Best Non-Toxic Detangler & Heat Protectant

A good detangler/leave-in conditioner is essential to prevent snags when combing through wet hair. Feed Your Ends is a non-toxic leave in conditioner that loosens tangles, adds shine AND protects hair from heat damage while styling.

Why It’s Effective

Feed Your Ends conditions hair just enough to detangle and hydrate without weighing hair down or leaving it greasy.

It contains organic ingredients like Grape Seed, Jojoba and Primrose that condition hair.

Spray Feed Your Ends on clean wet hair for added moisture and to prep for styling or on dry hair to refresh.

Why It’s Safe

Many detanglers (and hair products in general) are filled with unnecessary ingredients that can cause irritation or other adverse health effects. Yarok contains fewer than 10 ingredients, none of which are harmful.

Additionally, most hair products have a signature fragrance. “Fragrance” is a mix of fragrance and chemicals associated with allergies, dermatitis, respiratory distress and potential effects on the reproductive system. Fragrances have been found to contain unnamed toxic ingredients like phthalates which are associated with developmental and reproductive toxicity, endocrine disruption, and cancer.[1][2][3][4] To learn more about why you should avoid fragranced products, check out this post on fragrance.

Feed Your Ends contains no synthetic fragrance and has a fresh, light scent that occurs naturally.

Feed Your Ends is free of these other harmful ingredients commonly found in leave-in conditioners: 

• Diazolindyl urea- preservative that works by forming formaldehyde, which is a carcinogen and immune/respiratory/skin toxicant.[5]

• Phenoxyethanol- skin, eye, or lung irritant.  In 2008, the FDA warned consumers not to use Mommy’s Bliss Nipple cream because it contained phenoxyethanol which was harmful to infants.  The statement indicated phenoxyethanol could “depress the central nervous system and may cause vomiting and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration in infants.”  Phenoxyethanol remains a controversial ingredient and even “green” beauty products continue to use it as a preservative.[6]

• PEGs (polyethylene glycols) - penetration enhancers that may be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane and ethylene oxide which are associated with reproductive, developmental, and endocrine effects, cancer, and DNA damage.[7]

• Cetrimonium chloride – preservative that is a skin toxicant or allergen. Animal studies show developmental and reproductive effects in moderate doses.[8]

• Benzyl benzoate – associated with allergies and dermatitis, and possibly endocrine disruption.  Experimental studies show biological effects favoring malignant transformation on human breast cells for benzyl benzoate.[9]

• Disodium EDTA – used as a chelating agent in cosmetics and is also a penetration enhancer, meaning it will increase the penetration of other chemicals in the formula.[10] Disodium EDTA contributes to genetic instability when combined with other chemical mutagens, in addition to inhibiting DNA repair on its own.[11][12] Oral exposures to EDTA produced adverse reproductive and developmental effects in animals.

• Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) – an antioxidant and preservative used in food and cosmetics that is similar to BHA but does not show the same carcinogenic effects. BHT has been associated with endocrine disruption.[13][14][15]

Switch

Dry Bar Prep Rally detangler contains disodium edta, phenoxyethanol, fragrance, bht and PEG.

Aveda Cherry Almond Leave In Conditioner contains fragrance, phenoxyethanol, cetrimonim chloride and benzyl benzoate.

How to Buy

Price at the time of publishing is $32 for an 8oz bottle (large size).

Tips

Comes in 2, 4 and 8oz bottles. Great for kids too!

References & Resources

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5093181/

[2] https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/proposition-65//p65list091319.pdf

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4097177/

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14572300

[5] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/formaldehyde.html

[6] https://www.healthywomen.org/content/blog-entry/fda-warns-mothers-about-mommys-bliss-nipple-cream

[7] https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/potential-contaminants-cosmetics/14-dioxane-cosmetics-manufacturing-byproduct

[8] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/109158197227152

[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3443608/

[10] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12396676/

[11] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6406880/

[12] http://www.gettingtoknowcancer.org/environmental_exposures.php#:~:text=Genetic%20instability%20itself%20is%20therefore,genetic%20alterations%20and%20cause%20cancer.&text=When%20EDTA%20is%20combined%20with,important%20contributor%20to%20genetic%20instability

[13] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/butylated-hydroxytoluene

[14] https://endocrinedisruption.org/popup-chemical-details?chemid=907

[15] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412018326722