The tiny, green, miniature trees that our parents piled onto our plates were our least favorite of our evening meal. As adults, we later came to appreciate those fibrous tiny trees as a much-needed source of essential minerals and vitamins. Over the past few years, formulators have begun cold pressing oils from broccoli seeds to enhance the overall health of our hair. Broccoli’s impressive transformation from malformed flower bud, to tasty vegetable, is now pushing boundaries in cosmetics as the next ‘It’ ingredient in the hair care industry.
Humble Beginnings
Over 2,000 years ago ancient Roman civilizations cultivating cabbage in Calabria, Italy, noticed tender green flower buds sprouting from their crops. The warm, Mediterranean climate provided suitable conditions for broccoli to sprout, moving the cabbage-derivative from the patch into traditional Italian meals and culinary practices. Hundreds of years later, broccoli’s popularity began to expand west from its humble farmlands in Southern Italy finding its way into western European cuisines. Broccoli seeds continued westward when a surge of Italian immigrants sailed to America and farmed their traditional vegetable in their new home. It wasn’t until the early twentieth century when Westerners began to discover the health benefits of consuming essential vitamins and minerals through broccoli. Decades later, cosmetic formulators pushed the boundaries by cold pressing broccoli seeds and studying the health benefits of its oils in human hair.
Benefits of Broccoli Seed Oil
Cold pressing broccoli seeds allows for the fibers and oils to easily separate, yielding a pure, unrefined, and nutritionally rich form of broccoli seed oil. By itself, broccoli seed oil is a dream ingredient desired in products combating dry skin and hair due to its combination of vitamins C and K. Broccoli seed oil contains essential vitamins C and B6 help strengthen growing hair at its root. Broccoli seed oil is also a host for all other essential components that dry follicles need such as Vitamins A, B5, B12, C, and E along with iron, niacin, zinc, sulfur, silica, and germanium.
Broccoli seed oil also boasts a fatty acid composition that closely resembles silicone, a competing ingredient found in many hair products. Similarly to silicones, broccoli seed oil provides hair with a smooth texture so hair feels soft and helps eliminate frizz and flyaway. While broccoli seed oil and silicones have functional similarities, broccoli seed oil’s use of uric acid or Omega 9 provides a smooth, sheen appearance without the residue of harmful chemical detergents in your hair.
Broccoli Seed Oil in DAX For Naturals
For over 65 consecutive years, Imperial DAX Hair Care Inc. has been known for our Petrolatum-based pomades, and hair creams. Products such as our world-renowned DAX Wave and Groom (red tin) and our cornerstone DAX Pomade have set the standard for who we are as a company in the hair care market. We knew that in moving forward in this industry we were going to have to make changes in how we wanted men and women to embrace their hair. Until now, we never once thought that it would be with the use of broccoli seed oil.
A little over a year ago when we started putting together our new line, DAX For Naturals, we went back and forth on finding innovative ways for helping women embrace their natural hair. We began by sifting through a never-ending sea of possible ingredients that would replace the use petroleum. Unanimously, our eyes all landed on broccoli seed oil and from there we put together our Combing Cream, Styling Pomade, Curling Cream, and our Protein Treatment.
Looking to the Future
For the time being, it is difficult to say what the future of broccoli seed oil will be but we can predict that it will be bright. With the exception of DAX For Naturals and a few higher-end cosmetic lines, broccoli seed oil is relatively new to the industry. But just because it’s new, doesn’t mean that broccoli seed oil doesn’t have a buzz surrounding it. Simply type in “Broccoli Seed Oil” into your Google search engine and you’ll find pages of information on its benefits, proclamations of broccoli seed oil being the new “It” ingredient, and bloggers rhetorically asking why we haven’t lathered our hair in broccoli seed oil sooner. We believe that it’s safe to assume that other companies will follow in DAX For Natural’s footsteps.
