Silicone background: Silicon carbide powder has been mass-produced since 1893 for use as an abrasive.Grains of silicon carbide can be bonded together by sintering to form very hard ceramics that are widely used in applications requiring high endurance, such as car brakes, car clutches and ceramic plates in bulletproof vests. Electronic applications of silicon carbide as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and detectors in early radios were first demonstrated around 1907, and today SiC is used in semiconductor electronics applications that are high-temperature, or high-voltage, or both. Large single crystals of silicon carbide can be grown by the Lely method; they can be cut into gems known as synthetic moissanite. Silicon carbide with high surface area can be produced from SiO2 contained in plant material.
As science has advanced, this inert substance has been transformed into an almost infinite array of smaller versions of itself, and has practically limitless applications, from potholders to caulking to car parts, to hair and skin products, and generally has made life better and easier.
With all good things, though, they must be used responsibly. This is part of our mission. To inform about its proper uses, and to provide alternative products that exceed the performance of silicone in personal care items with natural food ingredients which empower your hair to grow faster, healthier and organically.
Yes, silicone is considered organic. It comes from sand. That’s pretty simple. Sand on the beach is great, but I don’t ever feel like smearing it in my hair, or on my skin, and really hate the feel of it when it gets caught in my bathing suit, especially in “those areas.”
On the other hand, I love the smell of coconut, and have used those oils on the beach since I was a child, and to this day, can transport myself mentally to the beach with the mere smell of that coconut and banana fragrance!
Last I checked, bananas and coconuts are still edible (especially the organic ones). I don’t however find the sand that tasty and the texture is just a bit off for my taste.
When we looked deeper into what is the issue with silicone (sand derivatives), we found that the chemists had discovered a way to make the molecules so small that the acted like a fine dust. It’s been developed into such a fine dust that it can cover all kinds of crevices. This is why skin pores look smoother-they are filled with a flesh colored fine dust. This is why hair can look healthier-the crevices of the hair surface is filled with a fine dust. Unfortunately, we all know what happens to clogged pores of the skin, but are not really aware that filling the follicle of the hair with this dust may be causing a worse problem–thinning hair.
If you fill a potted plant with potting soil, usually you will have a pretty healthy house plant. Fill it only with sand, and just about nothing will grow easily other than weeds and maybe a spindly cactus. This sand is just not the best thing for filling your hair follicles.
Of course, all analogies break down after a while, but the point is that using silicone/ sand derivatives on the scalp and hair just have never been a good idea for the long term in our opinion.
The usual story for thinning hair is age, hormones, or genetics. While all are valid, we believe that you should create conditions that ARE in your control to help with your hair growth, whether you want thicker hair, or simply want to encourage the best hair you can genetically grow!
Here are some other topics that we’ll discuss in upcoming blog posts to further explain the pitfalls of silicones, how to identify them easily, and why our products are the obvious choice for those who are concerned with having the best hair and healthy scalp and skin easily and sensibly.
Beginning with our top 5 reasons to eliminate silicones:
1. Made of sand. (When was rubbing dirt in your hair ever a good idea)?
2. Though it covers damage sites, it never moisturizes the hair.
3. It tolerates heat up to 1700 degrees thus giving you a false sense of security, because hair really can sensibly tolerate up to 370 degrees once in a while.
4. It allows you to boil the moisture out of the core of the hair, and after a few times, the hair is drier and more brittle thus causing the vicious unending cycle of needing more moisture, which is masqueraded in products as moisturizers, but are simply other versions of silicone.
5. That conventional products and manufacturers have duped you with this “advanced chemistry” and sold you the cheapest ingredients on the market with fancy great packages and empty promises, so that you will buy the next big marketing story to fix what the last products didn’t!
6. Did you know that this fine dust has been found in women’s vital organs? The blame was on those with silicone breast implants. How did the women who did NOT have breast implants have these deposits in their organs. Showering with silicone derivative products is not the only way they got this fine dust in their organs. We’ll explain the other ways you may be being tricked into collecting dust in your body, under the guise of beauty!
Stay tuned, and be sure to bookmark this blog. Preventing this problem is much easier than trying to rectify the long term exposure.