Oil and cones ramblings

[lolar]

Apologies if this has been discussed recently!
I like using cones on my hair. I have a coney conditioner and then a coney leave in serum which I use when my hair is damp.
What I wondered was, if I use the argan (and coconut) oil as well, will it do any good? ie will it penetrate through the silicones and reach my hair (if that makes sense). I notice morrocan oil is mostly silicones mixed with argan oil...and I was thinking of making my own serum which by adding my argan oil to the serum I use...or do you think think that would be wasting the oil? Also.. I use coconut oil and leave it on an hr before I wash my hair...would that able to penetrate if I've used silicones a few days before? I have tried to go cone free before but did not like the effect.
Just a few random thoughts and would like to hear about what you all think!

[lapushka]

I would use the oil first (a tiny bit of it), then "seal" it in with the silicones if you apply it to damp hair!

[lolar]

Good idea! Thanks!

[lapushka]

You're welcome! :)

[Nique1202]

Silicones don't make a 100% impenetrable barrier on your hair, or water wouldn't get through and get your hair wet when you rinse it before adding shampoo. Oils can and will generally get through unless you have heavy silicone buildup on your hair, but you'd know if that were the case (your hair would feel like plastic, and probably be pretty sticky).

[Annalouise]

If you are using a serum that is both oils, and silicones, then I'm not sure why you want to add another oil as there is already oil in the serum.
Why do you think you need to add more oil?:)

My guess would be that if you are using a silicon serum on your hair as a leave in, then putting oil over top of that (as a pre wash) might not be all that beneficial. The idea of deep conditioning or sealing in moisture is that it is done on clean hair. So ideally you would wash your hair, then condition it and either leave a tiny bit of conditioner on, and then seal your length with oil to trap the moisture in, or with the serum.

Now if you are sealing dry hair that doesn't make sense, as there is no moisture to seal in so you're just sealing in the dryness. Or, if you are sealing hair that is already coated in a silicone, then that doesn't make sense either.

I personally do not understand the use of oil on the hair unless you are sealing IN MOISTURE. Otherwise, I fail to see the logic.:popcorn::)

[meteor]

Silicones only provide a light, penetrable barrier, and it would be almost impossible to coat hair (which has very large surface area, e.g. total surface area of a head of hair 20 cm long is about ~ 6 m2 (http://www.hair-science.com/_int/_en/topic/topic_sousrub.aspx?tc=ROOT-HAIR-SCIENCE^PORTRAIT-OF-AN-UNKNOWN-ELEMENT^WHAT-WE-DO-SEE&cur=WHAT-WE-DO-SEE)) enough for it to lock out oils completely while still keeping hair looking presentable.

I'd just make sure to apply a penetrating oil for long enough (e.g. ~ overnight or longer) for it to be able to penetrate the hair before being washed out.


I personally do not understand the use of oil on the hair unless you are sealing IN MOISTURE. Otherwise, I fail to see the logic.:popcorn::)

You can use oils to lock moisture out as well, for example, to manage high porosity hair, preventing it from getting "waterlogged" during washing.
Oils slightly protect the inner part of your hair that swells/de-swells during/after washing (i.e. hygral fatigue), and this protective function is normally performed by sebum and hair's natural intercellular lipids (18-MEA, the F-layer...). Limiting long exposure to water and detergents can help limit cuticles swelling/lifting/chipping off and reduce keratin loss.

Here are a couple studies that showed benefits of oils when they were used on dry hair:

After coconut oil pre-wash, hair damage during washing and post-wash combing was reduced, measured by protein loss and water retention index:
Effect of mineral oil, sunflower oil, and coconut oil on prevention of hair damage: http://journal.scconline.org/pdf/cc1999/cc050n06/p00327-p00339.pdf

Oils increased lubrication, reduced split end formation, reduced combing forces, etc:
Brazilian oils and butters: the effect of different fatty acid chain composition on human hair physiochemical properties: http://journal.scconline.org/pdf/cc2009/cc060n02/p00273-p00280.pdf

Oils are important in maintaining the mechanical integrity of the cuticle cells, filling micro-cavities:
The effects of lipid penetration and removal from subsurface microcavities and cracks at the human cuticle sheath: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19450411

[Stub]

Well, I don't know if it helps or not but I added pure argan oil to my coney serum and like it.

[Annalouise]

Meteor ~ Interesting. I did say that oil/serums could seal in dryness. Just like a wall keeps things out and keeps things from going in. A barrier is a barrier.
But lets talk about keeping water out, in the case of pre-oiling the hair. What about people with low porosity hair who WANT water to get into the hair strand? This speaks to my point about "locking in dryness." If you have low porosity hair, you need to have heat and moisture to lift the cuticle to moisturize the strand. If that same person coated their hair in oil, and then shampooed, wouldn't the result be moisture not going into the hair strand thus increasing the overall dryness of the hair?

These experiments are done on bleached hair, which is high porosity hair. And the goal of the experiment was to reduce the porosity and close the cuticle. Notice how in the experiment they did not use conditioner, which acts to seal the cuticle after shampooing.

The experiments were focused on the reduction of mechanical damage by combing. In this capacity its common sense that a lubricant would be helpful to detangle the hair, which is probably the only reason I would use an oil besides to seal in moisture. However, I remain concerned about the overall net effect of hair oiling pre wash for the reasons I mentioned. For damaged hair it has benefits to protect a damaged cuticle, but I would like to see a similar study on healthy low porosity strands. Does the oil prevent moisture from getting into the strand?

[lolar]

Thank you ladies, these things are exactly what I have been thinking about.
Great point Annalouise. I always thought that excessive water getting into the hair cuticle was not good for the hair so that's why I use coconut oil as a present wash.. I thought that this would help limit the water damage?? My hair appears pretty healthy however, because it's long, I'm certain there is would be damage to it if you looked under a microscope.... I can't imagine anyone's hair being 100% perfectly healthy.
The reason I use the silicone serum is because it just smoothes my hair and makes it look better when it's dry, I was thinking of adding oil so it was less serum and more oil formula to create less of a silicone buildup/barrier I guess. I can't use 100% oil when it's dry because it just looks greasy so it's good to see others have had good results from mixing them.
Thanks meteor for posting those studies... Going to have a look right now! 👀

[animetor7]

Annalousie, I have low porosity hair, and I still find it's beneficial to oil my hair heavily before a wash. In part this is to help moisturize my hair (I use penetrating oils like coconut oil), but mainly it is to protect my ends from my shampoo which I only want to wash my scalp. My ends only get washed rarely and are mostly protected from shampoo in the shower by a layer of oil covered by a very thick layer of conditioner. I'm sure this doesn't prevent all the suds from reaching my ends, but it helps. Also please keep in mind that there are both penetrating oils and occlusive oils and they have different purposes in hair care. I wouldn't use an occlusive oil before a wash, but after washing a light layer of an occlusive oil can help a lot!!! Penetrating oils are, I think, best used before a wash, and heavily, this helps them penetrate the hair shaft and add moisture to the hair and in some cases protect protein in the hair when washing, and if used heavily can make a semi-occlusive layer on the hair which can help protect from shampoo suds, but then can be easily removed by light conditioner to allow a heavier one to penetrate. Penetrating oils will not make an occlusive enough layer to block out water when washing, and can be used quite effectively before a wash even by people with low porosity hair.

[meteor]

^ I completely agree with this, animetor7. :agree: Oil barrier is quite permeable but can be quite protective.


Meteor ~ Interesting. I did say that oil/serums could seal in dryness. Just like a wall keeps things out and keeps things from going in. A barrier is a barrier.
But lets talk about keeping water out, in the case of pre-oiling the hair. What about people with low porosity hair who WANT water to get into the hair strand? This speaks to my point about "locking in dryness." If you have low porosity hair, you need to have heat and moisture to lift the cuticle to moisturize the strand. If that same person coated their hair in oil, and then shampooed, wouldn't the result be moisture not going into the hair strand thus increasing the overall dryness of the hair?

These experiments are done on bleached hair, which is high porosity hair. And the goal of the experiment was to reduce the porosity and close the cuticle. Notice how in the experiment they did not use conditioner, which acts to seal the cuticle after shampooing.

The experiments were focused on the reduction of mechanical damage by combing. In this capacity its common sense that a lubricant would be helpful to detangle the hair, which is probably the only reason I would use an oil besides to seal in moisture. However, I remain concerned about the overall net effect of hair oiling pre wash for the reasons I mentioned. For damaged hair it has benefits to protect a damaged cuticle, but I would like to see a similar study on healthy low porosity strands. Does the oil prevent moisture from getting into the strand?

All those experiments were done on virgin hair and, in some cases, also on bleached hair, boiled hair (to create damage), and also hair selected from different textures (straight, wavy, curly), with most noticeable benefits of oil on textured hair and on damaged hair...
Generally speaking, hair has both hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties (while typically being more water-repellent, hydrophobic when it's virgin, in good condition), so I think that's where actual application of water and humectants, and oils and other occlusives can get tricky in practice. :flower: I definitely agree that more porous hair, other things being equal, is more likely to benefit from oils more, (and I experience it myself on my porous, old ends that love oils and low porosity roots that just like to be kept clean and left alone). I don't necessarily see a point in lifting up cuticle and wetting down already healthy low-porosity hair though, since the low porosity, the cuticle barrier is what keeps hair's structure protected. At least straight hair at high humidity can experience more breakage during detangling (*), which is another reason I don't necessarily add water to hair, unless it's part of a conditioner or LOC routine, when the hair is dry or maybe static-y or if I want to wet-set hair differently.

* See Figure 12 on p. 452 and discussion on p. 450
http://journal.scconline.org/pdf/cc2010/cc061n06/p00439-p00456.pdf
A statistical analysis of hair breakage. II. Repeated grooming experiments.


Also, in the first study I listed (Effect of mineral oil, sunflower oil, and coconut oil on prevention of hair damage: http://journal.scconline.org/pdf/cc2003/cc054n02/p00175-p00192.pdf), one of the measurements of damage that was used was Water Retention Index (WRI).
And this water retention index was actually a measure that had inverse relationship with hair's "health" and condition. ( WRI = ( Weight wet - Weight dry ) * 100 / Weight dry ), holding onto water was seen as a negative sign:


The water-retention index of undamaged hair is shown in Figure 7. From the data it can be seen that coconut oil reduces the WRI by 2-5%. Since coconut oil was used as a pre-wash conditioner, it would be reasonable to conclude that the effect may be due to oil residues left in the hair.

The data for the bleached and boiling-water-damaged hair are shown in Figures 8 and 9, respectively. For these damaged samples, the WRI is much higher than that for the undamaged hair. This is moistly due to chemical degradation of proteins, generating hydrophilic groups. Both cleavage and oxidation of disulfide bonds, as well as hydrolysis of the peptide linkage, occur, although the contribution of the latter is probably minor. All samples show a reduction in the WRI as a result of the application of coconut oil. Assuming that most of the water is absorbed by the fiber, the WRI reflects the swelling propensity of hair. Since repeated swelling and contraction damage the cuticle, reduction in the WRI can be considered as beneficial in reducing hair damage.

The data in Figures 6-9 show that the sequence of application (whether pre- or post-wash) is important. Post-wash application is less effective in reducing the WRI as compared to pre-wash application. The difference seems to be in the location of the oil residues and their ability to counteract surfactant damage. In post-wash application the oil film is on the surface, with no penetration into the fiber. In pre-wash application, it is possible that the molecules of the oil penetrate into the cuticle and probably even into the cortex. This may also be the case with undamaged hair, although the effect is small. The reduction in the WRI must be due to the introduction of the hydrophobic triglycerides into the keratin structure.
(Effect of mineral oil, sunflower oil, and coconut oil on prevention of hair damage: http://journal.scconline.org/pdf/cc2003/cc054n02/p00175-p00192.pdf p. 187 - 189)


As for the concern about *wanting* water in the strand, I'd imagine wetting hair down or spraying it with water is going to fix that very quickly, unless there is some extreme build-up (which of course, is good to remove regardless). But hair takes up water even without that, it is permeable to water vapour which is always present in the surrounding air to a greater or lesser extent (http://www.hair-science.com/_int/_en/topic/topic_sousrub.aspx?tc=ROOT-HAIR-SCIENCE^SO-STURDY-SO-FRAGILE^PROPERTIES-OF-HAIR&cur=PROPERTIES-OF-HAIR). Wetting hair down is easy, it's the continued balance that can be a problem to maintain, which is why we can use humectants (to help attract and hold onto water molecules) and occlusives (to help reduce/slow down water evaporation but also prevent hair from swelling up in high humidity, for example). It also depends quite a bit on your personal aesthetic preference, e.g. if you like your hair to be more flat, or to be more soft/supple, or to hold a style for longer, or stay a bit "rigid" and voluminous, etc etc... Water affects all that a lot, of course... It's not an all-or-nothing approach, of course. :flower:

[ephemeri]

Fascinating read, meteor! Thank you for posting that.