Silicones are still found in many conventional hair shampoos, conditioners and hair treatments. They aim for superficial effects. Silicone wraps around every single hair like a thin film. This causes the hair to be easy to comb, appear shiny and feel soft. Why do silicones still damage hair and scalp in the long term and how can you avoid silicones?
Why are silicones actually harmful?
Silicones are made from petroleum. Shampoos and other cosmetics containing silicone end up in our rivers, lakes and seas via wastewater. There they can hardly be biodegraded. They damage sensitive water organisms and accumulate as pollutants in our waters. Silicones cannot be filtered out in sewage treatment plants either.
How to avoid silicones
To avoid silicones in your hair care products, pay close attention to the ingredients. The following designations in the ingredients list refer to silicones: all ingredients with the suffix "-cone", "-conol", "-xane" or "silane" such as: dimethicone, methicone, polysiloxane or cyclopentasiloxane.
If you don't always want to research every single ingredient when shopping, we recommend the Codecheck app, which you can use to scan the barcode and then see all the ingredients with a rating.
Beware of quats - greenwashing!
Conventional shampoos with "0% silicone" are being advertised more and more frequently. Ingredients such as "Polyquaternium 10" or Polyquaternium 7" are used as silicone substitutes. These are cationic surfactants or liquid plastics from the group of quaternary ammonium compounds, called "Quats" or "QACs" for short. Due to their disinfecting effect, they are listed as biocides.
QAVs accumulate in the cell membranes of living organisms and can thus impair the function of the cell membrane. Quats have properties similar to silicones. They lead to a comparable build-up effect, they also accumulate on the hair and scalp. Quaternary ammonium compounds are also considered skin irritants and can trigger allergies. They are hardly biodegradable in the environment.
We at myrto do not use silicones or questionable silicone substitutes, because we only use ingredients that are certified for natural cosmetics and have also proven to be particularly kind to the skin. As an alternative to natural cosmetics, we use innovative herbal conditioners and can therefore do without silicone or cationic quaternium products with their long-term consequences.
How to get rid of stubborn silicones or quats
To remove the stubborn layer of silicones or quats when switching to natural hair care, we recommend our Purifying Free Organic Shampoo for mild deep cleansing. This process can take 6 to 8 weeks, in some cases even longer, since many silicones or QACs are hardly water-soluble. After a sometimes strenuous transition phase, you can look forward to a balanced scalp and increasingly healthy, stronger and shiny hair.