Ever wondered what it takes to have a luscious head of hair and a heart full of love? Join us in peeling back the layers of two seemingly unrelated yet deeply personal topics: the secrets to impeccable hair care and the complexities of unconditional love. Prepare to have your bathroom shelf and your belief systems shaken-up, as we dissect everything from sulfate-free shampoos to the nature of the love we share with those closest to us. Whether you're looking to overhaul your hair routine or contemplating the strings attached to your heartstrings, this episode has you covered.
This heart-to-heart doesn't stop at the surface; we're talking about the nuances of daily grooming habits and how they reflect our self-worth, while also navigating the slippery slopes of relationship dynamics. We confront the myths and facts of hair product ingredients, and debate the existence of love free from conditions. Relying on insights from "Self-care for Men" we enlighten your approach to hair care and challenge you to reflect on the love in your life, ensuring you walk away with a head and heart as healthy as they can be.
Ever wondered what it takes to have a luscious head of hair and a heart full of love? Join us in peeling back the layers of two seemingly unrelated yet deeply personal topics: the secrets to impeccable hair care and the complexities of unconditional love. Prepare to have your bathroom shelf and your belief systems shaken-up, as we dissect everything from sulfate-free shampoos to the nature of the love we share with those closest to us. Whether you're looking to overhaul your hair routine or contemplating the strings attached to your heartstrings, this episode has you covered.
This heart-to-heart doesn't stop at the surface; we're talking about the nuances of daily grooming habits and how they reflect our self-worth, while also navigating the slippery slopes of relationship dynamics. We confront the myths and facts of hair product ingredients, and debate the existence of love free from conditions. Relying on insights from "Self-care for Men" we enlighten your approach to hair care and challenge you to reflect on the love in your life, ensuring you walk away with a head and heart as healthy as they can be.
Hey there, this is Charles, and welcome back to the Mindfully Masculine podcast. In this episode, dan and I will continue to review and discuss self-care for men by Garrett Muntz. We're kicking off a few episodes on the topic of hair care, and in this one, we'll talk about some of the products and compounds that you may want to look for and the ones you may want to avoid when it comes to taking care of those lovely locks, and the ones you may want to avoid when it comes to taking care of those lovely locks. Please follow or subscribe on your chosen podcast app, and you can also find our full episode videos on YouTube. Just look for Mindfully Masculine. Thanks and enjoy.
Charles:Good afternoon, Charles. Hello again, Dan. We are great. How are you? I'm well. I'm well, Excellent. Yeah, we're going to skip our usual long indulgent introductions so that we can hammer through this episode on what we're going to start the whole part of this book about hair and how to take care of your hair. But before we do that, you wanted to share something about some feedback from one of our listeners that you received from New Jersey.
Dan:He mentioned to me on a call when we were catching up the other day. He mentioned that when we were talking about unconditional love, that the example I was using was not exactly accurate in terms of a parent not loving their child anymore because they've committed murder, or a pet that they've loved for many years attacks somebody, fights their kid or whatever, and now they don't love them and it's not like a light switch that gets turned on or off and he's got a lot of firsthand experience and knowledge with the type of work that he does. Yeah, and he made some good points and then, as we were talking before, you made some excellent points that it's still unconditional.
Charles:His were only good and mine are excellent.
Dan:I yeah, but right, and it's another level that I didn't think about. The examples that I was using was not really accurate, for why? Unconditional love doesn't exist, but what you? Why don't you enlighten us in terms of what you that can be? A condition is the fact that you've got an existing?
Charles:relationship with that person. And we're rolling this back to a month or two ago, where we were talking about Chris Rock's standup routine, where he's men don't get unconditional love, like women and children and dogs get unconditional love. And I said no, women and children and dogs don't get unconditional love either. If love was truly unconditional, then I would love every child and I would love every dog and I would love every woman and be willing to sacrifice my own wellbeing for theirs. And that's simply not true. I will sacrifice my wellbeing for the woman.
Charles:I love the children, I love the pet that I love, but that's a condition. That's because I've chosen to have and foster a relationship with that woman, child or dog and they mean something to me. Therefore, I'm willing to put my own needs aside to meet their needs. But if it was unconditional, you could apply it across the board to straight Just the benefit of being a dog means you get my love with no condition, and that's the fallacy that I think he was hitting on. That doesn't a women, children, dogs get this, and as men, we don't. And a little bit of boo-hoo we should get this too. No, we shouldn't, because they don't get it either.
Dan:Yeah, and I think where that's where Chris Rock was being specific enough, right, and I think that's where Chris Rock was being specific enough, right. So our own dogs, women, children, our partners, our spouses, right Once that condition has been established, that it is part of our life and our world, at that point, yeah, I think the love can be unconditional for them after that's been established. But a stray dog off the street who doesn't belong to anybody isn't getting unconditional love right, and even the woman in my life is not getting unconditional sacrifice from me.
Charles:She's getting it, as long as she maintains the conditions. She starts telling me hey, I've taken on a new hobby of sleeping with your friends. Then the unconditional love that Chris Rock's complaining about ain't there anymore With women.
Dan:I think that's the case. But if it's your flesh and blood right, your parent, your child, what do you think about that?
Charles:If I that's a good question I would say that there could be some values that a kid of mine adopts and decides to live their life based on. Somebody might go straight to oh, if your son's gay, that, no, that's not what I'm talking about. If, if I have a kid that makes some, basically, decisions along the lines of human life that doesn't serve me, isn't worth anything, whether that's assaulting people, raping people, murdering people, targeting people based on their ethnicity, anything like really like that, then it's like oh man, I am, I'm not gonna cross the street for this kid anymore yeah.
Dan:so I think what I was thinking was that the unconditional love doesn't exist in any capacity, but that's not exactly accurate. So those are some what you just gave us an example, a situation where it wouldn't exist, yeah. So I think we need to get specific and go OK, look, it can exist, and it can exist Unconditional love, but it's it doesn't always wants the condition of it's your pet or your because.
Dan:again, people I'm going to say explain to me what you mean by unconditional, because I feel like no, there's always condition, even when you're with your own people so on the news when they interview the parents of somebody who, like a child who's gone and shot up a school, a lot of times the parents, they still love the child, they still express some sort of love for the child and I think that's an example of again assuming that it's there again. Not just because you wouldn't do it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Charles:One. There's a big rabbit hole we could go down here which says, okay, I don't know exactly what the ratio is of nature and nurture when it comes to creating a kid that shoots up his school 47.5. But you could one could make the argument of they never loved that kid and that's why he ended up doing what he did, absolutely. Now they might think that they loved the kid. They might think that they loved the kid unconditionally. Yeah, but when you see, okay, here's what they were actually willing to do, what they were willing to invest, what they were willing to sacrifice, what they were willing to do to support that kid, what they were willing to do to support that kid as an outsider, we might look at that and say no, they never loved that kid, they fair. So the fact that they're willing to go out and get in front of a news camera and say I still love them big freaking deal I your little declaration doesn't really tell me anything about how much you actually love or don't love your kid.
Charles:Yeah, it's easy to say things, it's hard to do them yeah in that case, yeah's, there could be women, children and dogs that people are willing to unconditionally claim that they love, but I would argue that's different from actually unconditionally loving them.
Dan:Yeah. Then again, though, what is your definition of unconditional love going to be universal for everybody? In this case, no more than Chris Rock.
Charles:Good, fair. Okay, he definitely. He had a definition that he was willing to impose on everybody who was going to hear his special, and one that I think is horseshit, and so now I get to say that yeah, it definitely doesn't exist as much as he made it out to be.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:For those categories and again, I would argue that it doesn't exist at all Because, again, if it can't apply to some random pet woman child that's just dropped into your hypothetical scenario, if it doesn't apply to them, then it doesn't apply, because conditions are conditions and conditions could be a lot of different things. And the fact that that condition is I spent the last 18 years raising them or whatever, that's a condition and that's a feeling that you're not even willing to claim that you have for a kid on the other side of the world that you don't know. That's where I'm at on that. All right, um, but I'm I'm glad, I'm glad that your buddy had some insight to share and for some conversation.
Dan:Yeah, and he wanted to do a call-in. He wanted some live streaming. You need a call-in function or maybe a text-in function. We need to do some live streaming. I guess.
Charles:Yeah, I guess we could At least just do a live stream. We could make Zoom or Google Hangout or something like that work.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:We'll look into it. We'll put it on the list of things we want to accomplish. Yeah, you're keeping that list right. Yeah, I'm not keeping it. Okay, so let's talk about hair First off. He does mention the good hair day effect, which I certainly am a. I've experienced that before. Right after you get your hair done, you do feel better and carry yourself a little different and feel just happier and more confident, and I like that and that's why part of the reason I go to the, the barber shop so often um, how your hair makes you feel on the inside can absolutely have an impact on you in a positive way. That's why you do things like I got a date, I got an interview, I'm gonna get my hair cut before I go. And or, if you don't, just doing your own styling at home can definitely impact that. I like. I like you're getting spiky. If it gets a quarter of an inch longer, I think we may have to frost some tips.
Dan:We're not frosting any tips?
Charles:no, I'm not, not frosting any tips all right, but I yeah, it's, it looks yeah, thank you.
Dan:Yeah, I'm just about at the point where I need to get a haircut, so really, yeah, how often do you go?
Charles:every five weeks, something like that yeah, I read recently the average is like seven weeks. Okay, I'm a two-week guy. I I go just about every two weeks because, especially when I'm wearing the sides really short, yeah, you're gonna have it doubles in length every 10 days, so I have to go fairly frequently. Um, okay, so the first thing he throws out there really the you. The title of the section is throw out the three in one, which I feel personally accused here. Product developers and marketers believe for a long time that the only way to get men to use hair products was to consolidate them into one.
Dan:Why not you got the Swiss army knife, where it's like multi-tool. Every Christmas there's some new multi-tool out, right.
Charles:Yeah, I'm not. I generally don't carry a pair of scissors and I generally don't carry a corkscrew, but if you put it on a Swiss army knife then it might make its way into my pocket. Yeah, that's true. But he does go out of his way to say products that are made to wash the skin on your body are not the right ones for your hair, and I'm going to tend to agree with him.
Charles:I no longer use a three in one, five in one, eight in one, whatever in one, unless I'm traveling, and then it does make a little bit more sense. But I'm willing to accept the fact that it's not as good for my hair when I do that. But I'm willing to trade convenience for luster, okay. So, yeah, he does spend a lot of time saying do not use those products. He then goes on to say do not shampoo your hair every day, as we've been saying for weeks and people have been pushing back on. The most you should be washing your hair is every other day, and many men can go even longer, like once a week.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, you want to strip away all the oils. The natural oils are healthy for the hair and for your scalp, so you want to be careful to not dry it out too much. Now he does say later, though.
Charles:To shampoo or condition every day? Yeah, but you do not have to clean, slash, wash your hair with a shampoo every day, and I think he's right, and most conditioners do form or do act as some form of cleanliness as well.
Charles:Are? Oh, a little bit of sure. Yeah, I would think so, it's just not as harsh. He does suggest you use the right shampoo. If you've got thin hair, they've got shampoos for that. If you've got curly hair, they've got shampoos for that. If you've got dry hair, they've got shampoos for that. Colored hair, they've got shampoos for that. And yeah, you should. And I would say I don't know. I don't know that my barber is going to have recommendations the guy that I'm going to right now for this kind of stuff. But if you're going to a stylist, they will have recommendations. Now, when you get a barber, do they wash your hair?
Dan:My barber does not Okay, so I don't know if that's common. I don't think it is. When I was raised to go, I think barbers don't wash the hair where stylists do. I go to sport clips and a lot of great clips so like they will wash your hair as well, and so they might be a better resource. People actually are. Shampooing hair might be a better resource for information.
Charles:I would agree with that. The only thing that worries me a little bit is what are the odds that their recommendation is going to line up with whatever sales promotion?
Dan:happens. So, that being said, yeah, take it with a grain of salt for whatever selling products they're selling in the shop. But you also have to remember that if the products didn't really work that well, the national franchise would not necessarily be putting them into correct stores.
Charles:If they didn't work, they didn't sell and a stylist that wants a ongoing relationship with you is not going to only factor in. Okay, I get 10 commission instead of five percent commission, yeah, on this particular thing. But it is something that I think of when, especially when, they give me unsolicited advice of oh, what you need to be using is blah, blah, blah. Versus asking, versus asking, sure, correct, yes, if I ask, then I think I'm more likely to get an answer that I can trust than if it's oh, by the way, your hair is really fill in the blank. This happens to be on sale right now, so you should buy it.
Charles:Okay, always use conditioner, as we said, when you are shampooing your hair. Go ahead and use that as an opportunity to massage your head, massage your hair, massage your scalp, and not only does it feel good, but does some important work to help the shampoo clean your scalp and also stimulate blood flow and get some of the dead skin off of your scalp. He says to use a scalp scrub, which I didn't even know was a thing until I read this.
Dan:I had never heard of a scalp scrub before either.
Charles:So yeah, obviously neither of us have ever used a scalp scrub. He said the most scalp scrubs will also function as a shampoo, but if they don't, you should use the scalp scrub first and then use your shampoo. He does say to dry your hair gently, which I never do I do not either.
Charles:I am all about the towel rubbing I throw the towel on there and I my goal is to get it from wet to dry as fast as possible, and so I just get time for this, I just go pat dry. Yeah, I just go crazy on it. And yeah, he does say that your hair can be more sensitive after you shampooed and conditioned it, or certainly shampooed it, and so that damage can happen by doing what we both do.
Dan:Yes, it's what I learned as well. All right.
Charles:Then he gets into some fill in the blank free options that you might see on your shampoo, or certainly on some shampoo. I'm working under the assumption that my shampoos probably have all of these things, because I don't remember them saying that they were free of any of them.
Charles:Yeah, they'll definitely be on the bottle if these are, if it's free of these yeah, you would think so, because they're not going to leave that marketing space exactly unexploited. Right? Let me talk about I use. I I use head and shoulders because I get a dry scalp frequently, not to the point where I can't wear black clothes because they'll just be covered in what looks like a mix of powdered sugar and probably cocaine. I don't know what cocaine looks like delicious, okay, thank you. Let it that out. No, it won't be. So I use. Basically, they have head and shoulders that they sell, as this is gentle enough to use every day, and they have other head and shoulders, that is, this is medical grade, super strong head and shoulders, and one comes in a white bottle and one comes in a dark blue bottle and I mix up, alternate between the two of them.
Dan:Okay, yeah, yeah, I get a little bit of a dry scalp too, and what my hairdresser recommended was a leave-in moisturizer or leave-in conditioner. I should say, okay, I use a little bit of that and that's helped reduce a little bit of my flaking and my dry scalp. I just rub that in real, real.
Charles:I use that too. I use Tea Tree has a leave-in moisturizer. I don't know if it actually has Tea Tree oil in it or not, because I know that can dry things out, but tea tree, the product line yeah, I was going to say it's a skin and hair moisturizer.
Dan:If it's tingling, then there's tea tree oil in it.
Charles:It smells good but I don't know if it tingles. All their stuff probably has some level of tea tree, but that might be more marketing, I don't know. But it does make leave-in conditioner and I rub that into my scalp and my hair and then, if I'm putting in some sort of a cream or clay, I do that afterward. And again, I try to minimize the number of competing scents and ideally I use stuff that doesn't have any scent. I think the Head Shoulders I don't think they make a fragrance-free, but I'll check If they do. I would rather use that, but I've not been able to find one so far. The dark blue head and shoulders that is the strongest stuff that they make. It has a very medicinal smell to it, which I don't know if that is because of the fragrance or that's because that's just what it smells like. But yeah, if I could find a fragrance free version, that would be my preference. Yeah, sulfate free. Sulfate is what makes stuff lather up if it's got.
Dan:Generally, people expect their shampoo to get really lathery, so it may use sulfates to do that something to think about too is if you're using, like, a sulfate free conditioner or excuse me shampoo or even a soap that's got doesn't have sulfate. It's not like lathering up. Usually what happens, I found, is the first time you use it, the first bat, the first round it. That's what is taking most of the oil and everything out of your hair and that will stop stuff from foaming up. Rinse it, wash it again with a kit and it'll soap up a little bit more and I feel like, yeah, all right, you've you. You now have that. If you really want that, that soaping up experience, right, that lathering up experience try that with a sulfate-free soap or shampoo.
Charles:Okay, that's a good tip. Parabens paraben-free, generally grooming products. We're going to have preservatives in them because they last on the shelf, for they sit on the shelf for months sometimes and they need to. So they're going to have something in there to preserve chemicals that have been put together and bonded together. Now parabens are a kind of preservative. Recently it says they've come under fire because some believe they are linked to cancer, but the medical evidence to support this has not been found. So one time he's willing to use that disclaimer in this whole book. There's a lot of the medical evidence to support this has not been found. Statements in this book, but this is the first one. Parabens is where he draws the line.
Dan:You anything that you're putting on your skin, your scalp, your hair that does get absorbed into your body. Again, I'm a big proponent of being as natural as possible. If you can eliminate preservatives and chemicals and things that you really can't pronounce, you're not sure what they are, I think that's a better route to go rather than rolling the dice necessarily. I'm more of a dice roller.
Charles:I know you love those dice Based on how things feel and smell. Whether or not they kill or keep me alive is secondary to that, but one of us has to be a hedonist. Okay, how do you want to pronounce the next one?
Dan:Allate-free. It's phthalate-free, I think Phthalate-free.
Charles:P-H-T-H-A-L-A-T-E. That's a lot of conson. You are all silent and dumb. Basically, stuff that has a gel like texture, such as pomades and stuff, will that have that texture and have a fragrance, and they want the freight. Basically, if you want your pomade to sit on the shelf both at the store and in your house and still smell like cologne after a long time, then there's a good chance it's got some phthalates in it and he's recommending that. Uh, these are considered endocrine disruptors, which means they may be linked to certain forms of cancer. I didn't know that endocrine disruptor and cancer is the same thing, but he says it is.
Dan:Yeah, so basically just the endocrine is your hormone system.
Charles:If something gets involved or disrupts your hormone system, then by its very nature it causes cancer. Maybe that's self-evident?
Dan:but yeah, I'm not sure about that. Possibly, hormones do affect a lot of things and I'm sure that at some point it could potentially cause some sort of cancer if your hormones are not lined up. I don't, I can't give an example, but I can't say that it doesn't Either way messing with your hormones from putting something on your skin. Yeah, look, they've got topical. They have topical estrogen, topical testosterone that you put on, so why not? Yeah, so this, it could absolutely affect your hormones.
Charles:Yeah, I'm just wondering, you know, is there a parts per million? Is there a deaths per thousand? That is relevant to this. I mean because, again, I'm sure there is the idea of yeah, okay, yes, maybe there's some correlation to people who have cancer and people who use shampoo with phthalates or pomade with phthalates in it. How do we know whether this is important enough to give a rat's ass about and how do we know that it's not?
Dan:There are quite a few shampoos and soaps out there that say phthalate-free. So my guessing is there is enough studies out there. I'm guessing there's enough studies out there, pretty widespread. It's pretty common to see that stuff.
Charles:But not enough studies that the government says you can't put phthalate in your stuff anymore, yes, or who knows there's think about the hormone-free language that they put on milk and eggs, where it's been illegal to give those animals hormones for years, but they still market them as hormone-free, even though they're all hormone-free. I was watching the first episode of Mad Men, where a lucky strike comes in after, basically, the tobacco industry is no longer able to make health claims about their product, and Don Draper's brilliant idea is Lucky Strike, it's toasted. And the son of the guy that owns the company is like, yeah, but all cigarettes have tobacco that's toasted, and Don's like no, all cigarettes kill people except your cigarettes are toasted. And so some of these fill in the blank or toast it. And so some of these fill in the blank.
Charles:We may be talking about substances that have been banned for decades, but it's still advertised that they're free of it. Absolutely, it helps them move product and, yeah, if any of this stuff is a big enough deal that you think it matters and you think it should influence your buying decisions, go ahead and make a Google search as far as I know, google's still free and you can find out like okay, how much should I worry about this? Is this chemical, even in the products that I might be buying? And is it just some brands decide to advertise based on it and some decide not to mention it, because that is a possibility?
Dan:Yeah, so there's a couple of good places to look up this stuff, like Environmental Working Group EWG is one, examinecom, consumerlabcom All of those are independent organizations that do a lot of testing when it comes to food and chemicals and things like that. It might be a good place to at least start your research.
Charles:Okay. The last thing we want to say about dandruff is if you've got a dandruff issue, he recommends you speak to your dermatologist. As if I have a dermatologist, I will speak to somebody who claims to be a dermatologist on Reddit and see what he has to say Although I've got full medical insurance now, dan, so why don't I blow 50 bucks on talking to a dermatologist? There you go. I want to finish this real quick because I'm running late for my therapy appointment with Renata. You can buy good stuff at the supermarket or at Walmart. You don't have to go to just a salon. I would say start free and start sulfate free or not free. Start cheap and sulfate free and work your way up until you find something that you like.
Charles:Sample with travel sizes first I love this idea and see if you like it and if it works for you, and then, before you go to Costco and buy the 55 gallon drum, ask an expert, which means again, generally, I would say I love my barber, but I'm not asking them hair care advice. I'm just I'm not even asking him. How do you think this would look on me With my barber? It's do this and he does it, and I'm thrilled with him for that. If you want to get a whole hair care regime going, go and drop some money at a fancier stylist and listen to what they tell you and then go back to your barber where it's cheap. Yep, yeah, okay. And then finally, for men products. For the most part for men means we put a fragrance in here that you might like and you might think is a little bit more manly. But again he takes a chance to reiterate don't use three at once.
Dan:Yeah, and a lot of times those for men products. They're almost the same as for women, but they have a different color of the bottle.
Charles:They just change it to black or gray, which could often make them cheaper, which is unfair to women, but such as it is, blue razors are cheaper than pink razors. There you go, and I don't feel guilty enough about that to buy pink razors, but almost All right, dan, thank you very much. I will talk to you later and I will jump on and hopefully be slightly mentally healthier in the next 50 minutes.
Dan:All right, we'll talk soon. All right, bye.
Charles:Wow, you made it through the whole thing, so you must like us at least a little bit, in which case you should definitely follow or subscribe to our show in your chosen podcast app. Thanks, we'll talk to you next time.