VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone this is Breanna Rutter author of one of my most popular books The Natural Hair Bible and founder of howtoblackhair.com for this video I'm answering an email that was sent to me Brittany, Brittany emailed me and she just wanted to just express the fact that she uses deep conditioners that have silicones in them and has done nothing for her hair she's been using these new deep conditioners for months and she doesn’t understand the stigma in the natural hair community In regards to using silicones in your hair care products especially since they aren’t doing no harm for her so what I want to do is talk little bit more about what silicones actually do for the hair as well as help you to understand why a lot of people do not like using silicones so the very first thing that I'm going to say is that silicones are fine when you want to help manage your hair in very humid environments or to also manage frizz now the reason why a lot of naturals do not like using silicones is because the thing is that when you have natural hair you usually co wash a little bit more frequently than you do shampoo some women or some men some individuals who have natural hair like to co wash at least once twice or even three times a week depending on your hair type know the problem with this is that most silicones are not water-soluble which means it does not dissolve and come off the hair into the water so it stays on your hair unless you are using a very strong cleansing agent to get it off, the problem with using silicones on natural hair is that it will stay unless you do a very deep cleansing shampoo and this blocks the hair from effectively remaining moisturized it's almost as if it's like a semi permanent sealant on the outside of your hair that is making it difficult for you to actually help your hair care products absorb into your hair but silicones are great when you want to maintain a certain sleekness especially when your hair has a tendency to be frizzy and also when you are in human environments now the second thing that silicones are great for when doing hair or when using on your hair is if you use a lot of heat or is if you use a high setting of heat now I never suggest that anyone go over 350° to apply heat to their hair because this can cause heat damage now some individuals don't like the fact that I may not suggest to go over that only because for some individuals they feel like they can get a straighter result with a hair with 350° and even if you do your encouraging heat damage because after you pass 350 that's not a safe temperature zone to be putting onto your hair because it can cause your hair to actually fry and break down and cause a lot of brittleness and shedding a lot of horrible things so silicones are great when you're using heat very frequently to maintain a certain look on your hair or if you do choose to go over 350° then I will suggest that you silicones to protect your hair best now the third thing that I'm going to suggest as far as it goes with silicones is that if you are using them you have to make sure that they are water-soluble now I'm not sure of your silicones water soluble you expressed in the email that you been using specific deep conditioners for months with silicones and it hasn’t done nothing wrong to your hair hasn’t caused any build up or anything like that and this could possibly be because you have water-soluble silicones in your product the best way to know whether or not silicones are water-soluble is the way that their label usually at their labeled PEG eight or higher that means that when you actually wash your hair without the need of a shampoo the silicones will effectively slip off of the outside of your cuticles to wash away so this means that this is perfect for people to have a problem maintaining moisturizing hair I will suggest that you look in your ingredients list for silicones that are above PEG eight or higher yes it’s a silicone but is scientifically engineered to be water-soluble so it won’t stick on your hair and make it hard for other haircare products to penetrate your hair what it will do is help you in a sense to maintain moisturized hair for longer period of time build your hair's ability to retain moisture so those are some reasons why people don't like silicones people swear by never using them and some individuals actually like them for the effect that they give for their hair so it just depends on what your needs are and whether or not you truly need them for a specific reason or not but all in all if I would pick either or I would rather not use silicones just so that you don’t run into any issues with build up her breakage and things like that so thanks for your email and also thank you all for watching and before any of you go make sure to sign up for my email is so that way you can be automatically entered in any giveaways that I do and also only there I will update you with content so until then I will see all of you in my very next video