diasphora

What makes certain Pantene products so bad is a combination of the harsher sulfates they use (a little demon called Ammonium) and the heavy amount of silicones they throw in to mask the fact that dear Ammonium just stripped the crap out of your hair.

You don't need to spend a truckload to get a good product. You just need to recognize a few of the common product chemicals and know how they work. Silicones, for one, can make your hair look like a dream. They're great in moderation, and with a good weekly clarifying shampoo to wash out the build-up residue they'll leave, you should be fine. You can identify silicones by finding the word 'cone' at the end of some of the ingredients. Some examples are 'amodimethicone,' 'dimethicone,' and 'cyclomethicone.' Cones are cones. They're what make your hair so detangled and slick after you use that Pantene or Victoria's Secret conditioner (that latter being what I used today, in fact.) Too much of anything is bad, though, keep in mind.

Then you have the cleaning agents--the sulfates. The more 'luxurious lather' a shampoo gives you, the more sulfates it generally contains. Sodium Lauryl is thought to be the kindest of the lot. It will clean your hair to some degree, and it won't dry you out as much as the Ammoniums. So when you're picking out a shampoo, try to pick one with a Sodium Sauryl cleaner, and preferably no silicones. If you're gonna go with silicones in the shower, try to limit them to the conditioner, but make sure you have a coneless backup conditioner on hand, and make sure you deep clean your hair once a week.

For weekly deep-cleaning, I like Neutrogena's Anti Residue shampoo, which DOES contain Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate as its 'get that crap out of your hair' cleansing agent. A lot of people favor Suave's Clarifying Shampoo, too. Pretty much the same product as Neutrogena's.

And also, Paves makes a No-Sulfates Shampoo that you can find at Walgreens for pretty cheap. It's nice to use every now and then. It cleans well but-obviously-- doesn't have any sulfates.