My most popular post, hands down, has been the post on how to wash your hair less frequently. I’m up to 31 comments and counting, for a post that I wrote back in November of 2006. In fact, when you Google “wash hair less,” I’m #3 in the search listings.

I’ve been monitoring the comments with much interest as this seems to be a topic that many women are passionate about, and that they seem to have very decided opinions on. In particular, one recent comment from a reader named Jessica caught my attention:

OK- I’m gonna get booed out of town, I’m sure- you don’t need shampoo at all.

I have had really oily, greasy hair since I was 12ish. My dad had it, his dad had it, and acne too. Disgusting. He of course taught me to melt that grease right out with very hot water and wash the hair every day with strong shampoos- and I did- and I had thin, weak hair that HAD to be washed every day. Three months ago, I was desperate to figure something else out since I know that your skin and scalp does much better without all of that harshness, but you know and I know walking around with little slicks of greasy clumping your hair up is not an option.

Get cheap conditioner- Suave, White Rain, etc (anything without a chemical ingredient ending in -cone.) Wet your hair with tepid water and slather on like 5 handfuls of the condition- all up in your roots, through the length, everywhere. Then go on with your shower- the conditioner needs to sit in the hair at least 15 min. There are mild surfectants in the conditioner that are going to clean the grease/dirt out WITHOUT STIMULATING YOUR SCALP TO MAKE MORE.

Finally, rinse for 5 minutes + with the coolest water you can stand. I haven’t used shampoo in 2 months and my hair is way thicker, glossier, and I can go three days between “washes” now.

If you’re scared, try it some night that you have nothing to do the next day! It works. You’ve trained your scalp to throw up all of this extra oil because you use detergent on it every day. It can be fixed.

So Jessica, I think I’ll take you up on your suggestion and see how I do. I wouldn’t be surprised if the oiliness that many of the readers comment upon are actually due to overwashing and overstripping of your natural hair oils. And that when you stop doing this to you hair, you might find it will calm down on its own.

Who wants to join me in this little experiment? Challenge starts tonight!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 9:32 am and is filed under Haircare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.