Scalp Shampoo for Flake-Prone Hair

Details

For scalps that flake and itch, one active at a proper strength in the same mild base as our daily shampoo. Zinc pyrithione works by reducing Malassezia, the yeast that lives on most scalps and that a flaking scalp is reacting to. Here is what it does not do: it does not cure seborrhoeic dermatitis, and the flaking comes back when you stop, because the yeast comes back. This is control, not a cure, and a shampoo that implies otherwise is selling you a course of treatment that has no end. The regulatory position, in full, because it is public and a buyer will find it anyway. Zinc pyrithione is permitted in India in a rinse-off hair product, and the finished product is regulated as a cosmetic by CDSCO under the Cosmetics Rules 2020. It is permitted in the United States under the OTC antidandruff monograph. The European Union reclassified it and prohibited it in cosmetics from March 2022. Those are the three positions and we would rather print all three than one. The category's own cheat is different and smaller: an anti-dandruff shampoo is usually built on a harsh sulphate base and heavily perfumed to cover the active's smell, so the scalp ends up tighter and more irritated than it started, and the flaking that returns gets blamed on the scalp. This one is on the taurate and glucoside base, unperfumed, at pH 5.0.

• Zinc pyrithione 1.0 percent by formula, 1.02 percent by HPLC assay, tested per lot. A label figure and an assay figure are two different things and only one of them has been measured
• Full INCI in descending order: Aqua, Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate (5.5 percent), Cocamidopropyl Betaine (4.5 percent), Coco-Glucoside (3.5 percent), Glycerin (2.5 percent), Zinc Pyrithione (1.0 percent), Panthenol (0.8 percent), Xanthan Gum (0.8 percent), Magnesium Aluminum Silicate (0.6 percent), Salicylic Acid (0.5 percent), Sodium Benzoate (0.5 percent), Allantoin (0.3 percent), Citric Acid (0.3 percent), Potassium Sorbate (0.3 percent)
• Total active surfactant matter 13.5 percent, tested, and no sulphate or sulfonate: no SLS, no SLES, no sodium coco-sulfate, no C14-16 olefin sulfonate
• There is deliberately no chelator in this bottle. Our daily shampoo carries sodium phytate for hard water; a chelator here would bind the zinc, and an active you have chelated is an active you no longer have. The cost is that it performs a little less well in very hard water, and that is the right way round
• Salicylic acid at 0.5 percent to lift flakes that are already sitting on the scalp, and allantoin at 0.3 percent for the itch. Both stated, both at a rinse-off level
• Fragrance-free and menthol-free. No parfum, no masking agent, and no cooling agent, because a cold tingle is a sensation standing in for an effect
• Measured pH 5.0. Silicone-free, paraben-free, dye-free, with the preservative named as sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate rather than a switch to methylisothiazolinone
• Contact time is the whole thing: three minutes on the scalp, then rinse. An active with no contact time is an active that went down the drain, and a shampoo that does not tell you the contact time has left out the instruction that makes it work
• Tested fill: 200 ml net, filled by weight to 206 g at a measured density of 1.030 g per ml. The 400 ml is 412 g
• Honest trade-off: zinc pyrithione is a suspension, not a solution, so the bottle is opaque and it settles. Shake it before use. That is also why the magnesium aluminium silicate is in there
• Second trade-off: it can leave the lengths drier, because it is aimed at the scalp and the lengths get it on the way past. Use it twice a week and use Gentle Daily Shampoo on the other days
• If the flaking comes with redness that spreads past the hairline, weeping, or scaling that does not shift in a month, that is a doctor's question. This is a cosmetic and it makes no medical claim