What Hair Care Means to Women Around the World - BRAZIL

BRAZIL

We know that moon phases affect the tides and cause 99 percent of “I’ll just have one more drink” hangovers. (We made that last one up.) (Sounds right, though.) Women in Brazil also believe it impacts their hair. “I try to trim my hair once a month when it’s a full moon,” says São Paulo–born Victoria’s Secret model Lais Oliveira. If it sounds like superstition, that’s because it is. “Brazilians are a very superstitious people in general, and they believe that they can cut their hair during different moon phases to get different results,” says Valeria Cole, the founder of Teadora, a hair- and skin-care line that uses natural ingredients found in the rain forests of Brazil (like maracujá, pitanga, and buriti). “A new moon strengthens the strands, a crescent moon accelerates growth and increases shine, and a full moon means more volume. My mom believed this with all of her heart and would scold me for cutting my hair whenever I wanted.”

Moon phases aside, Brazilians also have to worry about sand, sun, and seawater turning their hair — which is often naturally curly — dry, frizzy, and brittle. “Women in Brazil do a lot of keratin treatments to hydrate their hair,” Oliveira says. “Keratin treatment” is a catchall term, though, that can mean anything from deep conditioners to far more noxious formulas. The legend goes that once upon a time an embalmer in Brazil found that the formaldehyde he used on corpses also straightened their hair. Brazilian women’s desire for straight hair ran so deep that the carcinogen was soon incorporated into salon treatments, called escova progressiva (progressive blow-dry). They eventually migrated to the U.S. — we’re guessing you’ve heard of the Brazilian blowout. “Many of the formulas made by Brazilian Blowout and other companies are now formaldehyde-free,” says Cole. “But definitely not all.” Cole recommends an entirely innocuous Brazilian hair-smoothing technique that long pre-dates the escova progressiva: “Touca de cabelo has been passed down for generations. You pin your hair tightly to your head and then cover it with an old stocking overnight. In the morning, it’s perfectly straight and super soft.”

Brazilian blogger Camila Coutinho’s favorite hair smoother is a conditioning cocktail of protein, keratin, and vitamin B5. “It’s created in a hair salon called SpaDios in São Paulo,” she says. SpaDios’s menu also includes laser treatments, scalp suctioning, and velaterapia — a popular local tradition that involves twisting the hair in small sections and running the flame of a candle along the length of it to burn off split ends. For at-home split-end mending, Cole looks to a simple Brazil-nut-oil treatment or a DIY chocolate mask (combine cocoa with cornstarch and water), which we imagine smells a hell of a lot better than burning hair.
​
If this all sounds a little high-maintenance, that’s because it is. Brazil has one of the largest hair-care markets in the world. In 2014, Brazilian women collectively spent more than $7 billion on their hair. One study found that Brazilian women use three times as many post-treatment products as American women. One particularly popular option is “combing cream,” a detangler-and-styling-cream mash-up that’s great for coddling curls. (You can now find a few options on our shores: We like Pantene Pro-V Moisturizing Combing Crème, $5.) And curl coddling is something Brazilians are doing a lot more of lately. “Hair straightening has always been very popular in Brazil, but over the last few years, a black-consciousness movement has developed, with street celebrations of kinky and curly hair as a political act,” says sociologist Chelsea Johnson. “There’s a new market for curly-hair products.”


A version of this article originally appeared in the March 2018 issue of Allure.