Sensitive Scalp
A scalp that stings when you colour it, tightens after a wash and reacts to products everyone else gets along with fine. This range works by taking things out rather than adding more in.
Three signs this range is yours.
Washing leaves your scalp tight
Not simply clean — stretched, and uncomfortable for an hour afterwards.
New products tend to make it worse
You have learned to be careful, because more than one shampoo has left your scalp hot or itchy within a day.
It reddens along your parting
Colour, sun or a hard scrub, and the skin where you part your hair goes pink and stays that way.
Three steps, morning or night.
Used together the three build on each other. Used alone, each one still does its own job.
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Step one
Dr Scalp Sensitive Shampoo
$68.00Wash. Warm water, light pressure, fingertips rather than nails. Rinse for longer than feels necessary — leftover product is one of the commonest irritants there is.
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Step two
Dr Scalp Sensitive Conditioner
$68.00Condition the lengths and ends. Keeping it off the scalp means irritated skin is not being asked to deal with anything extra.
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Step three
Dr Scalp Sensitive Tonic
$108.00Treat. Onto a dry or towel-dried scalp and leave it in. This is the step that calms the skin between washes rather than during them.
If you only use one thing, use this.
Dr Scalp Sensitive Tonic$108.00
A wash lasts a minute, and irritation does not happen in that minute. The tonic stays on the scalp through the hours when it would otherwise be reacting, which is why it is the step to begin with if you are beginning with one.
Used once daily on a dry or towel-dried scalp. The shampoo and conditioner make it work better; they are not a substitute for it.
A sensitive scalp is a scalp with a thin guard
Sensitivity is not an allergy to everything at once. It is a barrier that has stopped doing its job properly.
The top layer of your scalp is a barrier — a thin, slightly oily film that holds water in and keeps irritants out.
Hot water, strong detergents, colour and sun wear that film down a little at a time.
Once it is thin enough, things that never used to bother you reach the nerve endings underneath. That is the sting.
And irritated skin inflames, which thins the barrier further — so the list of things that set it off keeps getting longer.
It is not that your scalp has become fussy. It has become unprotected.
What makes it worse without you noticing
None of these makes a scalp sensitive on its own. All of them keep a thin barrier from rebuilding — and every one is free to fix.
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Hot water thins the barrier faster than anything else you do — wash warm, finish cool.
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Scrubbing with your nails feels like relief and breaks the skin you are trying to protect. Use fingertips.
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Rinsing in a hurry leaves shampoo behind, and residue on a sensitive scalp is an irritant in its own right.
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Your parting takes full Singapore sun with nothing over it, and a burnt scalp stays sensitive for weeks.
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Fragranced styling products go on the hair but land on the scalp, quietly, every day.
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Sleeping with damp roots under aircon leaves the skin cold and wet for hours, which it does not enjoy.
Not this one?
Each range is built around one scalp concern.
Have your scalp read before you choose.
A scan at either studio reads your scalp in four zones and tells you which range fits. It comes with your first treatment — $59, about an hour, and there is nothing you have to buy at the end of it.
Common questions
Each range is built around one scalp concern, and every product page says who it is for and who it is not for. If you are not sure, a scalp scan at either studio reads your scalp in four zones and tells you which range fits. You are not obliged to buy anything at the end of it.
You can start with one. The tonic is the active step in every Dr Scalp routine — it stays on the scalp and does the work between washes — so if you are only going to use one product, use that. The shampoo and conditioner make the tonic work better; they are not a substitute for it.
Comfort comes back before anything visible does — less tightness after washing, usually within a week or two. Redness takes longer, because the barrier has to rebuild itself, and that is a month or more of not irritating it further.
Yes, and most people do. Colour is one of the things that thins the barrier, so a scalp that is being looked after between appointments copes with it considerably better. What helps most is telling your colourist your scalp is sensitive, and using the tonic in the days before an appointment as well as after it.
Yes, and people often do — a shampoo from one range with a tonic from another, for example. What you should not do is layer two tonics at once. If you are unsure about a combination, message us before you buy using the contact details at the foot of this page.
Tell your doctor what you are using and follow what they say — that is the only answer anyone should give you here. Every ingredient is listed in full on each product page so you can take it to them, and our therapists will go through it with you at a scan if that is easier.