24 november

A few days ago in the shower I noticed that a new bottle of shampoo had magically appeared. In the adjustment from living alone to living with other people, many simple and seemingly mundane changes initially appear to be caused by magic. Still, I’m getting to the point where I slowly remember that someone else bought the shampoo and put it there. Maybe it’s progress, and maybe it’s a less fantastic way to live. Hard to say.

This new shampoo, I noticed, advertised itself as being “silicone-free!” Fine with me. I squeezed the right amount, whatever that is, into my hand, lathered up, and started to work the shampoo into my hair. Still, as the silicone-free concoction started to bubble, so did my thoughts. Was it really such a big selling point that this shampoo contained no silicone? Did all of my previous shampoos have silicone in them? Was silicone really that bad for hair, if it even was at all in the first place? Hair was dead anyway, so what could happen to it? Luckily, I had neither my computer nor my smart phone with me in the shower, so I was unable to look up satisfying answers to any of these questions, and by the time I was done with my shower, I had forgotten about the puzzle completely.

Although this ‘What? Silicone?’ cycle has happened a few times already, I still haven’t looked it up. I’m not sure I want to know the answers. Do you really know the ingredients in everything you use? I’d like to know that no animals were harmed and I’d like to think that the ingredients are mostly natural, but how do I know what makes a good shampoo? Mud is completely natural, but I can’t imagine that it would clean my hair very well.

In Ukraine, I barely knew what kind of shampoo I was buying, let alone what was in it. Would you look at your shampoo bottle sometime? Look at all the words there are on there. How many of those words do you need to know in order to decide whether this bottle or another one will be the best choice for you? Reading shampoo bottles was terrible. At least other products give you an idea of what’s on the inside. Shampoo doesn’t do much in that regard: they all look basically the same physically, all make the same glugging sound if you shake them. Pictures on the bottles don’t help much either. Some bottles carry technical-looking before and after diagrams of shafts of hair being restored to full splendor. Some just have designs, squiggly lines, and leaves or flowers. I’d choose based on the few words I was sure of and then hope for the best. Did I always choose correctly? Hard to say.

Now, in America, I can read everything on the bottle—hooray! However, this power brings new questions and concerns: was there silicone in my old shampoo? Am I better off worrying about these kinds of questions? Hard to say.