 Hey curlfriends, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today and today I have a very popular question that needs to be answered about silicones. Are they really that bad for our hair? Yes. Yes it is. Thanks for watching Bianca Renee Today. Fine, you want a real explanation, we can talk about it, it's fine. Two of the most common silicones that I often see on bottles is Ammo Dimethicone and Dimethicone. You're probably thinking okay, if silicone is that bad, like why are all these brands putting it in their products? Well, there's pros and cons. So let's go ahead and talk about the pros first. The pros of using silicone is that it's an amazing detangler. It has great slip, as us curly girls pretty much made up this word. That means to really easy to tangle your hair. So if your hair is super easy to detangle because of your conditioner, we would say that that conditioner has good slip. So that sounds like an amazing thing, right? Woo! Go silicone! We hate detangling. And silicone can also give you the illusion of having healthy hair when you don't. So let's think about the actual hair strand, right? It should look like this. But if your hair is damaged, it looks a little bit like this. Like a little pieces are like breaking off of it, right? So what silicone does, it fills in that gap, making it look like your hair is actually healthy and shinier than it actually is. So it's like a plastic coating that temporarily repairs the look of your damaged hair. Well, guess what? It's not real. That's all silicone does. It gives the illusion that your hair is actually shiny and healthy. But it's not actually making your hair healthy to look shiny. So the cons of using silicone is that since it is adding another layer on top of your hair, it can make your hair very weighed down. Us curly girls and guys usually like big hair with volume. We don't want it to just be all flat and boring. And it can do that because it might be too heavy on your hair. Since it is making another layer over and over and over again, you can easily get product buildup because that product has silicone. So if you have this plastic coating on all of your hair, guess what? Nothing can get in there. So if you're adding oils, you're adding all these magical ingredients that have moisture. The moisture, the water, the air can't even get in there because of this plastic coating that you've put all over your hair. You pretty much created like a forest field that can't be reckoned with, which can lead to your head being itchy, flakiness, and it's also hard for your hair to grow when it has to go through all this plastic that you put on there. Let me calm down. Let me calm down. There are water soluble silicones and non-water soluble. If it's non-water soluble, that means it's really hard to rinse out. And guess how you have to rinse it out? By using a sulfate cleanser, the other ingredient we're not supposed to use. But literally, you have to use one bad ingredient to get rid of another bad ingredient, so you're adding bad on bad on bad and you're stuck in this bad cycle of ingredients. This is you. It's not where you want to be. There are some silicones that are water soluble, so it's easier to rinse out and it doesn't leave as much buildup, so it's not that bad. Well, okay, let's talk about not being that bad. If we have the option of choosing good versus not that bad, which one are you going to choose? It's not even a case where the high-end products don't have it and the cheap products do, so it's not a scenario where it's like, hey, I don't have a lot of money, I just can't afford the good products that don't have silicone, I got to use drugstore, it has silicone, that's all I got. No! That's not even the case. A lot of the high-end brands are the ones that have silicone, so now it's like, okay, I have the option of paying $40 for a conditioner with silicone or I could pay $5 for a conditioner that doesn't have silicone. How is this not a no-brainer? And maybe that high-end conditioner has a water soluble silicone, so it's not that bad. Okay, fine. I'm still not going to pay more for a product that's not that bad when I could just get a straight-up good product for under $10, but before I get to it, I already know I pissed off a couple of you guys that love your silicone products, but guess what? There's actually people that are allowed to use silicone, yeah, it's true, you could be one of them, let me break it down. Okay, so these are the people that are allowed to use silicone in their If you are someone that is 100% happy with their hair growth, you can use silicone. Like it's a great length, whether it's long, whether it's short, you're just totally happy with it, go ahead, continue to use your silicone. The next person that can use silicone is someone that has very moisturized curls. If your curls are just never dry, they're just flourishing and you know it's because you use that silicone all the time, you keep on using it. And the third person is someone who does not have any damage. So if your hair has no color damage, no heat damage, and you use silicone all the time, you keep on doing that. But if you are the latter of any of those, I would suggest not using silicone. Because if you are using silicone products and you're struggling with hair growth, it could be because you've created this mask on your head and your hair can't flourish because you won't let it. If your hair is really dry, it's because you're not letting that moisture get into your hair when you're deep conditioning or adding oils because you've created that silicone barrier. If you are transitioning from heat damage or color damage and you want your hair to get better, your curls cannot get all the great natural ingredients that you might be throwing on it if you're covering it in silicone. So here is the honest truth. Honestly, I could review any product I want on my channel. I could. But the only reason I even have a YouTube channel is because you guys watching are the ones that encourage me. I get messages every single day from both guys and girls that write me and say that their hair has changed tremendously ever since they started listening to my little tips and tricks that I put in this video. And that's where I come in. You know, because technically my hair is super healthy. So if I use silicone once or twice, it really wouldn't make a big difference to my hair because my hair is like that healthy and you'd have to really beat it down to damage it with just silicone. Now, bad like color dyes or bleaches, that's an instant damage. If you use a lot of heat, that could be an instant damage. But silicone kind of wears out your hair over time in the long run. And one, I don't want to do that because why? But because of my channel and because I know that a majority of my viewers are people that are struggling with their curly hair or are transitioning, have heat damage or color damage or frizz, I have to care about these things. And I know that you are someone struggling with dryness, damage, transitioning. I can't recommend something like silicone that's going to deteriorate the flourishing of your hair journey. I just can't do it. Why would I mess you up like that? Like we supposed to be here. Are we curl friends or not? So as your curl friend, even though I've been offered thousands of dollars to review products, I still said no, I did. Because you and your hair and my integrity is worth more. So that is why we are here. That's why we have Bianca Renee today. I don't make these videos for myself. I make them for you. If I wanted to talk to myself, I've got plenty of mirrors in the house. It'd be much cheaper than buying cameras and lights and SD cards. I could just talk. But I don't want to just talk to myself. I want to talk to you guys and hopefully help a person or two. If you are someone that has listened to any of my curly advice and you think that maybe little on me has helped you and your hair in any way, why don't you just go ahead and leave me a comment. So I have some reinforcement, you know, to people that might be new to my channel that might think I'm just making up stuff and don't know what I'm talking about. Why don't you back me up in the comments real quick and let them know how amazing your hair is because you deep condition weekly. Maybe you cut out heat. Maybe you switch to sulfate, paraben, silicone-free products. What do you do? We all want to know. Leave a comment below so we all can gain some knowledge. If you are new to my curly family, welcome. I hope you gain some knowledge today. We do this all the time. I post two new videos every week once on Friday and once on Sunday. So go ahead and hit that little subscribe button and the bell so you're notified as soon as I post a video. And if you want some curly hair knowledge on the daily, make sure to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat at MsBeyondGrenet. So that is all for this episode of Curl Talk. I will see you guys next time. Thanks for watching Beyond Grenet today.