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Choosing Products for Children's Hair

Children's hair is generally healthier than adult hair, because it has not been colored, relaxed, heat styled or worn under tension for years. It needs less than an adult routine, not more, and the most common mistake is treating a child's head as a place to use up an adult product collection.

The short list

A gentle shampoo, a conditioner with real slip, a deep conditioner, a leave-in and one styling product. Five things covers wash day and daily refreshing for almost any child. A spray bottle for water is the sixth and the most used item in the house. Everything beyond that is optional, and each addition lengthens wash day.

What to leave out

Heavy greases and thick butters, which build up on a scalp that is already producing plenty of its own oil and are hard to wash out of fine hair. Products with strong fragrance, which are a common cause of irritation. Anything with hold designed for adult styling, since a child's style should be soft. Protein treatments, unless a child's hair is genuinely damaged, which is rare. And adult products for chemically treated hair, which are formulated for a problem the child does not have.

Slip matters more than anything

If you buy one thing well, buy a conditioner with excellent slip. Detangling is the part of a child's hair routine that goes wrong, and slip is what prevents it. It is worth paying more for a conditioner that makes detangling easy than for any styling product, and it is worth being generous with it rather than rationing it.

Buying sizes

Larger sizes of the few things you use constantly, small sizes of anything you are trying for the first time. Conditioner and leave-in get used in quantity on a child with dense hair, and running out mid-wash-day is a real problem. If you have several children, buy the shared items in the largest size available.

Sensitive scalps

Children react more often than adults, and usually to fragrance or to a specific ingredient rather than to a category. If a child's scalp itches, reddens or flakes after a new product, stop that product rather than adding a treatment on top. Introduce one new product at a time so you can tell which one caused it. Fragrance-free versions exist across most of the range. Persistent flaking, sores or bald patches are worth a doctor's visit rather than another bottle.

Letting them choose

A child who picks their own bottle is more cooperative about wash day. Within the constraints above, letting them choose between two suitable options is a cheap way to buy goodwill.