7:59 p.m. - 2003-03-07
Hair Conditioner
I was wandering around Target today feeling sort of lost and in need of a special treat. I really had a bad night last night � every joint in my body hurt and I couldn�t stop thinking about, oh, about all kinds of things. I thought about people who abuse children and animals and how they should be strung up by their jabows. About the deaths of Ty and Diane and how there seemed to be two big voids in the world. About how you can feel that someone is your friend for years and years and even though they have done some obnoxious things you forgive them and then finally they do something so obnoxious you realize that you were an idiot to have given them any of your time. About how one of your cats is so huge he could easily be mistaken for a fox, and no matter how many different diets you put him on he will never lose any weight. And about the statistical improbability of both of your pet rabbits coming down with eye problems at the same time.
Yeah, it was a sleepless night. I needed a pick me up.
I wound up in the cosmetics section, which seemed like a good idea because in the last year my wrinkles, which used to be sort of transitory, have become, shall we say, permanent. I have become a middle aged woman. Wrinkle cream seemed like a fabulous idea.
I wound up buying hair conditioner instead.
I got sucked in by something called �Hair Therapy Revitalizing Lotus Flower Conditioner�, which attracted me with its whorehouse lavender colour and the exotic Chinese characters on the label. I�m sure that these characters probably translate to something like �May all your hair fall out today, Yankee Dog�, but they lent the bottle just the perfect touch of Oriental mystery.
I also made the mistake of thinking that it would actually smell like lotus, which was my favorite perfume in high school. From that, of course, you can date me to the very last hurrah of the hippie movement. I�m still very fond of lotus, though, and I would wear it more often if I didn�t feel it would brand me as a dinosaur. Unlike patchouli, lotus has never experienced a revival among today�s youth.
Our Target has a �No Opening Bottles� policy, so I had to take a leap of faith without the usual sniff test. A sad mistake. You know how some old ladies don�t wash very often because they have trouble getting in and out of the bathtub? And then they slather on cheap perfume to try and cover up the smell, and after a couple of days it kind of goes bad and smells both floral and rancid at the same time? This is a close approximation of what Hair Therapy Revitalizing Lotus Conditioner smells like. Uh Huh.
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Of course, buying any sort of cosmetics is always a gamble without having Bruce along to interpret the ingredients list. This is one of the best things about having a scientist for a husband - he can analyse those cryptic cosmetic ingredients and tell you if they really will revitalise your hair with essential fatty acids.
For example, as I type this, Bruce is reading the ingredients of Hair Therapy Revitalizing Lotus Flower Conditioner to pass judgement on whether I really should have spent $3.84 on this product. OK, Dr. Bruce, whaddya' think?
Bruce: "The first ingredient is water, parenthetically "aqua". Nothing else is restated in Latin! The second ingredient is a fatty acid cetearyl alcohol, which I would assume is there to give it the right greasy body."
Me: "Is 'greasy body' a scientific term?"
Bruce: "No."
Me: "What's the next ingredient?"
Bruce: "It also contains several different isomers of propylene glycol, which I assume also contribute to the right greasy body."
Me: " No, seriously, what do they do?"
Bruce: "I am serious, I think they're there to make it the right greasy consistency."
Me: "But is there anything in this that will actually help my hair?"
Bruce: "My guess is that it's the third listed ingredient, which is behentrimonium methosulfate. I suspect this is the agent that actually conditions your hair. I think the Behentrimonium is like a trademark secret chemical, because I've never heard of it. It's almost a nonsense word, actually."
Me: "So there's nothing else in there that would actually do anything?"
Bruce: "Well, there's various botanical extracts that they claim have an effect. The fourth ingredient is lotus extract, followed by ginkgo extract. I have no idea what that would do. I think they just threw that in because people like ginkgo."
Me: "So what is there that will actually condition my hair?"
Bruce: "The propylene glycols will give it the greasy consistency to lie flat. We're talking about something that has the consistency of mayonnaise in many ways. The chemical mix creates emulsified lipids so that they are water soluble."
Me: "HUH??????"
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Newsflash: Bruce looked up the behenthablahblahblah ingredient and it is, in fact, the active ingredient. To quote the Making Cosmetics website: Chemical Name: alkyl trimethyl ammonium chlorid Description: cationic quaternary ammonium compound made from colza oil (canolla oil) with potent conditiong effect Appearance: white pellets, weak alcohol-like odor Activity: 80 % (content of active substances) Properties: potent conditioner, excellent antistatic & detangling agent, able to restore & rebuild damaged hair (due to the properties of colza oil it does not coat but penetrates & substantiates the hair shaft), softening effect, antimicrobial properties Applications: hair conditioners, hair shampoos, hair rinses
Again I repeat: HUH??? It was perfectly understandable to Bruce though. In fact, he had this further analysis:
"I knew there had to be an active cation (positive ion) in this mix because the Ingredients label also listed sodium chloride, table salt. Chloride (an anion, negative ion) is often added to chemical systems to interact with positively charged molecular surfaces and enhance their desired activity. This is also true in lab work with DNA. Anyway, there's a method to the madness here..."
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