Clays: active ingredients benefiting the skin and hair

Since prehistoric times, there are traces of the use of various clays not only for medical purposes, but also for beauty and care.

Thousands of years ago, the Neanderthals used various clays to fight exhaustion, relieve their muscles, reduce their aches and scars, but also to soothe and clean their skin and hair.

What is clay?

Basically, clays are mineral substances that come from volcanic ashes. It is quite incredible, but it is impossible to find two clays that are the same: since they all come from different sources, they all have their own unique mineral composition.

The reason why there is a wide range of different clays is that each of them is recognized for its different properties. In hair care, we particularly like their moisturizing, cleansing, detoxifying and revitalizing properties.

Clays as powerful ingredients for hair

To get beautiful, shiny hair, we must carefully choose the right products with ingredients that are precisely adapted to our hair type.

At ATTITUDE, we already use super leaves, especially in our Super leaves™ line, because we know that these prodigious ingredients help revitalize, strengthen, stimulate, and protect all hair types.

But it's not just the super leaves that have impressive and interesting properties: clays are also very beneficial and advantageous.

Each color has its own use

In ATTITUDE formulas, we use several different types of clays, depending on whether they are found in our shampoos or in our deodorants.

In shampoos, we prefer to use red, yellow ochre, yellow illite, pink and blue-green clays, because these are the ones that naturally increase volume, moisturize, nourish, and detoxify the hair. On the other hand, in products such as deodorants, white clay is favored because it naturally absorbs moisture... it just makes sense!

Let's break it down a bit...

Yellow illite clay :

• Yellow clay is used because it helps protect the hair and absorbs excess oils. It's a natural mineral that is added to a formula, usually detoxifying, to help protect the hair and absorb excess oil. As a result, after a good shower, hair is left feeling deeply cleansed.

Red clay :

• As for the main properties of red clay, it revitalizes and increases the appearance of supple and shiny hair. It’s also a natural mineral active ingredient, usually found in a volumizing formula, because it’s directly associated with the appearance of fuller, shinier hair.

Pink clay :

• Pink clay is mainly used in hair products for detoxifying hair. Also in the family of natural mineral-based active ingredients, it’s mostly found in moisturizing shampoos because it’s known to detoxify and help moisturize. The outcome is softer and well hydrated hair.

Green-blue clay :

• Finally, if we use green-blue clay, it is also because it detoxifies the hair. However, it is more the type of natural mineral-based active ingredient that is added to a nourishing shampoo formula because it is known for its moisturizing and deep cleaning properties. To sum up, once used, it leaves the hair ready to absorb the other nourishing actives found in the products.

Even more possibilities

If the clays listed above can be counted on the fingers of one hand, they are far from representing a global picture of all the beauty products available on the market that contains them.

Pastes, powders, salves, balms, soaps, masks, cleansers and more: there is no lack of choice.

At ATTITUDE, we also use white clay, a soft natural active ingredient known to naturally absorb humidity: it is the ideal element for certain deodorants. As a result, you stay dry all day long without the need for baking soda, glycerin, or aluminum.

In short, the benefits of the different clays are numerous, and many combinations are possible to exploit their advantages. We would be crazy not to use them!