Sometime back in the year 2000, I first heard from my hairdresser to be careful with silicone in cosmetics. Then she explained to me why silicone can be dangerous (it harms not only people, but also nature – it is not biodegradable, it accumulates in nature).
Silicone is a modern invention and, like other things, has its positive and negative sides. Specifically, in hair cosmetics, it helps protect hair from the effects of heat and sunlight. It creates a protective film around the hair, making the hair shiny, soft, smooth, tangle-free, and even split ends stick together. At first glance, it looks good. Problems arise over time and with long-term use. Silicones are insoluble in water or very difficult to dissolve. The film they create on the hair gradually layers and the hair cannot breathe, dries out, loses volume, becomes heavy, oily, brittle, brittle, and is no longer shiny, soft, or smooth. Silicones do not enrich the hair in any way and only have a short-term effect. They also affect the scalp, ultimately causing dandruff and hair loss.
And one more thing, manufacturers like to add silicone to their products because it doesn’t cost much, so larger quantities of products are produced and sold at a higher price.
If you are still hesitating whether to avoid silicone or not, then hypothetically take yourself back to the time before silicones, which was the time before the 1990s. Back then, silicones did not exist and hair care was at a good level. Even today, there are many products without silicones. Just take a little interest and you will find many silicone-free alternatives on the Internet and you will often be surprised by the low price.
For your information, silicones in products can be identified by the endings -cone, -thicone, -thiconol, -siloxane or -silane.
Sometimes it is difficult to find a product without silicone, in which case the less the better. But how do we know whether the composition contains a lot or a little silicone? According to world standards, every manufacturer must list the individual ingredients in descending order in the “Ingredients” section. If silicone is at the end of the composition, it is in a small amount. On the contrary, if it is at the beginning, the product is mainly based on silicone and will coat and weigh down the hair.
It was a big surprise to me that even world-famous brands have no problem “enriching” their products with insoluble silicones. What is expensive is not always beneficial to health and beauty.
