When both of my sons were little, I noticed that the texture of my hair seemed to have changed overnight. Regardless of what shampoo/conditioner combo I bought, how many times I blow dried it and how many haircuts I got, I could not seem to control the unruliness of my hair.
The only time my hair looked good was after a beauty salon haircut and blow dry. This pattern continued shampoo after shampoo for around eight months. Needless to say, I was very distressed about this problem and thought that perhaps becoming a mom had changed the chemistry composition of my hair and that I was probably stuck with the new texture forever.
To make a long story short, this pattern stopped abruptly one day when I walked into one of my restrooms and noticed that my oldest son was pouring liquid hand soap into my shampoo bottle.
Me: What in the world are you doing?
Son: I was just doing an experiment.
Me: Why would you be using my shampoo bottle to do experiments?
Son: Well, my teacher at school mixes all type of liquids during science class, your shampoo bottle was handy and I wanted to try it myself.
Me: (Suddenly making a connection between my different hair texture and these experiments) How long have you been doing this?
Son: Since the new school year started.
Me: (Trying to remain calm) What else has you been mixing?
Son: Well, every time I take a bath, I mix things into your shampoo.
Me: What kind of things?
Son: Things like dishwashing liquid, mouth wash, hand lotion, toothpaste, laundry detergent, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide ext
Me: (Getting very agitated) Don’t you realize that I wash my hair with the shampoo and lately my hair has been looking like crap?
Son: Yes, I noticed that your hair looked messed up lately.
Me: (Trying to control my Puerto Rican temper) Well, if you noticed, didn’t it occur to you that you should stop this behavior?
Son: Well, I wanted to see how different your hair looked when I poured different liquids into the shampoo.
Me: Don’t you realize that I have a job and want my hair to look decent when I report to work?
Son: Well, mom, I did not think of that. I am so sorry.
Me: Omg, you better be sorry and stop this behavior immediately.
Son: I will and again I am sorry, but I really was hoping to find the magic ingredient that would make your hair look great.
Me: I appreciate the idea behind it, but perhaps you can use your own shampoo bottle to do these types of experiments.
Well, my son was grounded from playing video games for a week and as far as I know, stopped this behavior and never tried the same experiments using his own shampoo bottle. Gee, so much for quantitative style research. smile emoticon
So the moral of this story is that if you are a young mom and your hair starts responding differently to your shampoo, question your kids as I cannot believe that I am the only young mom that has had this experience. I can laugh about it now, but it really was not fun having unnecessary bad hair days.

Here is a picture of me and my kids on one of those bad hair days.