Right Brain retorts:
On several occasions we’ve blogged about how many people believe Pantene is bad for your hair. It looks like the marketers at P&G (the makers of Pantene) are paying attention to blogs like the Beauty Brains because their Public Relations agency has just sent out this press release on that very question. Here’s what they had to say:
MYTH:
PANTENE PRO-V LEAVES BEHIND A LAYER OF WAX ON YOUR HAIR AND CREATES A WAXY BUILD-UP OVER TIME.
FACTS:
- Pantene Shampoos and Conditioners do not contain wax. Although Pantene has unique and proprietary ingredients based on recent technological advances, the classes of ingredients (silicones, fatty alcohols, cationic polymers and cationic surfactants) are used consistently across the hair care industry.
- Pantene Shampoo and Conditioners do leave behind conditioning ingredients (such as coacervate conditioning complexes, liquid crystals, and terminal amino silicones) for healthy hair benefits such as moisturization, damage protection and shine. Pantene shampoos and conditioners are designed to work together, depositing conditioning ingredients that will wash out of the hair with the next shampoo.
- When women feel they have build-up from their shampoos and conditioners, it is often a sign that the products they are using are too heavy for their hair, and they may be more satisfied with a lower conditioning version.
PS – Want to get technical? Let us know and we’ll provide additional information and/or set-up a conversation with one of our science experts.
While we don’t normally blog about all the self-serving press releases we get, this one caught our attention for a couple of reasons.
First, as we said above, it makes us wonder if P&G are reading our blog. (If you are, say hi to your new spokeperson Stacy London for us. We just adore her!)
Second, it’s interesting that the official statement from the company uses the same basic scientific rationale that we used in our previous answers to the Pantene plastic myth.
And third, and perhaps most important, we like that Pantene is asking you to “get technical” and ask them questions for their scientific experts. Now, that doesn’t mean we believe everything that the big beauty companies say, but we do think that any company that is trying to open a dialog between its customers and their science experts is doing the right thing. You don’t see that from most of the smaller companies that are making outrageous claims that aren’t backed by solid science.
So, we say take them up on their challenge. Send Pantene your questions about how their products work and then share what you find out with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.