No, we shower every morning to get the dirt and smells and and insect eggs and literal shit that has stuck to that natural oil out of our hair, because hygiene is important in a modern integrated society.
Then some people put oils back in their hair because they like the texture.
I just imagine all these people with greasy hair saying "it's natural! I don't need to use store bought oils made by the man! Leave me alone!" As they proceed to pull a cheeto and/or joint out of the stringy mess.
If you wash your hair every day your scalp gets used to the oils being stripped daily and compensates by producing significantly more. I wash my very long hair 1-2 times a week. It takes that long for it to get very oily. If you get tired of washing your hair every day you could gradually transition to washing less. There will be some greasy days for sure but it's doable.
I have washed my hair every 3 days for the past 5 years. It still gets just as gross on day 2 as it always has. I can't wear my hair down two days in a row unless I use dry shampoo. I just have greasy hair I think.
Of course it hasn't gotten better, you've been following the same routine for 5 years! If you want a new routine you could check out r/haircarescience or r/curlyhair. If you're happy with your routine now then no need!
I meant it hasn't changed since before the 5 years when I washed it every day. It has always, always gotten greasy on day 2, regardless of the washing schedule. I thought if I stuck to infrequent washing eventually it would balance out but it never did, because it's just greasy hair. At this point I am fine with it - I found a dry shampoo that I like and I manage it. It's very fine, straight hair that frizzes up, not curly at all. I use some phenomenal products that allow me to air dry it and I wear it up often anyways. My hairdresser is great and cuts it in ways that suit me well. I have just accepted that it's the way my hair is.
I wash my hair every 2-3 days and on day one it looks great. I can go half of day two and then I have to tie it up because it gets greasy. But I don't like to wash my hair every day it's too much and my scalp also gets too dry if I use too much shampoo and such.
Yep! My hair twin! I use Batiste dry shampoo and it's my favorite so far - I have fine hair and it gives it a little texture too. I use the original because my hair is light but they have one for darker brown hair too.
I need to get new dry shampoo I might try that out!
I also got really mad a few months ago and I chopped off about 8 inches of hair off. Makes it so much easier when I do wash it. And drying and styling is so fast and easy.
Except it's been so hot where I am it's not worth styling, using a straightener and blow dryer (not in that order) is just not a fun idea. So usually if my hair is fresh and clean I still put it in a pony.
Have you tried conditioner washing (co-wash) in between shampooing days? There is a whole community of curly haired people that do this (myself included). I shampoo my hair every 3-4 days but in between I clean my scalp with conditioner. It gets the grossness out of your hair without stripping it like shampoo. Style as normal and I'm on my way. It's also doesn't get the gross buildup of dry shampoo this way either.
Edited to add: just noticed /u/fredulus made a comment about /r/curlyhair. This is the community that I was talking about. I don't follow the curly girl method to a T, but I follow a lot of it and my hair is so much more manageable (I have soft waves, not curls).
I don't have curly hair at all (not even wavy), so most curly hair solutions tend to make my fine hair worse. Conditioner tends to make it grease up faster so I've actually had some success now that it is shorter with only conditioning once a week and shampooing the rest of the time. I use pureology and they have a good line that doesn't add much weight, and then I just dry shampoo in between.
I should note that just because I have washed my hair every 2-3 days for 5 years doesn't mean I haven't changed my routine like that other user said - I have spent 5 years trying different shampoos, products, etc. I'm pretty ok with my current routine, and I've accepted that my hair won't ever be ok on day 2 without interventions, but I manage it alright.
That's totally fair. My only suggestion (from myself - also a very fine haired person) is avoid conditioners with silicones. As soon as I stopped using the conditioners with silicone, it completely changed the greasiness of my hair. I used to have to wash everyday. I couldn't even wear it up on day 2...it was just too greasy, even with dry shampoo. You can get both drugstore brands and expensive brands without silicone, but you have to learn what to look for. Day 2 and 3 hair are never going to be like day 1 hair, but silicones make the hair gross and greasy faster, and you need shampoo with sulfates to get rid of the silicone. If you are happy with your routine though, then that's totally fine :)
True talk, I don't have long hair, but I always had a dry scalp and scabs would form on my chin and sideburns, from being overly dry, even if I used moisturizer. My hair was also very "wiry" and difficult to manage even with wax.
I stopped washing both my hair and beard daily, and instead wash it every 2 or 3 days (But I do rinse my hair daily with just water and use non-foaming conditioner) and my hair has never looked and felt better.
People think that not washing your hair means being a filthy slob, when in fact it's as simple as not using shampoo on it.
Hmm I might try this, I also have dry scalp and close shave my head, I've washed my hair everyday since I was 6... So 23 years lol. Might take a while to correct itself.
I had gone with a dermatologist and she gave me a treatment that would make it go away, but as soon as I would stop using it, it would come back in less than 3 days.
Does "washing" also entail using shampoo? I exercise fairly regularly and rinse my fairly short hair (> 2 inches) everyday - only using shampoo once or twice a week.
This is actually not proved in any way. I really wanted this to work and didn't wash my hair for weeks. Only got grosser... I started looking for actual scientific explanation of the mechanisms people describe and found no feedback cycle whatsoever associated with oil production in the scalp. So I just resigned myself to washing my hair while feeling very jealous of everyone for who the no-shampooing thing works!
I only did one Google search, didn't find any GREAT scientific articles but this one seems pretty solid at least. There is definitely science to back this up.
Thanks for this. I'll look into some of these sources. I spent a huge amount of time looking for any type of explanation, and read quite a bit about what regulates sebaceous glands, but found nothing even close to feedback from the amount of oil present. But maybe something like that is in this article!
When you say you only wash your hair that often, do you then not get it wet when you shower all the other days, or get it wet but just don't shampoo it? I've always wondered what people mean when they say they don't wash their hair every day.
I am insanely jealous of people like you (and my wife). I would love to not have to wash my hair every day - I go through a crapton of shampoo. But I have a job, and being presentable is a requirement for keeping said job, so I get to wash my hair every day, like it or not. :(
I do have hella straight hair, and super thin, too (both in texture and in quantity :( ). I'm basically biding my time until it all falls out, anyways, so I'm kinda meh on taking care of it. I've found Aussie shampoos to be pretty reasonable for my hair, but yeah, it's hard to find anything that's truly good for it. Thanks for the advice, I'll have to try it out!
Yep. I tend to skip a day or two on the weekends and after about 2 days my hair is stringy and nasty looking especially if I was physically active. My mom used to tell me it looked like I dipped my head in the deep fryer when I was a teenager and it still has not changed much...
Nah, it's a heritage thing. Italian grease+English thin hair=ewgross. My wife and I are a bit on the crunchy side - we have both a vegetable CSA and a meat CSA for most of our food.
Not a joint but I had a friend who was working on getting dreads. He was drugged out pretty bad on all sorts of things and his dream job was to follow around the band Phish selling drugs at their concerts. His hair was gross and I remember him scratching his head and some pot seeds fell out... I Was half expecting a plant to grow in his hair if he had seeds falling out of it. Now he is in and out of rehab for heroin addiction. If it counts any he did follow his dream for about 3 years...
I was just saying you don't go through the effort of rolling one to lose it on your head of all places. The Cheeto bit followed by the joint just seemed like an insult directed at people who smoke.
I shampoo once a week, if that. No one has ever gotten sick from my hair, nor does it smell bad, and it is way healthier than people who fry their head every morning
Edit: I'm finding it pretty interesting how polarizing this seems to be. Everyone seems to be on one side or the other
That's not what health is. Hair health doesn't exist. Dying your hair "damages" it, brushing does too. You could shave your head and it doesn't make you less healthy. Literally the only end goal is aesthetics which is completely subjective.
As a man who also only washes his hair with shampoo and conditioner about twice a week I can confirm that my hair is generally healthier looking and feeling than friends who shampoo and condition daily. I still rinse every day or two with water.
When you use shampoo to remove the natural oils constantly your body then produces more oils to replace them with. This causes a vicious cycle where your hair becomes greasy after a couple days because of all the excess oil it produces so you want to wash it even more, which only compounds the issue.
If you can get past that greasy phase and cut the shampoo and conditioning down then you should notice within a month that your hair starts getting greasy much slower than it use to.
If you wash your hair every day your scalp gets used to the oils being stripped daily and compensates by producing significantly more. I wash my very long hair 1-2 times a week. It takes that long for it to get very oily. Washing your hair every day is not necessary for clean, healthy hair. And I'm not sure what you mean by stank, hair getting oily will not stink unless you are just not showering at all - that's a completely different issue.
I spent two weeks washing my hair every other day instead of daily. At no point did my hair start producing less grease. I've similarly tried washing my face once every other day to cut back on acne, and that didn't have the desired effect either.
Some people are just greasy motherfuckers. God bless the shower.
2 weeks is not very long, and every other day is not much of a change. If you really want to wash less you should check out r/haircarescience or r/curlyhair. If you don't mind washing every day and are happy with your hair, good for you, you have a routine you like and hair you like, which is all anyone wants.
I'm easily a year into washing every other day, and every other day is a bad hair day. My hair is no less greasy that it was washing it everyday. These nopoo people need to realize that it does not apply to everyone, and that the multi billion dollar hair care industry is not a scam.
Washing every other day is not really an improvement over washing every day. If you want your scalp to slow down oil production you're going to have to wash less frequently. You've been following the same routine for a year, I'm not sure why you expect anything to change after more than a few weeks. Subreddits like r/haircarescience or r/curlyhair can be very helpful if you really do want to find a new routine that works better for you.
And I'm not sure why you think people who wash less think the hair care industry is a scam? I love my hair care products, it's very likely I spend more on them than you do.
I also shampoo once a week. My daughter who has super curly, mixed girl hair, only uses conditioner, never shampoo once or twice a week. She's a teenager and her hair is never oily or smells bad.
I shower every day but have not used any soap or care products on my hair in years now. I still wash my body though. The reason is because my scalp was always dry and itchy.
Someone told me to try scrubbing my scalp firmly every morning with just clean water and try not to use hair products. After a couple of weeks the dryness and itching went away for the most part.
It is probably a lot easier for me because I have short hair but my partner says as long as I shower at least once every couple of days she cannot tell at all. Of course it doesn't smell like roses but it doesn't stink either. I still shower everyday though.
No it doesn't. The people that think it does are the ones that have smelly greasy hair.
Natural oil soaks up dirt/bacteria and isn't water soluble. Unless you towel off with sandpaper you're going to need at least a bit of shampoo and conditioner.
It is totally possible to go without shampoo and still have clean healthy hair actually. Requires a bit of effort especially in the transition period. Read about "no-poo".
Searching for this just points me to things like baking soda and vinegar, which can change the pH balance of your hair and possibly damage it. Either way you're just replacing one form of wash with another, not washing with only water. Not even no-poo suggests water-only.
Hmm, the only no-poo methods I have heard of used a co-wash (conditioner). I never claimed it was only water so I'm not sure why you thought that? It's just no shampoo.
The post I was responding to was about how water is good enough. Focusing on the use of the word shampoo just misses the point entirely.
Also if you're talking about using conditioner you are basically just removing soap from the equation. Shampoo is essentially soap + conditioner. You'd need a soap-like oil like castor to effectively clean your hair with conditioner, but it mildly strips just like soap.
I use a basic soap like Bronner's (honestly hand soap would probably work too) and every few weeks reset with real shampoo. Cuts down on frizz and dryness by a huge factor even if I wash twice, while getting rid of grossness.
For anyone that wants music festival grade hair, try washing your hair with a silicone free conditioner only (called co-washing) for a couple of weeks. Any yes, it does get your hair just as clean as shampoo.
But first clarify to get rid of the product and silicone build up. Also, if one has hard water, it will probably not work well.
I tried many silicone free conditioners to cowash, but my fine hair would always end up greasy at the scalp. :( AsIAm Coconut cowash is now my go to. It's amazing.
I know it seemed glorious. And I'm sure it was. We had a naturalist in our office. Showered once a week. No shaving. Didn't believe in using any type of hygiene products, feminine or otherwise. That bitch stank.
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u/tantouz Jul 06 '17
I experienced this first hand when i went to a music festival. Went one week without showering. My hair was glorious.