Build up question

After revisisting the articles I can find on the subject and generally poking about on forums and blogs now taking into account information on the different properties of different types of silicone. Looking at the sunsilk leave in I know we both use it contains both dimethicone and amodimethicone. Now amodimethicone is in itself not water soluble but together with trideceth-12 it is and since sunsilk contains trideceth-12 it should be removed just fine (according to the sources I used). However, dimethicone which is also in the sunsilk leave-in balm isn't water soluble. I notice other people write about clarifying in order to remove dimethicone build-up but you've never mentioned clarifying your hair, yet you don't seem to experience problems from build-up, how do you solve the build-up issue, and how often do you have to deal with it?

~msn00b

It’s pretty simple…

I solve the build-up issue by not having a build-up issue.

Honestly, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had to clarify and still have fingers to spare.

The times when I’ve had to clarify has all been ”back in the day” where I was new to the whole longhair circuit and was way too eager to condition and care for my hair.

It’s been some expensive lessons a few times: Once back when I had shoulder length hair I had used a coconut oil-leave in thing (Think Palmers Coconut something-something?) that got super greasy and weird in my hair. I then used shampoo to get it out, but it didn’t seem to work on the first round, so I shampooed again. Then it just got even worse! I swear, somehow the fatty coconutty-coney thing fused with the cones in the Fructis shampoo I used and turned into some sort of disgusting lumpy super-coconutty-coney-greaseball. Yikes! I shampooed and shampooed and eventually emptied the bottle and had to go to bed with greasy-icky hair and run to the store next morning to get a clarifying shampoo. I had to shampoo nine times in all to get my hair back to normal! My scalp felt completely fried after that.

Well, I learned my lesson on over-conditioning healthy hair then.

It wasn’t until I was at around waist length before my hair even accepted any kind of oil or protein without flipping out on me.

Coarse hair has an extra layer (That is what makes coarse hair coarse) and it makes it difficult for oil and protein to penetrate, so they just “sit there” and can mess up the texture of the hair. It seems that coarse hair simply needs to take some damage before it will accept oils and protein. Not sure it’s a good thing I can oil my hair now!

Of course I knew people were saying that, back then but I didn’t want to listen. I wanted to try all these cool new things, especially this coconut oil that everyone seemed to love so much!

The whole “Benign Neglect” that the super long hairs always praised just seemed so boring. Hah, now I’m being one of them too.

Now I condition 0-2 times a week, usually in connection with having to wash my scalp. It’s obviously not enough to cause build-up or other issues for my hair type.

I try to add some more care to my ends since they can “take” more conditioning than the roots by doing an  Ankylosaurus without the heatpack overnight. It works really well. My ends love the extra care and I don’t upset the top and risk over conditioning it.

So well, boring anecdotes aside my answer is: If you don’t overdo conditioning, cones or no cones, you don’t have to clarify.