Remember when the body washes contained literal micro plastics and were advertised as such?

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 448 points –
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There's still shampoo with silicone as an ingedient, so your hair feels silky smooth. Because it wraps every single hair in invisible plastic.

Most conditioner is silicone-based. For anyone curious, if your conditioner lists dimethicone or any other -cone in the ingredients list, that's silicone.

I have to admit, I saw your comment and was like "no fucking way".

So I looked it up and... Yes fucking way. That's crazy!

Is this the part that I find so objectionable to my senses when I’m touching it and using it in my hair? I hate the feeling of conditioner in my hands when I’m applying it.

Probably! I have a conditioner that's all-that-stuff free and it no longer grosses me out to touch.

And thank goodness because I have big, curly, loooong hair

Thanks for replying. What conditioner do you use?

This is going to sound crazy, but I use Suave Essentials Wild Cherry Blossom. It's like 1 or 2 bucks a bottle and thank goodness because I have to use half a bottle when I wash my hair. What I used to spend...

I found it through the Curly Girl approved products list. Here's a copy-paste of the entire ingredients (in case someone more knowledgeable comes along to tell me it has stuff in it I didn't know was bad for me).

Ingredients: Water (Aqua), Cetearyl Alcohol, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Fragrance (Parfum), Lactic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Disodium EDTA, PEG-150 Distearate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Fragaria Vesca (Strawberry) Juice, Benzyl Alcohol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Red 33 (CI 17200), Yellow 5 (CI 19140).

The Curly Girl site I use says that the methyl ingredients can cause itchiness in a sensitive scalp so keep that in mind if you try it.

+1 for Curly Girl method being mentioned.

It's unfortunately named since this is good for anyone, not just women. Have been using various "free" products for about 6 or 7 years now and my hair always feels great and all the natural waviness of my hair came back.

Silicone is a far cry from plastics though. It’s a non carbon based oil. Plastics are polymers. There’s no commonality whatsoever.

Silicone is made from sand, and hydrocarbons that come from oil or natural gas. Silicone is still a petroleum product.

Don't confuse silicone for silicon. The names are similar, but one is basically rubber and the other is a crystal.

It’s not a plastic. It doesn’t bioaccumulate, it’s basically non toxic and can be washed away with soap. Trying to fight silicone use when we have so much plastic going on it’s just wasting effort for no real benefit.

Silicones are also polymers. Polymer means many-chains. Any repeated chemical unit is a polymer. Another example is PLA (poly lactic acid) is a non-petroleum based polymer. It's literally lactic acid.

Are you trying to say that silicone isn't a petroleum based product?

You’re right, I got confused. My point is silicone can be washed away with soap, you can’t do that with plastics. It’s not fair to compare both.

Even if they are trying to claim that silicone isn't a petroleum product, they are incorrect. Silicone is made of sand, and hydrocarbons that are derived from either oil or natural gas.

hydrocarbons that are derived from either oil or natural gas.

...which makes it a petroleum product.

That's what I said.

Somehow I missed part of your comment, and thought you were saying silicone isn't a petroleum product.

I'll just... idk, seems a little late to take a break