going sls/silicone free and needing support!!

[daimbardiva]

I've ditched silicones, sulphates etc and am looking for reassurance that soon my hair will stop looking dull and lank and will suddenly start looking fabulously healthy..! I'm also trying to lay off the straighteners in an effort to give it a break all round.

Any words of encouragement? ?!

He also recommended Umberto Giannini gel which I've got. I also use Bumble and Bumble leave in conditioner which is silicone free. Aloe Vera gel is good too.

m.boots.com/mt/www.boots.com/en/Umberto-Giannini-Scrunching-Curl-Friends-Jelly-200ml_50951/#un_jtt_addtohome_hidden

daimbardiva it will get worse and then get much much better. I've been using Pureology Supersmooth shampoo and conditioner and drying in my variation of the curly girl method for about six weeks. Now my hair is beautifully shiny and bouncy and the condition is improving all the time. Think the first three weeks were the worst, my hair was brittle and straw like, but since then it has gradually improved. Stick with it!

Lovely to hear all your stories of fab hair. Will stick with it. Have bought a clarifying shampoo so will have a good scrub w that and then onwards w the rainforest shampoo. Interesting to hear the disvussion on hairdressers. I dont think mine understands curks/waves either....

Our hairdresser is in Birmingham if that's any good to you.

Other end of the countrt I'm afraid!! Hair much less awful after clarifying wash...onwards and upwards!!

Yeah! Keep persevering. It makes so much sense. Honestly my hair has never been better. And I had tried pretty much everything...

Also I highly recommend the Curly Girl Handbook. It explains how to look after curly hair very well.

I have just spent ages on www.britishcurlies.co.uk What a fab site! Will look into the handbook

Laquila - "(silicone) is a bit of a bugger for curly hair as it prevents it getting hydrated enough, and hydration is what we need"

I have very long, curly hair but don't understand how conditioner & styling products with silicone can possibly prevent hair from being "hydrated". You wash first with shampoo, which takes off all the oils and silicone you may have on your hair. Your hair gets all the water it needs. Then you use conditioner & silicone product on wet hair, so if anything, silicone locks in the moisture in the hair and prevents it from drying.

I don't understand where my hair is supposed to get hydrated from after it's washed and until its next wash. From the air?

Cote not all the silicones used in hair products are dissolvable when washed with ordinary shampoo, so they will build up on your hair, unless you are using clarifying shampoos regularly, which can cause havoc with coloured hair. Some products do use dissolvable forms of silicon - mainly the high end products - which does as you say and washes out on the next wash, but the majority don't.

I guess mine doesn't build up, then. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to repeat it after every wash. In fact, I just rubbed some silicone gel on my palm, washed it quickly with shampoo, and am happy to report that there is none left in my palm.

How is that "build-up" supposed to work anyway? Does hair get thicker and thicker with every application of silicone? It sounds a bit fantastical.

My hair is a thick mane, soft, bouncy, and with no split ends (yes, I'm a real live TV commercial ) and I can't see any bad effects from using silicone products. In fact, my understanding is that silicone smoothes the 'scales' of the hair, coats it and protects it from outside factors. Happy to be corrected on that, if I'm wrong.

The build up, as I understand it, can form a barrier to moisturisers getting into the hair eventually, leading to dryness. This really seems to be what happened with mine. Well, a combination of that and overuse of straighteners. I am seeing a difference now after layingoff sulphates, silicones and sstraighteners for a couple of weeks.

eatmydust how often is too often for clarifying shampoo if you have coloured hair? I was planning using it a coupke of times a month?

Chemistry is not my subject (in fact far from it ), and yes, you are right, silicone does have positive benefits, which is why cosmetic companies use it in products, but for some hair types it can cause problems. I can tell the difference with my hair. If you are happy with the products you are using and they work for you that's great, but for some people they don't and this thread is simply giving options.

This maybe explains it better www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/kinky-hair-type-4a/silicones-good-bad-the-ugly/

daimbardiva every couple of months is probably ok. I use L'Oreal Inoa (sp?) and it noticeably fades with clarifying shampoo, so it could be an issue with the actual colour rather than the shampoo. I'm managing ok not clarifying at the moment though, it's sort of trial and error and trying to get a balance between colour and no frizz!!!! Pleased you are seeing a difference now.

Me too :-) thank you for your advice. My hairdresser had recommended a kebelo treatment but it seemed to me just another expensive thing to get locked into a cycle of (terrible english, sorry!!) So, I decided that I would try the simple way first...

Oh, I'm really struggling now. Hair is quite awful, really frizzy and feels dirty. Help!!!

I really tried with the CG method and I thought it was working. Then I saw a pic of my hair 2 years before I started it and it looked better back then!

Now I use the Curly Naked shampoo, then a bit of this www.african-pride.com/item/shea-butter-miracle-leave-in-conditioner.html . Then I use a teensy bit of Boots curl creme and finish with a little Kinky Curly Curling Custard/ some Umberto Gianni pink gel.

The leave-in has a silicone in it but it doesn't matter because I'm washing it out.

This works a lot better for me. My hair's not perfect now but it's still better than when I was just washing with conditioner and doing cider vinegar rinses.

I recommend to wash hair at night before bed, towel dry then cover it in coconut oil, really slap it on (do your face and body too if you want) then sleep with a towel over your pillow and just shampoo and condition it out in the shower in the morning.

It massively helped me when I stopped using the silicones/sls etc stuff and my hair which has always been flat and lank is much nicer. I got some coconut oil on sale but have run out now and my hair is suffering a bit, once a week or so kept it really shiny and soft.

Also I would say, IMHO, when you wash and condition your hair, leave the conditioner on for 5 mins or whatever then comb with wide toothed comb before you rinse out and then never comb or brush it except for then, french-girl-hair style.

Just to clarify, the coconut oil treatment once a week or so, not every night as I made it sound!

Will try coconut oil as a last resort before I give in altogether. ..!

So....a month on and hair is awful. Worse frizz wise than when I started, and my scalp is itchy which I've NEVER Had before. Am trying organix keratin shampoo as a sort of halfway house before going back to sls/sililcones. The whole thing has been really dispiriting...I feel like I've ruined my hair :/

I use Palmers olive oil shampoo (I get a big 400ml bottle for £3 from my local afro beauty shop, you can also get it online) and Dr Organic argan oil conditioner from Holland & Barrett (about a fiver?). My hair feels really soft and is incredibly shiny.

Well, at least you tried it. Don't feel bad if it didn't work out.

My shampoo, conditioner, and hair care products each have various oils & silicone. They are great. I can give some recommendations if you like.

Also can I ask if SLS was irritating your scalp at all? I only went SLS-free because it made my scalp itch, it's not bad for hair so if you didn't react to it there's no real point to getting rid of it.

I started doing CG a couple of months ago but really wasn't getting on with it. I decided to make an appt with Matthew James and it made a massive difference. Partly because my hair was cut well and partly because he gave me a lot of advice that was specific to my type of curly hair. I have employed most of the tactics he advised and am still able to make my hair look nice at home, if not quite as nice as he did it. I recommend making an appt with him if you can.

As far as itching goes, I have sebhorreic dermatitis and only medicated shampoo ever worked for me, but even that didn't get rid of it. I was worried about adopting CG as it would mean giving up the ketaconazole. But my scalp is better than it has been for years. I use a green people shampoo for itchy scalps, and was using a tea tree oil conditioner, but have now changed to Body Shop Rainforest conditioner. I also spend more time scrubbing my scalp (with finger pads, not nails). I also tried an apple cider vinegar rinse recently and that made it even better. If you do decide to try that, make sure you dilute it to no more than 50/50 ratio, and don't leave it on your scalp/hair for more than 30 seconds. Oh and in addition to it helping my scalp, my hair felt lovely afterwards!