May 19, 2019
Learn about Scalp Conditions with Dr. Michele Burklund on this Q & A session.
The questions for this video include…
- What are the therapeutic ingredients of the scalp therapy line shampoo and conditioner?
- What exactly is dandruff?
- What makes dandruff worse?
- Would you recommend any lifestyle changes?
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Right below, you will find the transcript of this video.
Transcript:
(00:00) – Hi, everyone. Good morning. My name is Dr. Michele Burklund, and we are here today, Friday, at 10:00 AM, Pacific Standard Time, for our weekly Q&A session. So we’ve been doing this for a while now. We’ve been focusing on a lot of different conditions from eczema, pain, fungal infections. And this week, we are going to be doing dandruff again. So, for those of you who haven’t caught one of our last sessions, my name is Dr. Michele Burklund, and I’m the Chief Science Officer here at Puriya. So, a lot of what I do is studying medical literature to help create different formulations and also the education. So every week, I’m here live with you to answer questions about specific conditions. So we organized it in specific conditions on purpose. So, if you’re interested in scalp conditions and dandruff, then join in today. And if you’re interested in a different condition, then we’ll answer a lot of those questions in a different session.
(01:04) – So, while I’m waiting for everyone to join, if you are watching, let me know and write in the comments below if you’re watching live and where you’re watching from too. Or if you have any questions or different questions on different conditions, we can add them to future sessions as well. So I wanna remind all of you too to sign up for our newsletter, because it’s amazing and that you get a lot of great articles that I write and other people from our team on living holistically, getting to the root cause, lots of different articles about mind-body medicine. You get reminders for events like this one, and also, I am holding a Living Well interview series, which is so much fun. And we’re interviewing leaders in the natural health industry in so many different areas. It’s a lot of fun. So if you sign up for our newsletter, you will be told when our next interview is. And I will give you a reminder right now that we have David Kennet on Monday, May 20th at 10:00 AM, Pacific Standard Time, which is gonna be amazing. It’s all about sound healing. And he’s going to actually do a session live too. So tune in to that.
(02:20) – So that are all my reminders right now. You can also follow us on Facebook Live right here too to catch our next session as well. So we have some good questions today on dandruff. And the questions that we’ll be answering are, what are the therapeutic ingredients of the Scalp Therapy line? That’s gonna be a long one, but we’re just focusing on the therapeutical ones. What exactly is dandruff? I’ll explain that a little bit. What makes dandruff worse? And what would you recommend for any lifestyle changes? Okay. So, first question, what are the therapeutic ingredients of the scalp therapy line? So first off, I actually wanna go over what is not in the ingredients. So here, at Puriya, we are a plant-based company, and we have certain principles, like number one, no nanoparticles, no artificial colorings, no synthetic fragrances, no ingredients like sodium lauryl sulfate, no formaldehyde carriers, no preservatives like parabens, additives like MEA, DEA, TEA, and no products or ingredients that cause animal cruelty in any way. So, first thing you have to know what our values are and what we will never have in our products, because we believe that what you put on your body is just as important as what you put inside.
(03:47) – So when we formulated the Scalp Therapy line, we took into account many variables of what is the mechanism of action behind dandruff and scalp conditions. And a lot of that has to do with inflammation, dryness, and irritation, itching, all these different things. So when we thought about each botanical, each vitamin, each plant-based ingredient, we took into the mechanism of action that we wanted to focus on to help soothe and relieve those conditions. And not only did we pay attention to that, but we cared a lot about our sourcing. We source from good suppliers that were ethical and sustainable too. So when we think about putting together a product, we think about the whole picture of where we resource the ingredients, the mechanism of action and trying to get into the root cause too.
(04:43) – Another really cool thing is our new website is going to be launching soon, I believe in June, so very soon. I know it’s coming up quite quickly. And on our new website, we will have a list of all our ingredients, where you can click on them, read about why we use them, in what products, why we chose to use it, and also the scientific research that we use to help formulate and add those in as well. Okay, so I will start with the first ingredient here. We’re focusing on the therapeutic ingredients to make this a little shorter today. The first one is sage. This is actually one of my favorite ingredients because I lived on the Island of Crete for a while, which is also known as the island of herbs. And around this time, sage is filled in the mountain. So, every year, I would pick huge amounts of sage and dry it in our house and you can use it for so many different conditions, from skin irritations to colds.
(05:39) – And so I really love this herb. It actually comes from the Latin term salve, which means to heal, and that’s exactly what it does. It’s part of the mint family, and it contains over 28 different important medicinal compounds. And that’s why you can use it for so many things, from sore throat to acne, inflamed skin, and dandruff, which is why we have it. So we chose to use sage for its ability to help restore the hair. It has antimicrobial abilities and anti-fungal as well. So so many different reasons that I love sage. I think that’s an excellent addition to it. We also have hydrolysed wheat protein. Wheat protein is the end product of hydrolysis of wheat, which extracts it into smaller molecules, into proteins and peptides. And those are what we want to help penetrate the hair shaft to deliver nutrients and lock in the moisture. So that’s why we added that one. So it adds strength, it helps repair damage to the hair, and then also adds volume and thickness.
(06:48) – So this ingredient is more of like a restorative, reparative, and then helps keep a lot of the moisture. And because, with dandruff, you get a lot of dryness and flaking along with them. Now, our next ingredient is Tea Tree Oil. And in many of our previous Q&A sessions, you might have heard me talk about this, because there are so many great uses for it. It’s derived from the leaves of the Tea Tree plant through a steam distillation process, and it concentrates like the volatile essential oils. And so, there’s over 100 different compounds that have been studied in Tea Tree essential oil. And so, we use it for the soothing ability of the inflammation, and then Tea Tree oil has broad action against anti-fungal, antimicrobial in general, so we really love it for that reason. Now, we also have aloe. And many of you are already familiar with aloe, and you most likely associate it with sunburned skin and the relief and the soothing abilities for that. And aloe is just amazing in itself too. It actually contains over 75 different nutrients and 200 different active compounds, including vitamins, minerals, and salicylic acid too
(08:05) – So there’s two different parts of it. There’s the latex and the gel. And we use the gel in our scalp therapy line. And we use it to help strengthen the hair, to soothe the scalp, because the scalp can get very irritated as well. And also, aloe, surprisingly, has a lot of great anti-inflammatory properties too. So, just a couple more ingredients until I move on to the next question. We have Vitamin B5, Panthenol. And, actually, a lot of different hair shampoos contain this. You might be familiar with it. And I thought this was interesting too. It’s derived from the Greek word called Panthenon, which means every side, revealing the importance of this nutrient for cellular function, for hair, for moisture, for so many different things. And it does a lot for helping protect, moisturize the hair, soothing irritation. And so it helps with a lot of different things. You can actually get this from food too. The food sources include broccoli, cabbage, potatoes, mushrooms, nuts, beans, different meats, dairy products, and eggs as well.
(09:23) – So another one that we are using is Arnica extract. And a lot of people might be familiar with Arnica in a homeopathic way. And we’re actually using the flower extract here, which is a little different, but it’s known to help stimulate the care process in the body. So if you have a bruise or something like that, a lot of people are used to seeing that in store for uses like that. And we’re using it because it helps soothe inflammation and stimulates the repair processes in the body. So, it’s another great way for when your scalp is irritated or it’s itching, this can really soothe that as well. So the next ingredient is rosemary extract. And most of you are, I’m sure, familiar with this, or you see it at the grocery store. And it’s loaded with powerful phytochemicals. Rosemary, there’s so many things you can do with it. It’s very potent for brain health too. A lot of people remember the quote, “Remember with Rosemary.” And it’s amazing also for topical issues in skin. So we’re using the exact form of it, and it can help increase blood circulation, reduce swelling and inflammation as well. So that is why we use rosemary.
(10:46) – Also, what’s interesting, is we have stinging nettle extract in the conditioner. And I think stinging nettle is amazing. It’s incredibly nutritious if you drink it as a tea. A lot of people get scared when they hear the name, and they’re like, “Why would you use stinging nettle?” But stinging nettle does… It loses its stinging ability once it’s processed either through drying or brewing. So it’s not gonna create inflammatory reaction, it’s gonna do the opposite and help soothe the area. What I love too is, living in Greece, as long as I did, Hippocrates actually described stinging nettle and listed over 60 different uses for this herb. So it’s just so amazingly nutritious and has so many great properties through its antihistamine abilities as well. So we use it for its soothing abilities, its pack full of nutrients, and it’s a natural antihistamine. So I hope that answered your questions. I tried to be as brief as possible and focus on the therapeutic ones, as well as what our products contain and what we will never use, ’cause I think that’s very important. The next question, well, we could go on for a long time about this one, what exactly is dandruff?
(12:06) – So, over 50% of the population reports some conditions of dandruff, and the thing is it can be caused from many different things. It occurs because skin cells of the scalp develop faster than the dead cells shed. So this causes the whitish flakes of the dead skin cells to appear in the hair and shoulders. Because there’s so many different causes, we focused on the underlying mechanisms of inflammation, irritation, and dryness, and flaking. So dandruff can be caused from a variety of conditions, including oily hair, which is one of the main reasons, fungal infections like malassezia, overly sensitive skin from contact dermatitis. And we actually focus a lot on that here at Puriya too, because we have the Mother of All Creams. And a lot of people suffer from eczema and at the same time, they can also get dandruff. So common therapies typically include very harsh chemical ingredients that can leave your hair even more brittle and dry and irritate your scalp. So we developed our scalp therapy line exactly for that reason, to help nourish your scalp, to help moisturize your hair, and then get down into the cause by reducing that inflammation and irritation too.
(13:35) – So I like this question too, what makes dandruff worse? And of course it depends on the cause, but excessively oily hair and scalp can definitely make it worse. So, washing your hair on a regular basis, especially some people naturally have an oily scalp compared to others, or if you wash your hair often, it creates that cycle of having more oily hair too. So, that definitely can make dandruff worse. Lowered immune function can as well, poor hygiene, just not taking showers enough or right after working out or exercise doing something else and not washing your hair, that can contribute to it as well. Stress. Stress is a huge one, and I pretty much talk about it in every one of our sessions. We talk about stress and how it can affect pretty much any type of skin condition and pretty much any type of condition in general, because it lowers your body’s immune system and affects it in so many different ways. So yeah, stress for sure can make dandruff worse, and also changes in humidity. So that can be a big one too. If you go from a very dry area to a very humid area, which can contribute to the oil, or going from a humid area to a dry area too, which your skin isn’t used to that dryness and can be even more dry until it adjusts. So, all those different things. And my favorite question as a naturopathic doctor too, what would you recommend for any lifestyle changes?
(15:09) – Now, we just talked about stress, and of course one of the fundamentals of any type of illness or condition is finding a way to balance your stress, and participating in different mind-body approaches will really help with that. And I know that’s so much easier said than done to say, okay, mind-body exercise, reduce stress. Even taking 10 minutes out of your day, if you set aside 10 minutes in the morning or 10 minutes in the evening and just practicing mindfulness where you throw out everything from your day and just relax can have a huge, huge effect. So I highly recommend that. Also for dandruff, consuming different essential fatty acids like Omega-3s, cold-water fish, Evening Primrose oil, all of those things can help your scalp and the condition of it too and also reduce inflammation, so food can play a huge part. And one of the most basic ones is to take regular showers, to cleanse the body focusing on chemical-free products. So if you are using our Scalp Therapy line, I would recommend using it around twice a week a must, if your dandruff is very severe, or you have a very oily scalp, then you kind of have to adjust to that. But I would say a minimum of twice a week.
(16:28) – So, that is our questions for the week. And I wanted to tell everyone too, if you have questions about different conditions that I didn’t talk about today, you can write them in the comments, you can send us an email. If you send us an email, somebody from our team will always get back to you about it. So, if whoever is watching now, write in the comments, let me know where you’re coming from too, where you are in the world. And please stay tuned for Monday when we have an amazing interview with David Kennet on the sound healing. So we have that next Monday. The following Monday, we actually have Dr. Michelle Sexton, who has done a lot of research on cannabis and published a lot of articles. So that one will be interesting too. So if you sign up for our newsletter, you can get reminders of those, then you can catch us live, ask any questions you like or follow us here on Facebook. And that is all for this week, and I will see you guys next week at 10:00 AM Pacific Standard Time to answer your questions. Take care.