From my perch on the engine cover of a special operations gunboat, I can see the source of this weird racket--someone on one of the other boats gliding down Kentucky's Salt River is firing a minigun into the woods. Every second, hundreds of 7.62 mm bullets pour out of the spinning machine-gun barrels.
Cetyl and stearyl alcohol, both typically used in hair conditioners, work together and separately with other ingredients to make hair softer and silkier after a washing. Fatty alcohols make up part of the base of the conditioner formula.
Animal tallow once provided the cetyl alcohol in conditioner, but it is now derived from coconut or palm oil, or made synthetically. Stearyl alcohol functions as a thickener and stabilizes the amount of foaming in conditioner. Conditioners with stearyl alcohol are more viscous than those without.