To ask about dry shampoo? Batiste?

[Booksandflowers]

I use a lot of dry shampoo as my hair gets greasy the following day after washing it but I tend to use batiste. I’ve recently read that there was proof that it contained benzene which is apparently a cancer causing chemical.

I want to change to something else but which ones are deemed safe? I’ve seen georgiamane advertised as safe but it’s about £17 a bottle 😬

Any other recommedations?

My hair is long, ridiculously thick, and some parts are straight, some are wavy, some just plain frizz! I do not have 2+ hours spare every single day, which is how long it takes me to wash, dry, straighten and style.

I think it's just one of those things that people love to say for a bit of a shock/ attention - 'You don't need fancy shampoo - just use fairy liquid!'

And it probably isn't bad for removing build up, once in a while, if you have oily thick hair.

But the truth is that if you have dry or thin hair, or sensitive skin, it will be an absolute nightmare.

If I washed my hair with fairy liquid it would look like straw.

So take it with a pinch of salt!

Lush do a good one, but it's not a spray

@Idontjetwashthefucker I have very long and thick hair. The trick to no tangles is to wash hair upside down. Brush as normal, then tip head upside down and run a wide tooth comb through it. Wet hair and keeping head upside down apply fairy to scalp and massage in. Hair is hanging down and not getting tangled. Runs wide tooth comb through and rinse. It rinses out very easily.
Comb through again and wrap in towel.

I leave in towel for at least ten minutes so that a lot of water is absorbed. Sometimes I change towel.

Comb through with wide tooth comb. At this stage you can if you want, apply a leave in conditioner or serum or other hair product. I don't.

When hair is dry my hair looks perfect for days. Full of volume, bounce and shine.

Occasionally I use a dab of Vaseline on my hands and run through ends of hair only.

This has stopped the horrible itching on my scalp that I had for years and nothing stopped it until I used Fairy.

Gosh some of these dry shampoos people are recommending are so expensive.

£25 for dry shampoo??

Are people spending that because they are really worried that the £5 Batiste will give them cancer?

Or is it because you actually prefer the product in some way?

I prefer it for the reasons stated @ringoffiire. Batiste dries my hair out something horrid.

I also have to use about a third of the amount as I do Batiste, so a can lasts me much longer. Its definitely expensive, but I can afford it and it's worth it to me.

Thanks so much but that’s definitely out of my price range.

How many applications do you get out of the £25 (198ml) bottle?

I'd love a product like that but it just seems so pricey for cleaning hair, but if a bottle goes a long way then maybe it's worth it?

My Batiste will only do a few applications per bottle of that size so if it's similar, it would be costing about £5 a pop to clean my hair!

(Just saw your edit, thanks!)

I'd say a can lasts me about 2 months. You really need just the tiniest amount!

Part of the reason I think batiste dries my hair out is because I need to spray about half a can on to get my hair looking less greasy.

Are people spending that because they are really worried that the £5 Batiste will give them cancer?

No, because the batiste makes my hair look and feel worse than it was before.

If I'm in pinch, the own brand ones- Tesco, Boots, Wilkos- have worked better for me than Batiste. And much cheaper!

No idea if they have the cancer chemical in them though.

Just to chime in as well, it's not just the Benzene that should put people off. It's the cocktail of ingredients:

• Butane, Isobutane, Propane, Oryza Sativa (Rice) Starch, Alcohol Denat., Parfum (Fragrance), Cetrimonium Chloride, Distearyldimonium Chloride, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Salicylate, Citral, Geraniol, Limonene, Linalool

I honestly don't know what most of these ingredients are but having looked up a couple there are good reasons to avoid. From wikipedia just on a couple of them:

Linalool can be absorbed by inhalation of its aerosol and by oral intake or skin absorption, potentially causing irritation, pain and allergic reactions.[2][18] Some 7% of people undergoing patch testing in Europe were found to be allergic to the oxidized form of linalool.[19]

Benzyl benzoate has low acute toxicity in laboratory animals. It is rapidly hydrolyzed to benzoic acid and benzyl alcohol. Benzyl alcohol is subsequently metabolized to benzoic acid. The conjugates of benzoic acid (hippuric acid and the glucuronide of benzoic acid) are rapidly eliminated in urine.[1] When given in large doses to laboratory animals, benzyl benzoate can cause hyperexcitation, loss of coordination, ataxia, convulsions, and respiratory paralysis.[10]

These ingredients are common in all sorts of skincare and toiletries. Linalool is well known to cause allergic reactions in some people. It occurs naturally in plants. Benzyl benzoate also occurs naturally in plants. The research you've quoted is talking about adverse effects in rats when administered in high doses, not sure what relevance that has to its use in skincare/cosmetics. All things are poisonous in high enough doses, even 'natural' things.

@TwelveAngryWhiskers I'm not trying to scaremonger but does it not figure that avoiding these type of chemical cocktails, whereby it is easy to do so is better from a health perspective?

For example, there are lots of things in the media at the moment such as cancer rates increasing in younger women for which we do not yet have an explanation. However, women are using more and more makeup and cleaning products with strange ingredient lists. To swap to natural alternatives that are cheaper, safer for the planet and make little difference in terms of their desired effects on hair etc, therefore seems like a no-brainer to me.

Also whether ingredients are "from plants" I think is a bit of a red herring. You can process ingredients and plants in ways that changes their essential chemical composition and makes them potentially dangerous (for example, Rapeseed oil https://hunterandgatherfoods.com/blogs/real-food-lifestyle/is-rape-seed-oil-unhealthy-inflammatory#:~:text=Industrial%20rapeseed%20oil%20is%20used,as%20rapeseed%20and%20mustard%20oil.). Which is why they should be researched and considered carefully before incorporating into one's diet or products.

Unhelpful. No one has time for that!

I'd also say that we don't know the longer term effects of small doses applied repeatedly for many ingredients or products (see aluminium in deodorants, and breast cancer research, for example). So it is wise to err on the side of caution.

https://www.thelancet.com/article/S2352-3964(17)30233-5/fulltext

Would it fuck!

Lush do (or did) a nice powder one

Yes here you go they still do it.

https://www.lush.com/uk/en/p/no-drought-dry-shampoo

I used to wash my hair daily but I went to every other day as it’s dyed red and was fading quick. I use one from Holland and Barrett called Foamie. Batiste is rubbish. With foamie it feels clean and gives lots of body and I genuinely thought I would never be able to not wash it daily!

Talc does the same job just brush it through properly if you have darker hair.
It also smells lovely especially Johnson's.

That's a bit of a reach. There is nothing in the OP to suggest that @Booksandflowers couldn't wash her hair daily. She has very valid reasons for not doing so, but this has nothing to do with disability and it is a valid option.

I have the same issues @Booksandflowers . I find that I change my shampoo, think 'Eureka!', then within a few washes it looks the same as it ever did.

LOL at @Konfetka

i have very thick shoulder length hair. To wash it (with a treatment mask), dry and style it takes about 90 minutes minimum. If I did that every day that would be over 10 hours a week just on my hair! It also looks best the 2 days after it's washed so it would never, ever look it's best if I washed it every day. And the damage from daily blowdrying would wreck it.

as it is I wash it every 6 to 8 days and with a little dry shampoo applied over night on the 4th day it looks great 90% of the time and is in excellent condition.

as for the dry shampoo it's self I've tried every brand on the market and I think `batiste is much better than any of the expensive brands.

@Booksandflowers I hadn't heard of the cancer risk until you posted but I've googled it. The link isn't proven yet but if it exists it's because benzene might be inhaled when using the product. If you wear a good filtering face mask when spraying, and open the windows afterwards you could eliminate that risk.

Tiny amount of baby powder. A small bottle lasts forever!

I just use Batiste, seems to do the job and I have just as much chance getting cancer while standing outside waiting for a bus.