Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a licensed cosmetologist for severe breakage or chemical concerns.
If you’re in an area with hard tap water, there’s a big chance your hair is dry and damaged. You need a chelating shampoo to remove excess minerals from your scalp!
What is chelating shampoo? Is there any difference between clarifying shampoo and chelating shampoo? If yes, which shampoo should you use?
While clarifying shampoos remove product buildup, chelating shampoos are formulated to break down hard water minerals.
What Is Chelating Shampoo?
The term chelating comes from the Greek word chele. This means “to claw.” It’s an appropriate term since it describes how chemicals, known as chelating agents, can grab onto metal ions.
Metal ions get into your hair through water whenever you take a bath. If you have too many of these minerals in your hair, it can cause brittleness, dullness, and discoloration.
Chelating shampoo solves this by grabbing onto the mineral deposits. The shampoo breaks the bond between your hair and the metal ions. After this, you can wash them away with water!
How to Tell If You Need Chelating Shampoo
Did you know that 90% of homes in the United States have hard water? To find out if you have hard water, check your showerhead for white, chalky mineral scale, or use an inexpensive hard water testing strip at home.
Aside from this, you can feel your hair after a bath. If it’s greasy, tangled, heavy, or dull, you’ll benefit from this specialized shampoo.
What’s more, you should also use it after swimming as pools have extremely hard water! For people with blonde hair, if you notice a green hue after a dip in the pool, you actually need a chelating shampoo to remove the copper buildup.
What Is Clarifying Shampoo?
Clarifying shampoo removes buildups of dirt, hairspray, gels, and other products. It’s more effective than regular shampoo since it contains plenty of surfactants. Surfactants bind the oil on your scalp to water once you start rinsing.
Clarifying shampoo has fewer conditioning ingredients. It’s more astringent than normal shampoo, which means it can clean visible residues more effectively!
How to Tell If You Need Clarifying Shampoo
Clarifying shampoo is essential for people who use hair products daily. For instance, dry shampoo can build up in your hair, and regular shampoo won’t cut it.
If your hair feels dirty and weighed down after a bath, you need to use a clarifying shampoo.
Differences Between Chelating and Clarifying Shampoo
Chelating shampoos and clarifying shampoos aren’t the same. Here are the interesting differences you should know about!
1. Cleaning Ability
Because hair is a porous material, calcium and magnesium ions can get underneath the cuticles. You can’t see these deposits, but you can feel them damaging your locks!
Chelating shampoos work by removing these mineral deposits from within each strand.
On the other hand, clarifying shampoos focus mainly on visible dirt, oil, and products in your hair. They can’t remove mineral deposits, but they do a better job removing dirt than normal shampoo!
2. Ingredients
Part of the confusion between chelating and clarifying shampoo is the labeling. A chelating shampoo can sometimes say it’s clarifying on the bottle.
To tell which is which, it’s best to look at the ingredients.
The usual components of chelating shampoos are EDTA and sodium gluconate. When checking the ingredient list on the back of the bottle, look for terms like ‘Tetrasodium EDTA’ or ‘sodium gluconate.’ You don’t need a high-end salon brand; many affordable drugstore options feature these exact chelating agents. You can also get ones with phytic acid, citric acid, and tetrasodium EDTA.
For clarifying shampoos, expect to find strong anionic surfactants like sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate, or C14-16 olefin sulfonate.
3. Harmful Effects on Hair
Since clarifying shampoos are great for absorbing oil, they could lead to dry hair when used too much. Other harmful effects are frizz, flyaways, and dullness.
If you have colored hair, you should check the label if it’s color-safe. Clarifying shampoos can remove your hair dye. If you have scalp conditions like dandruff, psoriasis, or seborrheic dermatitis, choose a clarifying shampoo carefully—harsh formulas can cause irritation, but those formulated with salicylic acid can actually help.
Meanwhile, chelating shampoo can be highly stripping to the hair. If used too often, it can leave hair feeling rough and dry, which may increase cuticle wear over time.
Overusing chelating shampoo increases the friction between your hair fibers. This friction results in breakage!
4. Usage
Using clarifying shampoo is easy! Work the shampoo into your scalp. If you have coily or dry hair, rinse immediately to prevent flash-drying, and always follow up with a deep conditioning mask rather than a standard daily conditioner.
Apply clarifying shampoos once or twice a month, depending on your hair type and buildup level.
The process for using chelating shampoos is similar. Apply chelating shampoos once or twice a month, depending on your hair type and buildup level, and always follow the label directions.
Clarifying Vs. Chelating Shampoo: Which Is Better?
Clarifying and chelating shampoos target different impurities in your hair.
Chelating shampoos can clean deep into your hair and remove hard water deposits under the cuticles. Yet, this doesn’t mean they’re stronger than clarifying shampoos!
In terms of removing dirt, clarifying shampoos will still do a better job than chelating ones. Therefore, you should pick a product based on your specific needs.
If you have an issue with hard water in your area, go for the chelating shampoo. For those who constantly use hair products, clarifying shampoo is better!
Using Clarifying and Chelating Shampoos Together
Can you use clarifying and chelating shampoos together?
According to Missy Peterson, the lead educator for Malibu C, chelating shampoos have low pH. On the flip side, clarifying shampoos have a high pH.
Mixing the two in your hand alters their formulated pH levels, potentially making them less effective. Instead of using them back-to-back, which can be extremely drying, alternate them on different wash days depending on whether you need to remove product buildup or hard water minerals.
If you are on a budget, you likely don’t need to buy both. Simply choose the one that targets your biggest daily issue: a chelating shampoo if your home has hard water, or a clarifying shampoo if you use heavy styling products.
After either shampoo, don’t forget to use a conditioner to add moisture back to your hair, and if your hair is dry or textured, use a deep conditioning mask.
Conclusion
So the key difference between clarifying and chelating is that the components in clarifying shampoo attach to the oil in your hair which allows you to wash it away and the chelating shampoo has ingredients that bind to the mineral buildup in your hair.
Both types of shampoos are powerful tools for cleaning and freshening up your hair. There’s no better or worse shampoo. You can use them both according to your hair care needs!
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