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I was just googling around for some info on water-only routines, and I found this interesting article. I've tried doing the water-only thing before, but the longest I ever went was about a week. According to this, your scalp needs 6 weeks, to make the transition to a good oil-production rate. Since I have curly hair (prone to frizzies), it would be awesome if this worked for me. I guess I'll just wear hats and bandanas for the first few weeks, because it's probably going to be a bit oilier than I would like. I'll be sure to report my results :-)
I may give this a shot, as well. That one-week mark does always seem to get to me and I end up washing my hair, but since it's summer and I don't have classes, why not! Guess that means I'll have to take some photos along the way. ;)
-James
I think I'll try this out in the summer...to bad it didn't say the benefit for people with straight hair.
Are you supposed to rinse with water every day or every other day or what?
I'm going to do it everyday. Hopefully, that will keep the initial oiliness to a minimum :-)
well I rinse mine every say 3 days.
I haven't used shampoo for 15 years and my hair is never greasy, does not smell, is soft to the touch, doesn't knot and tangle badly, and I never get dandruff or itchy scalp. I for one would never go back to shampoo.
I do however condition once a week.
Thanks for sharing, Dave. I hear about this WO and wonder if anyone actually lives it beyond their experimentation stage. I think I'll give it a go once I finish up my current supply of shampoo.
Shawn (Mr.Crow)
I want to be able to go more than a day without shampooing, and I've tried many, many times. But unfortunately it never works out for me. It probably has to do with that I'm 17 and I still produce a lot of oil due to adolescence.
Water only just makes my hair all staticky and the scalp all flat. Conditioner only (including on the scalp), however, has worked for me. By the end of a CO day though, my hair gets pretty oily.
I am 16 and of course am still developing so it is understandable that I get a fair of amount of oil. I can go about 2 days without a shower before it gets that "greasy" look but i try my best to have a shower a day or two before the weekend where i can allow oil to accumulate. I'd love to cut down my hair washing to two times a week (currently 3) or even water only but I am pretty skeptical about the whole idea and unless other members here could show me their heads as proof I do not see myself trying this anytime soon.
-animosity
More than a year of WO. Routine is twice a week rinses.
And if that image doesn't prove the point then nothing will - wonderful!!
yeah, his hair is so badass
Reference picture:
I have succeeded with this routine on my beard which tends to be very dry. Shampoo just exacerbates the dryness problem.
I have tried water only on my head hair, but the oil on my head is probably 600 weight. It is thicker than honey, and won't rinse off even in hot water 108 F (42 C). It quickly builds up, making my hair very greasy and heavy. The water only rinses remove no oil at all.
I think most people have natural hair oil that is somewhat thin, more like Jojoba oil which appears to me to be between 10 and 20 weight.
Absalom
I just don't think I'd ever be able to handle WO...
I really LIKE my hair to smell good and just don't see how plain water would remove odors. Hair seems to trap every stinky smell it encounters. lol
Ever walk into a greasy spoon, or even a convenience store where they're frying something and you can smell it on you till you can hop in the shower to wash it off? ACK.
It takes some sort of soap to wash off stuff like that...
I'm not on a strict WO regiment and just realized after reading the article, that the last time I used shampoo was about 8 days ago. I've been rinsing well with water each day and conditioned about twice in these last 8 days. I've noticed that whenever I finger comb my hair lately, it doesn't seem to tangle up as much. Also, I've noticed that my hair doesn't have any weird odors, either. Kind of neutral. I think I'll keep up with my procedure and see how it works out... :)
--Rick
Well, that's a quite interesting thing and vacations are coming... I've got the problems like mentioned in the article (ponytail only) but also I'm afraid of getting the truly sedimentally-archeological crust AGAIN, its a thing I don't like to remember.
- is it necessary to wash the hair every day, then? That's A LOT of water to dry and I don't think that using a hairdryer so often would be a good thing. But I have no idea how to dry the hair otherwise, maybe by a towel, or what?
- would it work to use still lesser and lesser doses of a shampoo? I wash my hair about 1.5X per week, I don't think I need more, but its quite frizzy for two days after shampooing.
A microfiber towel is awesome for sucking the water out of wet hair...go from dripping to merely damp in 15 minutes just by wrapping it sort of turban style. ("Rinse Ace Microfiber" is a good search phrase). Usually $12-$15.
I WO twice a week, but each scalp is different...some need to do it every day, some much less.
Worth a try...especially if you dilute the shampoo until it barely foams...this, or minimal COing does tend to lead to easier transitions. In general, people who shampoo infrequently or CO tend to have easier transitions.
I went from S&C once a week to weekly COing which didn't work for me...hair got horribly greasy (in retrospect I messed up the technique)...I gave up after a month, shampooed once with a very mild dilute shampoo, and saw the WO thread at LHC and went for that. And had nearly no adjustment. I wasn't hardline...a couple times (a month or so apart) my hair got nasty and I did a very mild shampoo (mostly water) on the greasy parts of my hair (wipe it on, massage it briefly, rinse very thoroughly)...the last of that was a year ago...now, if my hair is misbehaving, I adjust my WO frequency or technique.
Cool article. I ran out of conditioner about a week ago and havn't shampood since I couldn't condition, So I've been doing WO for a week already. Maybe Ill put off shampooing a little longer...
Check this
(Link to LHC forum WO thread)
Just FYI, there are about 2400 responses in this thread. !!!
Hey man,
Around friends (and maybe here, too!) I'm famous for my lovely, curly hair. Guess what? I don't use shampoo. I only use conditioner now and then.
Wow, that's awesome. Your hair looks very nice, so I'm definitely going to stick with this for the 6-week period and hope for good results :-)
Heh! That's such a coincidence. The same thing happens to me at college; I'm always "the curly-haired kid" or "curly" or something involving curls, but always in a positive light. But 90% of the positivism started after I stopped shampooing and went on a condition-only method. I've been on this for over a year now, and in the first few months, my dry, frizzy, formless hair turned into defined waves and curls that girls (and even guys, lol) like to poke and twirl.
As far as I know, though, the key for these water-only/condition-only methods to work is that the scalp is clean of any build-up, which is what shampoo's job is. To do that, I use apple cider vinegar or a clarifier off the shelf in place of the shampoo. Somebody disagreed with me the last time I mentioned silicones, but the general consensus is that some of the silicones from shampoos and conditioners can build up pretty nastily in your hair if you don't remove them, so you should clarify your scalp before going onto the WO method.
But again, every scalp is different, so whatever works best for each person. :)
Peace
My grandmother washed her hair daily using only rainwater collected in a water butt (a barrel fed from the rain gutter). She had long hair, but seldom wore it down. It's too late to ask her any questions about hair, though. She died in 1978 or 1979.