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I was thinking of experimenting by cutting out shampoo and only washing with water. Do any of you guys do this? If so I have a couple of questions! Is it healthier for hair? Will my hair become really greasy?
Cheers
Everyone's scalp is different and will produce various levels of oils. For instance, I can go at most 5 or 6 days before my hair gets too oily to manage. However, I usually wash mine every 3 or 4 days. It also depends on your routine. Since I workout quite a bit, then it would much more beneficial to get some shampoo on my head, or else my hair will be nothing more than a very stinky mess.
The best way to find out is to experiment and see how long you can go. You'll know when you've hit a brick wall. =)
-James
Hi Pablo, I used to shampoo but was suffering from an itchy scalp and dandruff, so I stopped. I have not used shampoo for over a year now, only water and conditioner maybe twice a week. It does not get greasy, does not tangle badly, does not smell and does not itch. It is however soft, and naturally 'oiled'.
i used to not be able to use only water on my hair, it would be too dry. but lately ive been using only water and my hair has been looking just as nice as with conditioner and shampoo. i only tried this recently because i was trying to cut down on using so much conditioner. whats funny is i used conditioner the other day to get my passport photo taken and my hair looked worse than usual, maybe just a bad hair day.
Water will not remove dirt out of the hair nearly as well as shampoo will. It is a good idea if you want to stay clean to use shampoo.
DaPs.
I've been WO (Water Only) for almost a year now. Scalp itchies and dandruff are greatly reduced, shed rate dropped when I went to Water Only, but slowly returned to the same level. My length feels good virtually all the time, if I go longer than my twice a week rinse routine, the hair near my scalp gets a bit piecey (but not oily). Hair feels softer all the time. I can't really comment on the tangles and damage, since that depends on years-old hair and other changes in hair care over the last year.
Depending on your scalp, hair and current routine, you could go totally O/O (otter in an oilslick) or you might just get a bit greasy for a bit. Most people transitioning from frequent S&C (shampoo and conditioner...say, once a day or two) will have an O/O period that comes on fairly quickly, and may last for more than a month.
Things that make it better: infrequent S&C or CO (Conditioner Only) prior, frequent preening (brushing/combing/finger combing with non-plastic tools to move the oils down the hair), more frequent WO (I found I needed to WO twice as often as S&C for best results), longer hair (more place for the oils to go to), some people find a vinegar rinse may help (it doesn't help me with the hair, but it keeps my scalp happier), some people find that warmer OR cooler water helps, using a fairly powerful spray of water that penetrates through the hair to the scalp (essential for me), softer water.
In regards the efficacy of WO to clean the hair...
Unless you are getting sticky/greasy things in your hair, most of what ends up in hair is dust and such which will rinse out or comb out...even light oils will rinse out (as I found when I used camellia oil to rinse out the petroleum based Goo-Gone I used to get pine resin out of my hair). Certainly, anything you sweat into your hair when exercising will rinse out (being water soluble to begin with (I've found that WO following exercise works better than WO on a cold scalp).
However, if you work in a very dusty/chemical laden/frying oil permeated/smoking enviroment (or if you have hard water), WO is probably not going to work for you for various reasons.
I will note that when I started WO, a very infrequent wash with very dilute shampoo helped with the worst of the oiliness (presumably a light CO would too), and with my length (thigh) I did need to oil it a bit on the ends because it was getting very dry.
Currently, if I WO twice a week, and preen more or less daily, I can have good to very good hair pretty much all the time...something I had no chance at with S&C.
When you say 'piecey scalp', do you mean skin flakes, or a very mild version of what I would call cradle cap?
What it looks like, more than anything else is the aftermath of a light application of gel...the strands aren't stuck together, but they tend to lie together and stay that way.
The wet look or otter in an oilslick, of course, is much further down that road.
I'll give it a go - gonna start by cutting down the amount of shampoo and slowly phasing it out. I'll let you know how it goes!