In SHampoo ,. what actually does the cleaning of your hair ?

Question

What mineral or substance in the shampoo actually does the cleaning ?

and what are all the other chemicals and minerales and substances in the shampoo mixture all for ?

Answer 1

Shampoo cleans by stripping sebum from the hair. Sebum is an oil secreted by hair follicles that is readily absorbed by the strands of hair, and forms a protective layer. Sebum protects the protein structure of hair from damage, but this protection comes at a cost. It tends to collect dirt, styling products and scalp flakes. Surfactants strip the sebum from the hair shafts and thereby remove the dirt attached to it.

While both soaps and shampoos contain surfactants, soap bonds to oils with such affinity that it removes too much if used on hair. Shampoo uses a different class of surfactants balanced to avoid removing too much oil from the hair.

The chemical mechanisms that underlie hair cleansing are similar to that of traditional soap. Undamaged hair has a hydrophobic surface to which skin lipids such as sebum stick, but water is initially repelled. The lipids do not come off easily when the hair is rinsed with plain water. The anionic surfactants substantially reduce the interfacial surface tension and allow for the removal of the sebum from the hair shaft. The non-polar oily materials on the hair shaft are solubilised into the surfactant micelle structures of the shampoo and are removed during rinsing. There is also considerable removal through a surfactant and oil "roll up" effect.