!!! what do I do????

im assuming this was protein overload?? I have done fine with coconut oil in the past.. so i dont know what happened.. how can I fix this??
please any suggestions would be great, it's literally like straw :( :(

[ravenreed]

I have never had good luck once I hit protein overload, and it happens for me very easily so I avoid all protein. I usually end up trimming several inches off. You might start by clarifying and using a protein free conditioner that is moisturizing. Good luck.

[spidermom]

I'd clarify, too.

[ositarosita]

A DC with a solely moisturising conditioner.. I am protein sensitive and protein overload happens to me quite easily.. you just have to balance out the moisture and protein

[ErinLeigh]

I would do a deeep moisture conditioning before the clarifying just in case hair is super fragile and stiff.
It will soften it up some first.

I would do another deep moisture after any clarify also.

[Wosie]

What a coincidence! I also had a protein overload a few days ago. I clarified my hair and afterwards I did a modified SMT with one tea spoon of coconut oil and a big spoon of honey and after the hair had dried the last few centimetres of my length felt very odd... I can't remember ever having had hair that felt like that before! Very much like straw, and very damaged.
Does your whole head of hair feel like straw or 'just' the ends? I fixed the problem by clarifying just the ends (I honestly felt bad about clarifying this area again...) and putting jojoba oil on them once the hair had dried. Now it feels perfectly normal again.

[meteor]

I disagree that it's protein overload (un-hydrolyzed proteins in coconut milk are too large to penetrate), I think it's standard coating that often occurs when we apply something that doesn't agree with our hair.
Coconut milk also contains some sugar that works as a humectant and can cause that dry feeling under certain dew points.
I also suspect that you applied a lot, and leaving it in for a whole day didn't help.

Just clarify thoroughly and condition as you normally do.

Next time you want something similar to coconut milk but without the downside of coating your hair with all the "extras", just use coconut oil + honey, straight or in your conditioner.

[Wosie]

Next time you want something similar to coconut milk but without the downside of coating your hair with all the "extras", just use coconut oil + honey, straight or in your conditioner.

What do you think happened to my hair? :S I did just this, and the ends felt awfully wrong, like nothing I had ever felt before. Do you think I 'overdosed' on coconut oil? Or was it the honey? Or both in the combination with the conditioner I used? I had it on for an hour before I rinsed it out. Oh well, at least it feels all right now. *phew*

[meteor]

What do you think happened to my hair? :S I did just this, and the ends felt awfully wrong, like nothing I had ever felt before. Do you think I 'overdosed' on coconut oil? Or was it the honey? Or both in the combination with the conditioner I used? I had it on for an hour before I rinsed it out. Oh well, at least it feels all right now. *phew*
I was answering the OP's question on coconut milk. Coconut milk contains more than just oil + sugar, so there are more culprits for the coating.

In your case, I wonder, how do you respond to honey (which is hydroscopic) in your climate and humidity? Like, honey + water or honey + conditioner? If your hair comes out dry or frizzy, you know you probably shouldn't be using many humectants like honey now. So honey could be the culprit. If you not very clear about how humectants work, I recommend reading up on them: http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curly-q-a/curlchemist-humidity-humectants-and-hair, http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curl-products/humidity-humectants-and-the-dew-point

As for coconut oil, I'm assuming it's solid at current temperatures in Sweden, so does it solidify in your hair when you apply a lot of it? I had a very bad case of oil solidifying and hardening my tresses once, but it was easily rectified by simply washing my hair.

And finally, there's the conditioner. I don't know what conditioner you used but interactions with honey or oil may not work great with it. For example, if you go over to the SMT Thread, you'll see many people mentioning how SMT didn't work for them with certain conditioners.

I'd say don't do that exact experiment again, but you can definitely experiment further, just don't add everything at once, or it will be really hard to isolate effects from different ingredients and make meaningful conclusions.

[heidi w.]

Coconut Oil should have little to no protein in it. So I doubt it's protein overload. Just clarify. That's all you need to do. To do so, mix 3 Tablespoons of regular shampoo with the same 3 T. of baking soda. Mix well and no bubbles. Maybe a few gas bubbles popping. This should work just fine. What kind of Coconut Oil did you use?
heidi w.

[Wosie]

I was answering the OP's question on coconut milk. Coconut milk contains more than just oil + sugar, so there are more culprits for the coating.

In your case, I wonder, how do you respond to honey (which is hydroscopic) in your climate and humidity? Like, honey + water or honey + conditioner? If your hair comes out dry or frizzy, you know you probably shouldn't be using many humectants like honey now. So honey could be the culprit. If you not very clear about how humectants work, I recommend reading up on them: http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curly-q-a/curlchemist-humidity-humectants-and-hair, http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curl-products/humidity-humectants-and-the-dew-point

As for coconut oil, I'm assuming it's solid at current temperatures in Sweden, so does it solidify in your hair when you apply a lot of it? I had a very bad case of oil solidifying and hardening my tresses once, but it was easily rectified by simply washing my hair.

And finally, there's the conditioner. I don't know what conditioner you used but interactions with honey or oil may not work great with it. For example, if you go over to the SMT Thread, you'll see many people mentioning how SMT didn't work for them with certain conditioners.

I'd say don't do that exact experiment again, but you can definitely experiment further, just don't add everything at once, or it will be really hard to isolate effects from different ingredients and make meaningful conclusions.

Thanks a lot for your elaborate answer! I thought about creating my own thread after it had happened, but as it was reversed back to normal after the clarifying I thought I'd just been unlucky this one time, and that I wouldn't use coconut oil in such large quantities in SMTs again. Indoors the coconut never solidifies, and I haven't noticed any issues with this going outdoors either (then again, I never touch my hair once I'm outdoors so I don't know for sure)... Yes, my hair is dry and frizzy most of the time, and the weather in Sweden right now is sunny and comfortable, on the chillier side of the thermometre (about 5-10 Celsius - 41-50 Fahrenheit). Does this mean I should avoid honey during the colder and drier months of the year? (ETA: I forgot to mention that I never went outdoors during this 'fateful' day.)

Honey normally works just fine, I'd even say well, in my hair, so I'm more leaning to the conclusion that it was the combination with the conditioner that created this very uncomfortable feeling. I honestly thought I had permanently ruined my ends, so I thought about cutting them off had the clarifying not helped.
Here's the ingredients of the conditioner I used:
Aqua, cetearyl alcohol, distearoylethyl dimonium chloride, olea europaea fruit oil, glycerin, dioleyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, creatine, panthenol, behenamidopropyl dimethylamine, ceteareth-25, parfum, citric acid.
I will go and read the links you just provided now! I really want to understand why this happened, to avoid it in the future.

jsdolly122, I truly hope 'twas fine that I took the liberty of asking my own questions in your thread. :blossom:

[ravenreed]

People keep telling me that coconut oil can't trigger protein overload. However, my hair reacts the exact same way to coconut oil as any other product with protein. I have no idea why, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....

[Panth]

Coconut oil doesn't contain protein. However, the OP used coconut milk...

[meteor]

Thanks a lot for your elaborate answer! I thought about creating my own thread after it had happened, but as it was reversed back to normal after the clarifying I thought I'd just been unlucky this one time, and that I wouldn't use coconut oil in such large quantities in SMTs again. Indoors the coconut never solidifies, and I haven't noticed any issues with this going outdoors either (then again, I never touch my hair once I'm outdoors so I don't know for sure)... Yes, my hair is dry and frizzy most of the time, and the weather in Sweden right now is sunny and comfortable, on the chillier side of the thermometre (about 5-10 Celsius - 41-50 Fahrenheit). Does this mean I should avoid honey during the colder and drier months of the year? (ETA: I forgot to mention that I never went outdoors during this 'fateful' day.)

Honey normally works just fine, I'd even say well, in my hair, so I'm more leaning to the conclusion that it was the combination with the conditioner that created this very uncomfortable feeling. I honestly thought I had permanently ruined my ends, so I thought about cutting them off had the clarifying not helped.
Here's the ingredients of the conditioner I used:
Aqua, cetearyl alcohol, distearoylethyl dimonium chloride, olea europaea fruit oil, glycerin, dioleyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, creatine, panthenol, behenamidopropyl dimethylamine, ceteareth-25, parfum, citric acid.
I will go and read the links you just provided now! I really want to understand why this happened, to avoid it in the future.

jsdolly122, I truly hope 'twas fine that I took the liberty of asking my own questions in your thread. :blossom:

I also hope the OP doesn't mind the little side discussion going on, if it helps some of us, LHC-ers. :)
First I'd say, never cut hair after a bad experiment with some product(s), unless it's something super powerful like bleach or relaxer. Such problems are usually easily fixed by either clarifying/chelating alone or by some combination of heavy oiling + clarifying/chelating + extra conditioning. It's very rare that a product (especially from the kitchen) can destroy hair. If it's just some nasty coating, it can be removed.

The issue with humectants is not so much the temperature, but the relative humidity / dew points. Humectants draw water to themselves and keep the water "locked" to themselves. So if the air is way dryer than your hair, humectants can draw water out of your hair making hair dry, and if the air is way more humid than your hair, then they'll attract water to your hair, sometimes making hair frizzy. So you need to know your hair and climate enough to know at what times to use humectants (glycerine, honey, aloe vera, panthenol, etc), and at what times - anti-humectants/occlusives (oils, butters, waxes, silicones, etc).
There's an app for this, and there's also a nice website where you plug in your hair type and your location, and you've got your humidity, dew point and frizz forecast for the day and the week. Check it out: http://www.naturallycurly.com/frizzforecast

I like your conditioner ingredients, it doesn't have unnecessary stuff/fillers added to it, which is important. It already has quite a lot of humectant action (glycerin, sodium benzoate, panthenol), so I don't know if I'd want to add more. Another thing to consider is whether or not your hair is virgin/non-porous. Such hair just needs to be clean and is less likely to benefit from heavy products and oils, because instead of penetrating and patch-repairing "gaps" in cuticles, those ingredients will just sit on top of non-porous hair, making it dull, dry-looking and tangly.

It's always best to listen to your own hair and experiment with only one thing at a time.

[meteor]

People keep telling me that coconut oil can't trigger protein overload. However, my hair reacts the exact same way to coconut oil as any other product with protein. I have no idea why, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck....
I agree that it feels the same. I think the key is that both protein overload and coating feel the same. I also get that feeling from some coating tea rinses, for example. Basically, extra product is sitting on top of hair, causing dry, rough feeling, dullness, tangles. But coconut oil has no protein (it's 100% fatty acids), and coconut milk has no hydrolyzed protein, that is, no protein small enough to penetrate hair.

And all the above situations have the same solution: a good clarifying session.