Hair care is the process of improving the appearance of hair by cleansing, condition, coloring, or styling. Modern hair care is blend of science and marketing with hundreds of companies offering thousands of products to solve every possible hair care need.

People have long used soap and water for basic hair cleansing, and this practice is still used today. However, in the last 100 years a number of products have come into fashion which were specially designed to clean hair and leave it in a manageable condition. These products are known as shampoos and instant conditioners. Shampoo, a word derived from the Hindi word for massage, dates to 1877, when English hairdressers boiled soap in soda water and added herbs for health, fragrance, and manageability. Over the last few decades shampoos have become increasingly sophisticated. Synthetic surfactants have, for the most part, replaced soap-based materials. These products are...