Conditioner Woes: Ingredients to AVOID

After reading many forums, discussion boards, and you tube videos, I started to experiment with different conditioners as many worked well on my hair. Here is my current list:

Gro-Aut Jojoba Conditioner
Tresemme Naturals Conditioner
Vo5 Hair Milks
Coconut Milk Conditioner
Matrix Biolage Conditioner
Beauty for Ashes Growth Conditioner

The concern that I am having is that many of the conditioners I want experiment all have at least two ingredients that the forums say to avoid such as perfume, alcohol, and sulfate. Is there truly an all natural conditioner that will not strip my hair, harden it, or leave it extremely dry? Suggestions please

Before I begin, I don't know what the specific ingredients are.

Also, the lower on the ingredient list, the less there is of it.

Not all alcohols are drying. The drying ones tend to be Isopropyl and Ethanol. They evaporate quickly but that does not make them good. It depends on your preference. I think someone mentioned doing tonics with Isopropyl (not on here)http://thenaturalhaven.blogspot.com/2010/05/update-on-alcohols-in-hair-products.html...

Non-drying alcohols are: Stearyl, and Cetearyl among others. Take a look here to read up on alcohols: http://www.naturallycurly.com/curlreading/curl-products/all-about-alcohols

I love sulfates because I like clean hair. Other women seem to get their hair clean without it, so it's up to you, but it personally does not bother me. The company who made the shampoo made the conditioner to go with it to replenish what the shampoo stripped for a reason.

If you want to be a CG then yes you should avoid those products. Target (at least the one in my area) has an aisle full of sulfate free shampoos and conditioners such as Organix Coconut among others so you can go through there and check out ones that don't have other ingredients you want to avoid.

But if you don't care about being a strict CG then don't worry about the ingredients (unless it's like completely crappy), if it does justice for your hair then use it, and then when you get the time/money you can purchase/make the all-hailed product.

I don't know anything about being a Curly Girl so I can't help you specifically, but I just thought I'd help you to understand that not all ingredients are bad.

Lastly, this lovely curly has a blog post on Tresemme Naturals and explains some of the ingredients in detail: http://mikimu.blogspot.com/2010/05/tresemme-naturals-conditioner.html

And to end, here's an article on SLS - Sodium Lauryl Sulfate - I'll even be nice and give the opposite side of this debate.
http://thenaturalhaven.blogspot.com/2010/06/myth-sls-causes-cancer.html
http://thenaturalhaven.blogspot.com/2010/06/myth-or-fact-sulfate-shampoo-causes.html
http://www.natural-health-information-centre.com/sodium-lauryl-sulfate.html

Annnddd to finally wrap this Book up, organic products tend to be the way to go for products without all the "nasty" ingredients, (I am not sure on the specific ingredients on the following): some people like Yes To Cucumbers, Yes to Carrots, Aubrey Organics, Kiss My Face, the list continues. Just go to the natural isle of your grocery store, or go to Whole Foods (or similar market), they have a whole WALL full of natural products.

Hope that helps and GL.

I agree with Treece. I would like to add that you should also balance moisture and protein in your products: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/278612/the_fine_art_of_protein_and_moisture.html?singlepage=true&cat=69

Dryness could also be an indication of protein sensitivity or overload.