How to Preserve the Shelf Life of Your Natural Hair Products

Mother Jar (Shea Moisture Container) and Daughter Jar (any smaller container will do)

Many hair products tend to come with a long description on how to use them, but very little includes instructions on how to prolong the shelf life and efficacy of the product. Most products would tell you to store them in a cool and well ventilated environment in order to ensure that the chemical properties in the products remains at their optimal state until they are used up, before the expiry date. One size does not always fit all, this is especially true for thick hair products such as hair masques, curl defining creams, hair butters and other hair predicts with a similar consistency which often comes packaged in jars for easier access.

Hair products that comes in jars requires the user to dip their fingers into the product, which sometimes can be unsanitary, particularly if the fingers are not clean and even worse if the product is shared by two or more people. 

4 Reasons why you shouldn't dip your fingers straight into the product 

1. Dipping your hands into the product can contaminate the product when the hair isn't cleansed before it is dipped into the product. 

2. It can cause shed and broken hair pieces to get into your hair product which can be unpleasant to the eyes and a contaminant to the hair product which can affect the efficacy of the product which is left in the jar. This might cause the product to "stop working" overtime. 

3. A  lot of naturals tend to use a variety of hair products on hair day, this means that their fingers might have a combination of two or more hair products which will most likely end up in the jar of hair product. The combination of these hair pr

oducts will affect the chemical properties of the hair product which can counter its effect because you've now added your hair gel, leave in and hair butter to your jar of curl defining cream.  

4. Opening the product for a long period of time can also expose it to too much air which can lead to floating particles in the atmosphere depositing on the surface of the product. 

So, how  do you ensure that your hair product stays "fresh" till the last scoop?

You can prolong the shelf life of your hair product by simply avoiding all the habits mentioned above. An easy way to do this is by using a clean spoon to scoop out a few spoonful of the hair product which you will need into a smaller clean container. Using a separate container will also allow you to add any other additions you wish to add to the hair product if you like to complicate things like I sometimes like to.  

Just make sure you use up the product and if you happen to have some left over, DO NOT pour it back into the "mother" jar because the main reason why you have a daughter jar is to reduce contamination. And so any left over product can either be discarded or it can be sealed and used up during the week or on your next styling session.  

  

How do you prolong the shelf life of your hair products?