Hi.
I'm currently at about 9 months of growing my hair, and when I'm washing it, the hair that tends to go off chokes my drain in the shower, and after a few washes leads to a flood in my bathroom.
Anything I could do to preserve the shedded hair on the surface, and then simply pick it up and throw it in the garbage? Wouldn't want to clean the pipes every now and then (I'm a bit lickerish).
Don't you have some sort of grate on the drain? I just fish out the shedded hair from the drain after every shower, that way it never becomes enough to pose a problem.
I have the same problem (my daughter has very long hair as well as me). These products live up to their advertising - I think they work by dissolving the hair (and other grunge) that blocks the pipes :
http://www.mrmuscleonline.co.uk/page3.html
I used to have a horrible time with this. However, I bought a small wire mesh thing that sits down in the drain and it does a great job of catching the hair, plus it just lifts right out so you can dump the hair. If your shower is also a bathtub, you may have to remove the plug/stopper, but it's completely worth it.
My drain also gets choked after each shower. I have a grate over the drain, so I can just pick it off and everything's fine.
From the other side of the problem, reducing shedding when washing, that is, doing a thorough detangling and combing/brushing before the wash helps, as does not piling the hair on your head and scrubbing it...you can wash gently and still get it clean (unless you are getting into industial quality messes). This won't stop the problem, but should reduce it.
Also, different washing methods may make substantial changes to the amount and timing of shedding. After I went Water Only, I do almost no shedding in the shower, only losing a small number of hairs when I detangle and comb out. Something in the products made my scalp cranky, and caused shedding that I had always assumed was normal.
Not hauling small mammals out of the shower drain is a very very good thing.
Hi, Freeze-
That becomes a common problem in the longhair community [grin]!
A lot of us find that a 'hair catcher', 'hair snare' (known by different names) is a good solution. They are usually available at your local hardware store, and are simply placed over the tub drain. After washing hair, simply pick the hair off the filter and throw it away (trash or toilet, your preference).
I'll try to include a pointer to the pic on acehardware.com.
After a shower (in a few months my hair will be at the five years stage) I simply wipe a RUB a paper towels ACROSS the drain
over and over again until I grab enough hair in the paper to pull the hair up and out of the drain. Just pull and tug and you should be able to pull out most of the hair. If not, start all over again. It works.