Revisiting the Topic of Silicones

I started out with my natural brown hair, photo taken in August 2013

Hello all! If you follow me on YouTube, you may have seen my video on Silicones in which I discuss the negative effects of using hair products with silicones in them. Since posting that video, my hair has been bleached and dyed and bleached and dyed again more times than I can remember. This meant that I needed more intense hair care products. In that video, I talked about the Macadamia Deep Repair Mask stating that while I initially liked the product, it ended up weighing my hair down and making it look not so great.

If you've seen the video I mentioned above, you can skip this blue portion, otherwise, keep reading!

The video in short talks about how silicones effect our hair. Silicones are used in hair products to coat your hair, make it look shiny, and temporarily seal the hair shaft which makes damaged hair look healthier. The thing is, this is basically like applying a bandage to your hair, it doesn't heal the hair, rather it hides the damage. This is still pretty awesome, that is until continued use of the product causes buildup in your hair. Most silicones (dimethicone being the one most commonly seen in cosmetics and hair care) are NOT water soluble. When something is water soluble, it means that it dissolves in water. Since they are not water soluble, you need a more intensive cleansing agent in order to remove the buildup from your hair. The most common cleansing agent would be SLS (sodium laurel sulfate) which is in a BUNCH of stuff including shampoo, home cleaning products, dish soap, etc. The thing is, SLS ain't good for us. It irritates our skin and dries out our hair. Because of this, I personally use sulfate free shampoo. This also means that if I use products with silicones in it, I don't have a cleansing agent that will strip it from my hair.

Then I lightened my hair in September 2013

Alright...I hope that was easy enough to understand and not way too cluttered! Moving on, at the time I decided to stop using products containing sulfates, or at least limit their use in my regular hair care routine. However, since I started chemically processing my hair, I noticed that conditioners containing silicones were helping the overall look and feel of my hair. When you chemically process your hair, you remove the natural oils and sort of break up the natural structure of your hair, for this reason, I found my Macadamia conditioner (and other silicone containing hair products) to make my hair look pretty darn good. Immediately after bleaching or dying my hair, the Macadamia Deep Repair Mask was the only one that made my hair feel nice (and not like straw).

I didn't much like the gold so I quickly added more red to it, looking something like this from around October 2013 - May 2014

I still limit my use of silicone heavy hair products but I wanted to revisit this topic because I definitely have found them to temporarily make my chemically processed hair look silky and shiny. I think that the key is to find the right balance in order to prevent buildup.

I know this post is super dense but I just wanted to share this info with those of you who may have seen my video regarding silicones. I still stand by everything I say in the video, but want to add that those with very damaged hair or chemically processed hair can benefit from the right amount of silicone containing hair products.

Then summer rolled around and I wanted a lighter color so more bleaching and dying was involved June - July 2014