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No Silicone Haircare
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There has been a lot of talk about silicones in shampoo and conditioner on this site and many many others. My take on silicones ~ With some heavy cones, you need to use heavy-duty SLS (a clarifier) to remove them completely. Clarifying can really dry out your hair and putting more silicones in your hair will not make your hair healthier. It will just make your hair FEEL healthy and shiny. If you're gonna use silicones, prepare to clarify regularly as well as keep up deep conditioning treatments (Preferably silicone free).Now comes the opinion part that is controversial. imo, using silicones really does keep your hair from getting real moisture. For example, if you use heavy-duty cones and don't clarify, the next time you use a condish (even a silicone free condish) then the condish is not being fully absorbed and moisturizing your hair like it should. So your hair is not benefiting fully from moisture you put in your hair.
I can say from personal experience that using no silicones benefits my hair GREATLY. My hair is much healthier. I do use them on ocassion and they are necessary when heat styling but there are alternative water soluble/easily removed silicone heat protectants which are: V05 Miracle Mist and Tresemme Heat Tamer. I'm finding that LUSH products are working WONDERFULLY for me.
In the past I used to use John Frieda's Brilliant Brunette and I really liked it, provided alot of shine and smoothness, however it contains alot of silicones so I stopped using it.
Thoughts on all of the above? Is silicone free really better from a scientific standpoint??? -
You know, I'm sorry but this is absolute nonsense. Silicones do NOT DAMAGE YOUR HAIR. ANY product isn't good if you use double handfuls of the stuff day after day without washing your hair properly, including the "natural" stuff.
And for once, I'd like someone to explain to me EXACTLY what it means to say, "It only makes your hair LOOK incredibly shiny and gorgeous, FEEL, smooth and easy to care for, and PRETEND TO SEEM tangle-free, simple to comb, requiring less heat styling, and infinitely nicer! It's doesn't ACTUALLY MAKE your hair any of these things!" What in gods' name is that sort of mumbo-jumbo supposed to mean?
Hair is dead. It's inanimate material. "Seeming" shiny, smooth, easy to care for, friction-free, and untangled is the same as BEING all of these things. And no, it doesn't "lock out" moisture, coat your hair with floro wax, plastic, cellophane, or any of the other scare stories people use.
I'm sorry, I've just heard WAY too many stories from people going on and on about how they stopped using cones and their hair so "so much healthier," but they had to cut off five inches of "crispy" ends, can't comb it, it turned into a fuzzball, it's tangled constantly, and they have a breakage problem. This nonsense urban myth about how cones cause global warming, mass extinction, ebola outbreaks, hurricanes, night sweats, and tectonic shifts just has to stop. Stop scare mongering. This topic has exhausted my last shred of patience.
(Sorry to the brains for losing that last shred here ... ) -
@Lee - The problem with talk about silicones is that the language has been hijacked by people who are not trained in science and usually have some anti-silicone agenda. I'm not suggesting you are one of these and you raise some interesting questions.
1. Do you need a heavy duty clarifying shampoo? You state this as a fact, but in my years of laboratory testing of hair care products, I've not seen any proof that an SLS (or ALS) based shampoo takes silicones off the hair any better than an SLES (or ALES) based formula. In fact, as long as you're not using a 2-in-1 shampoo, your hair will be cleaned just fine no matter what shampoo you use. The formulas labeled "Moisturizing" and "Clarifying" are often not different at all except for their labels and featured (non-functional) ingredients.
2. Does silicone keep your hair from getting "real" moisture? I don't even know what people mean when they say "moisture" but I'll guess it has to do with the dryness of hair. When you get your hair wet (like in a shower) it gets saturated whether you have a thin layer of silicone on it or not. It will absorb ~30% its weight in water according to scientific studies. So, lab studies demonstrate that silicone does not inhibit hair from absorbing moisture.
3. Some silicones are heavier than other ones? I'm not sure what people mean by this either. It is true that silicones like Dimethicone vary in molecular weight & viscosity but I suspect that this isn't what's meant. There are really 3 types of silicones.
a. Water insoluble, non-evaporative - Like dimethicone
b. Water insoluble, but volatile - Like cyclomethicone
c. Water soluble - Like Dimethicone Copolyol
Type A resists rinse-off and would be the most difficult (although not difficult) to remove.
Type B evaporates so after an hour or 2, it's no longer on your hair
Type C is useless in rinse-off products because it just gets washed away. It's effective in Leave-in products only.
More troubling in hair care products than silicones are Cationic Polymers. These ingredients like Guar Hydroxypropyl Trimonium Chloride or Polyquaternium-10 have been demonstrated to build up on hair. They ionically bond to hair and you do need to shampoo more to get them off. Silicones don't stick nearly as well as those ingredients.
I wonder why there is no controversy about Cationic Polymers?
The bottom line is that silicones are neither bad or good for your hair. They work. They've never been proven to damage hair and their is no scientific reason to avoid them. You don't NEED them, but some people would say you don't NEED to wash your hair either (and you don't if you are ok with how it looks).
@Janis no apologies needed! You make excellent points. -
Firstly, Janis, there's no need to get aggressive, this is just a hair discussion. We're all entitled to our own opinions, and whether we use silicone-ish products or not is up to ourselves.I guess it depends what type of hair you have and what you're trying to accomplish.
Everyone knows cones don't damage hair; ppl just prefer not to use them. Some people know what ingredients bother their hair. Some it is cones, some it is protein. Or even alcohol. I think people just need to find what works for them and go with that. My hair is in great shape. No tangles, no breakage, fewer splits than when i USED cones and my hair is nicely moisturized.
For me, that's the ADVANTAGE of not using cones and sulfates to remove them. My hair is in MUCH, MUCH better condition than when i used them. Saying that just because someone doesn't use silicones, their hair is damaged is like saying that everyone that DOES use silicones has damaged hair. I converse with ladies that use silicones and i can see by their pictures that they have great hair. Cones work for them. They don't work for me. THAT is the difficult part... finding what works for you.
Left brain, your post is contradictory. In this thread, you specifically said, regarding clarifying shampoos, I quote "give you squeaky clean hair that’s free of all the styling gunk and silicone residues that may have built up over time. The disadvantage is that they may dry out your hair a bit if you over use them." So you have acknowledged that cones do infact build up and that the clarifying formulas used to remove them are drying.
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My post is directed to the originator of this post, LEE. I am a member of makeupalley.com and as someone posted about a thread on BeautyBrains and one of the responses, i was curious. It made me very upset to come over here and see that all but about 2 or 3 sentences of your original post is a COPY/PASTE from my notepad on mua. Here is the link to my notepad if anyone is interested. http://www.makeupalley.com/user/notepad/crimsoncurlzz
Then i went on to read your response to Janis and the 3rd paragraph is exactly what i posted here... MUCH earlier in response to a post about silicones. ... something started from reading Beauty Brains..... http://www.makeupalley.com/m_86849635
If you like what you read from my posts and notepad, fine. Glad you learned something but please stop copying/pasting something that took me TIME to write. Have the decency to write down your own thoughts.
Thanks. -
The post you were referring to The Danger of Clarifying Shampoos was written by the Right Brain and while we typically agree, at times we will squabble about the details.
Right is "right" about the general differences between clarifying and moisturizing shampoos. I just don't agree with the degree of build-up implied. Silicone residues will be present, but they are minimal compared to the residue of styling polymers. While clarifying shampoos may have more detergent, I've not seen any evidence that they clean hair better. They do dry hair out because they do not contain moisturizing ingredients, but that has nothing to do with cleaning.
@crimsoncurlzz - So sorry about the lifting of your thoughts. Perhaps the original poster could provide an explanation of the similarities? Lee? -
so are you saying that Aubrey shampoo Or co-washing will remove silicone?
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