Lunatique asks…During a discussion on conditioners etc, a friend of mine told me that I shouldn’t use conditioner on daily basis because I would eventually lose my hair. That one bothered me for a while (in the summer I wash my hair every day, and if I don’t use conditioner they are totally untamable), so I decided to ask my hairdresser which I trust. To my surprise, she agreed, but told me not to use it daily near the roots, because the emollients in it would soften the hair follicle and it wouldn’t be able to hold the hair anymore, thus making my hair fall. So…am I really causing that much damage on my hair, or is it just another beauty myth?
The Right Brain responds:
We thought we’d heard all the hair care myths but this was a new one to us. We’re highly skeptical that this could be true given that conditioner ingredients coat the hair shaft and that they generally are too large to penetrate into the follicle. Plus, we’ve never seen any data to suggest that emollients “soften” the follicle as your hair dresser suggested. We tried to be as thorough as possible and did a literature search but we could not find definitive proof that conditioners don’t cause your hair to fall out. But, we did find a study showing that shampoos with conditioning agents do not impact “hair fall.” Let’s take a look…
Hair fall study
We found this journal article (“Absence of effects of dimethicone- and non-dimethicone-containing shampoos on daily hair loss rates”) which was published in 1991 the the journal of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists. The study, conducted by researchers for Proctor and Gamble, involved 400 women in Thailand. They had women collect lost hairs ( in drains, combs, brushes, pillows, etc) for 2 weeks to establish a baseline of what normal hair loss was for them. (Most people will lose between 30 and 180 hairs a day.) Then they divided the women into 3 groups and on a blind basis gave them one of three shampoos: A regular non-conditioning shampoo, a silicone containing shampoo, or a 2-in-1 type shampoo with silicone.
Results and Discussion
Results showed that regardless of how much conditioning the shampoo provided, it did not impact hair fall rates. We recognize that this test was done on shampoos, not conditioners as asked in the question. But, it is reasonable to assume that this data could be extrapolated to conditioners for two reason: One, the testing was done with shampoos containing dimethicone which is one of the most popular ingredients used in conditioners. Two, one of the cells tested a two-in-one shampoo which typically contains cationic guar, which is representative of the kind of positively charged (or cationic) ingredients often used in conditioners. Therefore, we’d expect these results to be similar for conditioners. (If anyone finds a more recent study that contradicts our assumption, please let us know.)
The Beauty Brains bottom line
Conditioner helps keep your hair looking and feeling healthy. We could find no data suggesting conditioners cause your hair to fall out. If this really was an issue, the entire hair care industry would be affected and you can be sure that the large cosmetic companies would be racing to create the first “non-hair fall” conditioner because that would give them a competitive advantage.
Do you like to see beauty myths busted?
Download our free report.
Reference: Absence of effects of dimethicone- and non-dimethicone-containin shampoos on daily hair loss rates
Popularity: unranked [?]
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Gee, mom always told me to not use conditioner near the scalp/roots simply because it makes the hair look and feel greasier faster. Not due to any falling out. I always apply a couple inches away from the roots and have to admit that my hair doesn’t look as greasy as it did when I started from the roots.
Hi, i always thought that the origin of this myth is how much of the normally falling hair is lost in a single moment. Explain, when you wash your hair part of the hair was already loose, but tangled with the other hair; if you use a conditioner that hair separate itself from the others more easily and fall in the shower… so you see much more hair in the shower. The truth been you would have loss it anyway in some moment of the day. If you are like me and brush your hair before going to the shower (it makes untangle the hair easily and damaged less because is not wet] You would see almost any hair in the shower regardless of the fact you use conditioner or not. But I do see them in my brush and in my sink. (not in the pillow ‘cause I sleep with a braid] And I actually had felt that I loss more hair for breakage if I don’t use conditioner
Thanks Lucy I always thought that my conditioner was making my hair fall. I actually believed it because I use Pantene Pro-v Breakage to Strength conditioner and I’ve heard a lot of pantene scare stories. But most of the hair i would lose was in the shower. Now I realize that my hair was already loose and once the conditioner was in my hair the loose hairs would fall off. Although I have to say I do lose quite a lot of hair after conditioning.
I’ve read a lot of comments on-line from former Wen users that claim that they’ve lost hair because of the product. They’ve made similiar claims that using a conditioner based product everyday makes their hair fall. I’ve never heard that one before. Thanks for the post.
Conditioners making hair fall out? If this were true, we co-washers would be bald by now!
CYW that so true I haven’t thinked from that point of view. The longest haired people I have meet are mostly co-washers (or no-poo but that doesn´t had to the matter] So it doesn´t make sense that conditioners make the hair fall.
I always love to put conditioner every other day. I guess my routine would be a shampoo and the next day conditioner. But if seems to me that I get falling hair a lot when I use a shampoo that with a conditioner.
I sure hope conditioners don’t make hair fall out. I think if conditioners did make people’s hair fall out, a lot more women would be bald.
I did an experiment for this on virgin, waist-length hair (not a blind one, alas, but that’s pretty much impossible to do on yourself). For two months, I collected shed hairs – one month of normal shampoo and conditioner use, one month of ‘conditioner only’ washing which means washing my scalp with conditioner – and separated it into two groups: hair lost during washing and on the wash day, and hair collected when brushing on non-washing days. My hair was bunned or plaited all day and night when not brushing or washing.
A) There was NO statistically significant difference between the total number of hairs shed over each month – in fact, only 2% more hair was lost during the shampoo & conditioner month.
B) There was NO statistically significant difference (p=0.3) between wash days and non-wash days during the shampoo and conditioner month.
C) There WAS a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) between wash days and non-wash days during the conditioner-only phase. Most hair was shed during the washing process, and practically none fell out on non-washing days.
Basically, my results suggested that applying conditioner to the entire length of hair allowed hairs that were ready to fall out to do so AND BE COLLECTED as there is more slip provided during this procedure, rather than be brushed out over time when the hair is dry and less slippery. Perhaps that's the phenomenon people notice.
Obviously a sample size of one doesn't mean much, but it was fun, it annoyed my family, the results surprised me and I got marks for it