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At what point did you all here start using conditioner on your hair as it grew out? Shoulder length? Mid back?
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I'd say there's no harm in using conditioner at any length especially if you hair gets dried out from shampooing.Unless you are trying to save money I'd just get used to that being part of my routine.Cheers
Mark
Hi Mark,
Not quite long enough to have length, slowly but surely getting there :)
As soon as I learned about it, if you use shampoo you should conditioner whenever you use that, if you don't shampoo then you probably can do without. Conditioner keeps your hair from drying and tangling too much from being stripped of its natural oils by shampoo. You will most likely want to use proportionately more and more conditioner as your hair gets longer, it should be applied to the ends of your hair. Assuming your hair is roughly the same length all around I would say one should probably start conditioning once their hair starts getting in their eyes. Hopefully the other board members will be able to share their experiences as I am not 100% sure exactly when once should start using conditioner however it is in general an essential to having healthy long hair.
Good luck.
I recommend you try to minimize necessary shampooing/conditioning sessions of your hair, many people shampoo (and almost certainly in womens case condition) their hair daily. By reducing your shampooing/conditioning sessions in half by doing it once every 2 days you effectively reduce the strain put on your hair by shampooing by 50%. Ideally one should slowly try to see if their hair can go longer and longer without getting overly oily between shampooings, from my experience on this board it would seem that curly haired people need the least shampoo and the most conditioner (many of them condition on non shampoo days and shampoo irregularly) and straight haired people tend to get oily appearing/feeling hair much faster and so typically cannot go too long without shampooing/conditioning. Obviously different people produce different amounts of oil but there is a definite trend as far as straight/curly haired people go. As your hair grows longer you will likely find that you need to shampoo less as your hair has grown longer and the oil your body is naturally producing has to nourish more hair.
Good luck.
Hi Ryan,
Due to my job, I have to wash my hair everyday, even if I wear a hat. Don't have much choice there. Saturdays I don't wash. Hair will look fine all day until sunday comes around. Looks alittle ratty.
As far my conditioning routine goes. Weekends for example. If I wash my hair on sunday and use conditioner, hair will look greasy (insert nasty "m" day here) morning. Meaning then, I would need to wash twice that day.
Ah I see, yes if you have a job that gets you dirty every day then you probably would need to shampoo every workday no way around that. I can't find a picture of you in the archives, it would be helpful to know your hair length (ideally post a picture). If you find that your hair is not getting too dry and tangly without conditioner then it shouldn't be too much of a problem though I honestly doubt that once you achieve any significant length of hair you will be able to shampoo your hair every day without conditioning without problems. Also when you do condition what conditioner do you use and how much? If your hair is still fairly short you should probably only be using a very small amount on the ends of your hair (away from the scalp area) and almost immediately wash it out. Rubbing conditioner into the general scalp area will typically cause your hair to appear greasy.
In the end it is up to you to decide what works and what doesn't.
I hope this was helpful, good luck.
If I do use conditioner, I use enough to slather my whole hair, do my shower routine, then rinse until it feels clean. I use about a coin dollar size. Despite I've tried using just enough to coat my hair, still looks ratty the next day.
You won't find me in the users directory. Waiting until the hair gets past the growing out phase then I'll post something.
You said the problem on your monday morning was that your hair was too greasy if you conditioned on sunday. You shouldn't apply the conditioner to all of your hair, just your ends. If you apply conditioner to all of your hair then greasy feel is to be expected.
Hi Mike,
Everybody is bound to answer differently re. this question, because everybody's hair and scalp are all very different in their needs and product preferences. In any case, here what happened in my own longhair experience...
Somewhere in approximately the middle of going through my own awkward stages during the first time I grew my hair out (in the early - mid '90s), I remember having my first really nasty time trying to get out some serious tangles. As I recall, I think that was "almost" shoulder-length for me. It's a gradual thing, though.
The 2nd time I grew my hair out (after a devastating short haircut in Y2K), I started using conditioner much earlier on, because I already knew from experience the value of using a lot of conditioner in helping to get out tangles (as well as helps to avoid them in the first place).
Basically, the longer your hair, the more conditioner you're going to use. I never feel the need to put any conditioner on my scalp, by the way -- i ONLY put conditioner on the lower half of my mane (although by combing it through the rest of my hair, of course it's going to distribute through the portion of hair closer to the scalp a bit, too).
There are always exceptions to what I just said above. If you go the the Links page, for example, you can read Ed G's comments about how he cares for his long hair (and I do mean, "looooooooong!" -- as in it's probably around knee-length by now). Apparently he not only uses no conditioner whatsoever; but also washes his hair I think about EVERY DAY!!!! In Bill Choiser's writing, "On Being A Longhair", Bill mostly does water-wash only. Neither Ed's nor Bill's hair care routines would ever work for me, because I find my hair and scalp to be most happy and healthy if I shampoo approximately somewhere between once or twice per week (alternating between a THOROUGH shampooing one time, followed by usually a lighter shampooing the next)... and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS using some sort of conditioner afterwards.
But again, it's all about eventually finding what works best for YOU in the long run....
Happy hair-farming (including shampooing and conditioning)!
Long Lox 4ever,
Ken in San Francisco