Hair Tip #3 – Silicones

So it’s all the hype lately to be avoiding certain ingredients in your haircare products. Ingredients such as Silicones, Sulphates and Parabens are no-go’s, but do you know why?

In this post I’m going to educate you all I know about Silicones! :)

Silicones are placed in hair products to help tame frizz, to smoothen and to add shine. However over time, silicones can build up in your hair preventing moisture and nourishment from getting into your hair shaft. :( Wah!

If you look at the back of your product, silicones should be listed as ingredients ending in -zane, -xane, -cone, or -conol. Go look right now! You’ll be reading all ingredients on products from now on.. Cursed!!

I need to make it clear that everybody’s hair type is different. This goes for all my posts in Hair Tips. I’m not completely against silicones because on some hair types certain silicones can be beneficial! I’m trying to take a non biased approach :)

So, there are two different types of silicones- 1. Water Soluble Silicones and 2. Non Soluble Silicones.

1. Water solubles literally wash away with using just water. These are the good ones these are the ones that you want on your hair!

2. Unfortunately, the non-solubles are the problem. They need to be scrubbed out with sulphates to get rid of them after every application. If your using a non-sulphate shampoo there will be a huge build up of silicone on the hair shaft which leads to dry brittle hair :( AND we don’t really want to be scrubbing the ends of our hair, just the roots where its greasy..

To get rid of a build up, I would recommend a deep clarifying shampoo, only once a week though! Clarifying shampoo’s are literally stripping your hair of any mineral buildup, so you can imagine what would happen your hair if you used it too often!

Now to avoid these situations from happening, check your ingredients.

The Best Water Soluble Silicones to use are the following:

• Dimethicone Copolyol
• Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein (Hydroxypropyl Polysiloxane)
• Lauryl Methicone Copolyol
• PEG-12 Dimethicone
• PEG-8 Dimethicone
• PEG-Modified Dimethicone

Stay Away From These Bad Boys:

• Amodimethicone
• Behenoxy Dimethicone
• Cetearyl Methicone
• Cetyl Dimethicone
• Cyclomethicone
• Cyclopentasiloxane
• Dimethiconol
• Phenyl Trimethicone
• Stearoxy Dimethicone
• Stearyl Dimethicone
• Trimethylsilylamodimetheicone

Dimethicone

Dimethicone can make your hair look really really good. It coats the outer cuticle to completely smoothen it down to make hair look smooth and shiny. However, it’s the hardest of all silicones to remove! If it’s not removed properly it can cause that build up and prevention of anything good getting to the hair shaft.. So it needs a good clarifying sulphate scrub on every wash to remove all particles of Dimethicone, and this is as bad as the build up, it all leads to dry, brittle, unruly, horrid locks!! :( Damn You Dimethicone..!

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Now we know what silicones do to the hair, what silicones are good and which are bad. So I’ll leave it up to you now to decide which works for you best :) I personally try to avoid all these silicones but if I have to get one, water-soluble is the way to go!

Give me a shout if you have any questions!