Q&A

I've been meaning to ask you, (you don't have to answer if yu don't want to i comlpetely understand that you have bettr stuff to do than answer strangers' questions) perhaps this is a silly question ... but I've gone from no cone's to cones because I like the idea of a protecting "film" over the hairstrand so I started using Sunsilks leave in balm, but now I'm sort of struggling with my own thoughts.

Here goes: The protecting film of silicone also protetcs from good stuff ie oil etc so in your experience, is there any way of getting the silicone film off of the hairstrand using CO or WO so I can "feed" the hair some oil on ends once or twice a week?
I hope it's ok that I asked
regards

Ms.N00b

First of all, no I don’t mind answering questions.

Second of all, I really think this would be a question better asked to Little Piggy or (^(oo)^) on UTT since she seems to really know her stuff when it comes to product ingredients and especially cones.

Anyways, it’s funny timing because I just CO washed some leftover hemp oil out of my hair after an overnight Ankylosaurus oiling. Last night I took half my braid out, put oil on it and rebraided it for the Ankylosaurus. Last morning I had used my normal old coney Sunsilk on it when I braided it. This morning I washed it out with some coney VO5. So I applied oil on cone’d hair and washed it out again with cones.

I never ever felt I had issues with “not penetrating” when it came to oil and my hair. But of course my personal experience isn’t really an explanation in itself.

Anyways. I find it annoying and yet funny when people talk about “cones” like it’s just a single ingredient that works in one single way. “Cones” are a huge and diverse group. Some are water soluble, some are more prone to build up than other, some are heavy some are light.

“Cones” is not a single thing. It’s as stupid referring to “cones” as a single ingredient as to refer to “oil” as a single ingredient that only works in one single way.

Of course when you put it as “protects from good stuff ie oil” I want to ask how much you think other ingredients really penetrate?

The fact is that most ingredients in products don’t go very deep. Most of them only deposits in the outer layer of the hair strands. Of course this depends on hair type as most coarsies will have problems with proteins not being able to penetrate the extra layer of their hair that makes coarse hair coarse.

Not all oils penetrate either!

Even if we did say that cones coated the hair strands so thoroughly that nothing could penetrate, would it be so much worse than when other “good stuff” fills up the hair strands? I mean, this is exactly why we condition our hair in the first place: To fill up the damaged areas and protect the strands on a microscopic level.

Of course it really isn’t the case even though one of the most common “anti cone arguments” is that “It blocks out moisture!” which makes me wonder how people can get their hair wet at all if that’s the case…

Anyways, I guess my point is that you should just try it. I could write page up and page down about penetration and ingredients and oils, but in the end it comes down to your hair type and the state of your hair strands. Some experiences build up easily and others with the same hair type never had issues with it.

My personal experience has been that my cone usage never interfered with oils. (Except for olive oil, but that has to do with the fact that my hair doesn’t like olive oil, cones or not)

If you’re feeling worried about “blocking” maybe you should shampoo before using oil, then you can always add some cones afterwards if you think it will lock the oil in?