I have one here: https://labmuffin.com/silicone-mythbusting-with-video/

Advice for bleached or otherwise damaged hair is easy to come by but if your hair is not damaged and you’re looking for specific results, it’s hard to figure out what to use. Similarly, there are lots of products designed to increase hair volume (no weigh down) but not many to reduce volume.

To use my own hair as an example, I have thick, wiry, straight individual strands and a LOT of them. I also dye my hair with henna and indigo, which thickens it further. I need conditioners that will make my hair feel softer and more pliable, and look sleeker and less voluminous. I do a bit of trial and error but it’s mostly shooting in dark without knowing what ingredients are more likely to give me the results I’m looking for.

The selection of products to try is also small because in my country many companies have replaced parabens with MI in conditioners. This includes your sponsor here — I used one of Pantene’s conditioners in rotation with others, then they went and put MI in every single one of their products here.

Thank you for your work and I look forward to seeing more hair related posts from you!

Thanks. This is really cool. My ex was a platform artist for Clairol ~ 35 years ago, understood lots about the craft and about the business, but could never explain any of it to me on a scientific level. I appreciate this!

1. Some things do cling to hair a bit more and might take a lot of washes to wash out (e.g. henna, some of the more persistent polymers), but the amount is still really tiny, as we can see from the microscope images. There are also other studies which have weighed hair after treatments – it’s clear there isn’t any layer of wax that forms that would give a huge amount of shavings. Someone also commented that they tried this on their baby nephew’s hair which has never had conditioner on it, and it also produced shavings.

2. I was going against the cuticle but it works going with as well (it actually ended up working a bit worse with the silicone because it was slippery!)

3. Could be from using the wrong product for their hair type (too much lipid will stick strands together), or perhaps friction or static? Could also be geometric with the shape of the strands.

I was wondering if you’ve ever done a post on the “No Poo or Low Poo” trend where people stop (or at least minimize) washing their hair with shampoo. I couldn’t find any using the search function on your site but was curious—is this based on anything real? Can it work for some hair types? Or is it all just a backlash against nebulous “chemicals” like aluminum in deodorant? (loved that post too) Of course, I’d love to save money and never buy shampoo again… but braving greasy, lank locks for months ain’t it, especially if it doesn’t even work!