Why would I avoid silicones in hair products?
Silicone / Silicon is able to form a seal around each hair shaft preventing anything being absorbed into the hair, and anything from getting out. This coating can be good in some ways, as it can protect from heat styling damage and humidity but just like if you use silicone face primers too often it can be very drying and can eventually cause your hair to become brittle.
The coating makes your hair very soft and silky but also devoid of any volume at all, leaving it hanging limp with zero volume. This can also make thin hair appear greasy. So if you hair is thick and coarse it can be a great benefit to use these products but if you hair is thin and limp like mine it will zap the life out of it.
Build up is another problem if you are using a silicone shampoo and conditioner, using it every day means that any moisturising products or masks won’t be able to penetrate and moisturise the hair as it is coated in the silicone.
How do I know if silicone is in my hair product? Which are the worst? And why?
Water soluble silicones are the easiest to remove from your hair and cause the least build up so these are ok in moderation, non-water based silicones are worse as they actually need to be stripped of off the hair to clarify it.
Water based silicones – i.e. the ones that aren’t as bad
Look out for the words:
dimethicone copolyol
lauryl methicone copolyol
hydroxypropyl polysiloxane
amodimethicone
Hydrolized wheat protein (I was interested in this as it’s in some of my label.m products- it has a hazard level of 1 on the cosmetics database vs most of the above which are 2-3)
Ones that are not water based and are more harsh
trimethylsilylamodimethic
amodimethicone
phenyl trimethicone
dimethicone/ol
cyclomethicone
cyclopentasiloxane
trimethylsiloxysilicates
I am sure there are more but these are the ones I found after hunting the internet and my beauty books
There are many products that are silicone free such as The Body Shop which has a new range called Rainforest Moisture that are also free from SLS and parabens and are very reasonably priced and are frankly awesome. I was sent the Honey shampoo, conditioner and hair butter for dry hair but I have already repurchased (yesterday) and bought the detangling spray for coloured hair and another honey conditioner.
You can check the prices here The Body Shop Rainforest Moisture
They are currently doing a ‘buy 1 get 1 half price’
The shampoo and conditioner cost £4.00 each
The hair butter costs £8.00
The detangler costs £6.00
The honey shampoo and conditioner smell amazing and contrary to the strange instructions on the back of the shampoo it foamed up totally fine for me, I didn’t have to rub it through my hands first. My hair feels super clean afterwards but not stripped.
The conditioner leaves your hair knot-free and smooth without that fake slippery feeling that silicone shampoos give. The butter is similar but like a super duper version and is a lovely consistency. You will seriously want to eat it (don’t though)!
The detangling spray smells amazing, just like blueberries. I have only used it once so I will follow up on this one once I have used it a bit more.
All I can say is that this is the Body Shop that I know and love, I always loved it as a teenager for having environmentally friendly products and being against animal testing and finally they have come up with an amazing, Eco friendly range that also makes my hair look lush.
NB. I am not writing this to make anyone feel bad or guilty in any way for what haircare they use, you might use Frizz Ease (full of silicones) every day and love it..this is just some info and a different perspective. I will be using these lovely products but I still have loads of ‘naughty’ products with chemicals to review and my stash of label.m products some of which do contain hydrolised wheat proteins and I don’t think I can say that I will never use them again.
Credit to latina4u55.blogspot.com for some of the chemical names and Toxic Beauty book (which is my fave book right now) for some of the other chemical names. I ain’t no scientist!