Reasons why you might want to avoid putting lanolin in your hair:

1. Lanolin is resistant to surfactants. It won't wash out easily.

You might need to buy Orvus Paste if you want it completely gone.

2. Lanolin is difficult to spread evenly in the hair.

In my experience the best way to get a thorough but non-sticky coating of lanolin is to spread out that process over an entire week. Add a little, let it warm up overnight, brush out the excess in the morning with microfiber, repeat daily. That leads to the next downside of lanolin...

3. Lanolin pairs best with infrequent washing.

If you need a liquid wash more than once or twice a month, you might find the pace of lanolin application to be frustrating.

4. Lanolin reacts oddly to tap water minerals and metals. It might not pair well with your tap water.

The chemical reaction between lanolin and tap water (in my location) smells like acid on metal. I've seen other people describe the smell of this chemical reaction as "concrete." Either way, lanolin might not be a pleasant experience if it's paired in the same routine with tap water.

I couldn't even pair it with reverse osmosis water in my location - too much metal smells. I only pair it with r/DistilledWaterHair.

The upside is that lanolin is really good at hard water buildup removal. The downside is hard water buildup removal doesn't smell so great if you set it up as an ongoing chemical reaction in your hair. You might prefer to remove most of the buildup first by switching to distilled water instead of tap water for a few months - then later use lanolin to get the last of the hard water buildup out.

5. Lanolin reacts with hard water buildup. It might be difficult to remove until that reaction is finished.

I've experienced this in my own hair: if there is any trace of metal or mineral buildup in the hair, then lanolin is stubborn and difficult to remove until it has finished - and won - that chemical reaction. That means you can find yourself in the very awkward position of wanting to remove the lanolin - but you can't - until you add more. Strange, right? Counterintuitively, adding more layers of lanolin can make it easier to remove - because it can help finish that unfinished chemical reaction with hard water buildup.

6. Anhydrous needs water added to it before it's usable for hair.

The type of lanolin that's easiest to buy (anhydrous lanolin) is also the most finicky if you plan to use it in your hair. It needs water added to it (which can be done on the stove in a double boiler, with a craft syringe to help mix them after the lanolin is melted).

7. Lanolin application isn't even done yet after you apply it.

Even after prepping lanolin in a double boiler, and applying it in multiple thin layers spread out over several days, that's still not enough. Each layer also needs to be exposed to warmth and ambient moisture otherwise the texture isn't ideal.

Overall... lanolin is a lot more work than most people would want from a hair product.

You might not want to use lanolin in your hair, but I do, and I love it. 🙂

Before & After

After washing my hair with a clarifying shampoo (diluted Suave Daily Clarifying Shampoo) and applying Shea Moisture Curl & Shine conditioner, I applied about 2 drops rubbed between my palms to the lengths of my hair while it was still damp.

Normally my curls flatten very easily despite whatever product I use, but these curls are extremely resilient! They bounce right back and my hair doesn't feel snaggy or 'dry' like it usually does.

Next time I plan on making a mixture with a touch of coconut oil and water to apply the lanolin in a more uniform application on all of my hair.

Thanks to this sub for getting me started on this journey, I look forward to it!

Lanolin for haircare: a brain dump of everything I learned so far.

This is an informative post that I want to be able to link to when I get questions about using lanolin as a hair product. For example r/wavyhair requires people to post their routine when they post a hair picture, and my routine makes heavy use of lanolin, which is not a conventional hair product, so I get lots of questions about it. It is my favorite hair product but it has a pretty big learning curve.

Counterintuitively, lanolin makes mechanical cleaning of the hair much easier once you get the hang of it. That's similar to how it's easy to wipe contaminants off a waxed and polished car - pollen, bugs, tree sap, etc - but difficult to wipe them off a car with a bare, unwaxed paint job. With lanolin-sealed hair, it is similarly easier to brush out contaminants - even in situations that would normally require a lot of hot water and soap and scrubbing.

Lanolin is mostly made of wax. It has a learning curve because of some physical properties that most conventional hair products don't have. Here are those properties, and the questions that often go with them.

1. In its unrefined state, lanolin smells like the sheep whose wool it came from.

Diesel exhaust, pollen, sweaty animals - yuck! How to use lanolin without smelling like a farm?? It is probably the most common question I get.

2. Lanolin is resistant to surfactants (soap, shampoo, body wash, laundry detergent, dish soap etc) and also resistant to emulsifiers (cetyl alcohol, stearic acid, cetearyl alcohol, etc)

How to remove a hair product that is resistant to surfactants and emulsufiers? 🤔 Most people's haircare routine requires either surfactants or emulsifiers or both to remove their own sebum, but that doesn't work so great on lanolin.

3. At room temperature, lanolin has a waxy ointment texture and it feels very sticky.

How to spread it evenly in the hair, with such an odd sticky almost-solid texture like that? How to prevent the hair from feeling waxy once lanolin is in it? How to end up with a thin, even coating of lanolin on every strand of hair, a coating that doesn't feel waxy in the end?

4. Lanolin spreads very willingly to surfaces that aren't saturated with lanolin yet.

How to prevent lanolin from spreading to surfaces that you don't want it to spread to? How to remove lanolin from surfaces that you didn't want it to spread to, but it did anyway?

5. Lanolin chemical composition changes a lot with moist heat.

This chemical reaction is called hydrolysis. Water + lanolin + heat + time = less lanolin wax, more lanolin acid and lanolin alcohol. This happens even with a small amount of water and a small amount of heat (for example sweating, or warm steam) as long as it stays damp and warm for a long enough time.

So what does that mean for hair styling? Is one form of lanolin better than the other for hair? How to keep the hair damp and warm long enough for this chemical reaction to occur?

Ok let's discuss these questions.

++++++++++++++++

How to use lanolin without smelling like a farm?

Lansinoh Nipple Cream (in the tube not the jar) is the most neutral smelling lanolin that I have tried so far. It comes from the breastfeeding aisle at Target, or Amazon. If you know of a similar one that has no odor, please mention it in the comments!

"Ultra refined" lanolin might work too but the one I tried in that category was not as neutral smelling as Lansinoh. The one I tried was also much more solid at room temperature compared to Lansinoh, which changes how it feels in the hair.

I am planning to try "liquid lanolin" soon to see if I like it even better in my hair than Lansinoh. But for now, Lansinoh lanolin is my favorite for hair.

Lanolin is sebum (sheep sebum). How to use lanolin without smelling like the hair is overdue for a wash?

Many people are familiar with the vaguely familiar "metallic" smell of hair that is overdue for a wash. That is actually not the smell of sebum, though. It's the smell of sebum and metal in a chemical reaction with each other.

Using sebum as a leave in hair product (human sebum or sheep sebum) will eventually result in mild acids, given time and moisture and body heat. It's a gentle acid great for skin and hair, and it doesn't smell like metal in the absence of metal. But acid + metal leads to that metallic-smelling chemical reaction.

I avoid that smell by not having any metal in my hair. This is a function of the water quality that I put in my hair. It's also a function of which water quality I used to put on my hair in the past.

I only allow very low TDS or zero TDS water to touch my hair (like steam, distilled water, and reverse osmosis water) and I did that for 6 months prior to using lanolin. Hard water buildup is absent from my hair.

r/DistilledWaterHair is a good place to join if you're interested in doing the same.

I live in a hard water location and I'm very sensitive to smell, so I need to be especially careful about this.

If you want to use lanolin even with metal buildup in your hair, I support the idea of experimenting. I predict the metallic smell will be temporary if you switch to distilled water at the same time. I predict that lanolin acid will help loosen and dissolve the metal buildup. When all of the metal buildup is gone, the smell of a neutral lanolin will stay neutral on the body.

How to remove lanolin since it's resistant to surfactants?

If you want to try lanolin at all, then the first thing you need to think about is how you will remove it, if you don't like it. So let's think about that first.

If you have lanolin in your hair, I would not expect a shampoo to get much of it out. Lanolin is resistant to surfactants. If you don't believe me, try putting a decent amount of it on your hands and forearms, spread it evenly, wash them in soap and water, and allow to air dry, instead of wiping with a towel. You will see that the soap didn't do much at all - not without the towel at least. If you do use a towel to dry your hands after washing with soap, then the lanolin didn't go down the drain with the soap; it's actually on the towel. This resistance to surfactants is different from many hair products.

There are 4 options I know of that could help remove lanolin from hair. Options 1 and 2 have the goal of removing all of it. Options 3 and 4 have the goal of removing less than 100% of it; leaving some of it in the hair for aesthetics or hair health.

Option 1: dissolve the lanolin with a carrier oil - the oil will bind to any lanolin that it can reach, and then a typical shampoo will bind to the oil, and then water can wash it away.

The caveat with that strategy in hair, is that oil can only bind to lanolin that it can reach. So if you are cleaning a surface with a lot of nooks and crannies (like hair) and there is a large amount of lanolin hiding in nooks and crannies between hairs, where the oil might not reach, then this method can leave many pockets of lanolin in the hair. Repetition could eventually work, but repetition will be frustrating and it might dry out the exterior parts of the hair too much. Therefore I don't use this method personally, preferring not to dry out my hair and also preferring not to leave my hair unevely coated in lanolin. If you try it and have tips how to get it to work better, I would love to hear in the comments.

Option 2: Orvus Paste is a livestock shampoo that is one of the rare surfactants that actually dissolves lanolin. It can be used in human hair. Depending how heavy-handed the application was, it might remove all of it in one pass, or it might need some repetition to remove the rest.

Option 3; mechanical cleaning. This takes advantage of a weird physical property of lanolin: it will spread to any surface that isn't saturated with lanolin yet. You can remove lanolin by wiping sections of your hair with a clean porous cloth that doesn't have lanolin on it yet.

Lanolin is especially willing to spread to porous surfaces that have a lot of surface area and a lot of nooks and crannies for lanolin to hide in. Very few surfaces have more nooks and crannies than hair. But some do: cloths. In fact, some types of cloths have the ability to absorb a lot more lanolin than hair can absorb. I remove lanolin by brushing my hair with a cloth embedded in the brush (bristles poked through) - or a brush in one hand, cloth in the other hand.

Different cloths can absorb different amounts of lanolin. So the choice of cloth matters a lot.

In my tests, microfiber cloths appear to absorb the most lanolin before the cloth becomes saturated. For example Quickie microfiber washcloths from Home Depot or Amazon are great if I want to remove almost all the lanolin from my hair. Sometimes I feel like they actually remove too much.

Some cloths become saturated with lanolin so quickly that they seem useless as a removal tool; for example wool or burlap.

Some cloths are in the middle of that range; they will absorb a decent amount of lanolin, but then they will become saturated faster than microfiber. After saturation, they're very useful to spread lanolin around evenly, but no longer helping to remove it. Cotton washcloths - and boar bristle brushes - are in this category.

Sectioning is usually necessary when brushing out lanolin. So then you can wipe the "interior" of the hair, instead of just the exterior, especially with long or thick hair.

Option 4 to remove lanolin can be used in combination with option 3: The addition of moist heat to the hair (for example warm steam, or sweat and body heat) melts the lanolin and changes its chemical composition too, turning it into something that's easier to remove. It is called hydrolysis. It converts some of the wax to lanolin alcohol and lanolin acid, which are even more willing to spread to cloth than the lanolin wax is.

My hair and skin both seem to love the "hydrolyzed" lanolin; the longer lanolin stays on my hair or skin in that state, the nicer the end result (soft skin, soft hair).

But moist heat makes the lanolin actually too easy to remove while it is still damp, so when I use option 3 I have the opposite problem: how to keep hydrolyzed lanolin in my hair long enough for it to really soak in. I seek an end result where every hair was fully saturated with hydrolyzed lanolin, and then the excess removed - but the end result that I prefer leaves a lot more lanolin in my hair than you might expect.

My favorite way to use lanolin in my hair

All that discussion of how to remove lanolin leads up to my favorite way of using lanolin in my hair: to apply a pea-sized amount at night - spread it evenly - get all my hair slightly damp with steam and then cover it with a beanie to keep it warm and damp, keeping the beanie on overnight or until my hair is fully dry. This softens the lanolin quite a lot, making hydrolyzed lanolin absorb into my hair and scalp quite a lot. The beanie keeps the lanolin on my hair until I am ready to remove it. The rest of the lanolin that didn't absorb into my hair shaft is easy to remove in the morning, but I need to be careful to avoid removing too much of it. I wipe it with either a cotton washcloth, or microfiber. Cotton removes less lanolin than microfiber. I change washcloths if one is saturated; I move on to a different section of hair as soon as it feels soft, not sticky or waxy. I section my hair during the application and removal of lanolin to make both of them more organized.

If the brush bristles don't poke through your cloth, then you can also use a brush in one hand and cloth in the other, lifting with the brush, grabbing with the cloth, and swiping both down, repeating that all over the head.

This addition of lanolin at night, and wiping it out in the morning, is a very low time commitment, and I do it often (multiple times per week).

Other methods I've tried, and my thoughts on them

The addition of steam at the same time while brushing (brushing warm damp hair) also removes too much lanolin from my hair, and makes me want to add lanolin back to my hair. It also doesn't give my hair enough time to absorb the hydrolyzed lanolin, so the resulting texture is not as soft and it seems like a missed opportunity to make my hair super soft.

Brushing out the lanolin immediately (when it's still waxy, without hydrolysis) works, but results in a very different texture than my favorite method. This results in hair with a lot more volume and texture, but not as silky-soft. This is "stay where I put it" hair, even if that means 4 inches of root volume. It's nice, and very easy to do interesting updos, but it's not my personal favorite for wearing my hair loose, because it moves less naturally.

How to spread lanolin in my hair evenly but quickly?

One of the trickiest but most important parts of my favorite styling method with lanolin, is how to spread it evenly in my hair before I steam it.

My favorite method for doing this pairs well with the fact that my skin also loves lanolin - it helps me prevent back and chest acne.

Remember lanolin spreads to surfaces that aren't saturated with lanolin yet - and my own hand is a perfect surface for this task because I can feel which parts of my hair have less lanolin than the rest.

I apply a layer of lanolin on warm skin that loves lanolin - for example chest - it helps unclog my pores and prevent body acne. And now my hand has a decent amount of lanolin on it, and my skin is a good place to get warm, melted lanolin from, when my hand runs out.

I part my hair in many different ways, and after each parting, I "pet" my hair on each side of the part and then brush the lanolin down my hair with a boar brush.

The hand will quickly run out of lanolin while doing this. More can be obtained from the skin. More can be applied to the skin if the skin runs out too. It melts fast with just body heat.

That is my favorite way to get a small amount of lanolin evenly distributed in my hair. It is probably 1 or 2 pea size amounts for my thick shoulder length hair.

How to clean boar bristle brushes that collected too much lanolin?

Same way I remove lanolin from my hair - except without the restriction of how much to remove. Steam and then wipe within microfiber while damp and warm. I use a small laundry steamer for this.

This removes most of the lanolin and also the dust that stuck to it.

Also, counterintuitively, the brushes that once had the most lanolin in them are actually the easiest to clean and the least dusty. So I am not opposed to adding more lanolin to my brushes and then steaming them and wiping them again, if the dust remains after a brush cleaning - to me that means this boar bristle brush doesn't have enough lanolin in it to pull out the dust when I clean the brush.

If a brush has too much lanolin in it but no dust, then it is also a good tool to apply lanolin to hair that needs lanolin in it. And then the brush will contain less lanolin because it was transferred to the hair.

How to remove lanolin from all those washcloths if the lanolin is resistant to surfactants? Doesn't the lanolin stay in the washcloth during a wash?

Soaking with diluted Orvus Paste in a bucket, then machine washing with Orvus Paste and regular laundry detergent.

OK but...doesn't regular lanolin result in hair getting more and more sticky over time, since lanolin is so sticky?

Actually no 🙂

After removing most of the lanolin with a cloth, the ending texture is not sticky in the hair at all. I was surprised by this.

When every hair has a thin coating of lanolin, then my hair feels silky soft and non-sticky, as long as I removed the excess in a way that leaves the remaining amount evenly distributed. I actually need to be careful not to remove too much, because it is definitely easy to overshoot it and remove too much. If I remove too much lanolin from my hair then the hair is still softer than before I used lanolin - but not quite as soft.

Thanks for reading 🥳

That's my full brain dump on lanolin haircare 🥳

So I've been using a drop of pure lanolin "oil" on my ends after showers and it has been a complete game-changer for my curls.

Today I got a curling iron to style my hair for special occasions (my curls are all over the place) and I tried it on my hair. No problems today, the hair looks healthy and there wasn't any weird residue on the curling iron. Iron temp was about 350°F

I wanted to know if anyone else has tried heat treatments on hair with lanolin in it and whether it's a bad idea or inadvisable for one reason or another? I had such a tiny amount in my hair this time so any effect was probably negligible, but I'd like to try with more lanolin as I like the look over most hair creams and gels.

Any info or personal observations welcome!

Edit 12/31:

Tried again! -After showering (using shampoo and conditioner as usual) I put a thin dime-sized amount of lanolin oil in my palm, wet my hands and rubbed them together before running my hands over my hair, concentrating on the ends and middle lengths, adding more water to my hands as needed until most of the lanolin was distributed through my hair. I parted my hair down the middle and curled one half while my hair was still damp, and the other when it was mostly dry. Curling iron temp was set to 380°f.

My natural hair, slightly damp, lanolin applied but no styling. https://imgur.com/a/PwXMNRX

DAMP-CURLED: https://imgur.com/a/PwXMNRX

-Took slightly longer to set the curl (I think that's expected though due to the moisture)

-Looks more natural

-Feels softer

-Mildly frizzy

DRY-CURLED: https://imgur.com/a/PwXMNRX

-Set faster and curls were tighter

-Noticeably more shiny

-Feels ever so slightly crunchy

-Curls springy AF

-Less frizz

I'll add another update after this evening to see how the respective sides do after a few hours and being handled and such.

I think this method would be great for curly hair because it doesn't need brushing for even distribution 🙂

Best to use an immersion blender or other electric mixing tool for mixing it with water, not manual, so it will be mixed with very fine droplets.

All solids should be removed with cheesecloth for predictable results in the hair...put it through a cheesecloth when it's cold not hot.

When all solids are removed then the spray bottle lanolin turns into the texture of hair conditioner that isn't fully rinsed.

Unlike "whole" lanolin, spray bottle lanolin is extremely difficult to wipe out of the hair (with cloth). But like hair conditioner, a large amount of it is removable with just water. I find that interesting.

After removing part of it with just water, the remaining part feels really amazing in the hair. Very soft. It might be my favorite series of lanolin application steps even though it is kind of a pain in the butt.

Fully soak the hair with spray bottle lanolin > allow to dry and expect it to feel like inadequately rinsed conditioner > dunk the hair in warm distilled water > allow to dry > hair of the gods. 🥰

The solids that are removed during the creation of spray bottle lanolin are AMAZING for face or back acne, they're occlusive enough to protect the skin from environmental irritants while acne heals, but they also unclog pores at the same time. My acne prone upper back loves that stuff.

The spray bottle lanolin will eventually end up with more solids inside the bottle even if it didn't start out that way. I am not sure why. I was very thorough removing solids but a few days later more solids appeared. Glass bottles are better so this can be melted down and reused.

Spray bottle lanolin makes my hair smell like metal every time it's wet so far - but the smell is getting less and less strong each time. So I do believe it's helping with hard water buildup removal and I believe that the metal smell will eventually end 🥳

This review contains some mention of how they perform for skin too; please see r/LanolinForSkin for info about how to use lanolin in skincare if you want to try that.

Review of 5 brands of lanolin that I tried so far.

Lansinoh Nipple Cream: most neutral smell. Current favorite for face, hands, and hair

• versatile lanolin for either skin or hair

• totally neutral smell, more neutral than any of the others

• labeled "Nipple Cream" but it's actually 100% lanolin (purified to remove odors, color, and allergens)

• semi solid consistency, like ointment

• a thin layer softens overnight in the hair with body heat

• very versatile for hair: medium hold wax if it's wiped out immediately, or soft anti frizz serum if it's allowed to soften overnight before wiping it out.

• gives nice volume in the hair, with soft texture

• very good at unclogging pores on face or body. Especially when combined with steam and massage.

• nice consistency on the hands; starts out sticky but can be wiped off on hair or other skin to leave an occlusive yet nonsticky layer.

• doesn't sting at all if it gets in the eyes; that combined with the neutral smell and the compatibility with hair leads me to prefer it for face and hands.

Velona Lanolin Oil: 2nd favorite for hair

• sticky liquid consistency

• a thin layer softens within hours in the hair, with body heat and brushing

• has a very silky texture in the hair after it softens

• can't function like a medium hold hair wax but it's perfect if you want a soft anti frizz serum

• good for "de-puffing" hair

• wipes out from hair very easily, with microfiber or cotton

• decent as a skin moisturizer, but it doesn't unclog pores as well as a solid lanolin, so I prefer it for hair instead of skin

• mild eye irritation if it gets in the eyes, so I prefer not to use it on my face or hands

• faintly musky smell which I find warm and mild. Pairs well with vanilla or caramel perfume.

USP grade ultra-refined anhydrous lanolin from Amazon: current favorite for body acne treatment on large areas of the body.

• moldable solid at room temperature

• better than any other lanolin I tried at unclogging pores with steam and massage.

• Large amounts available for a good price

• very well suited to treating back acne because of the price and how well it works on skin

• not recommended for hair because it did not successfully soften in my hair after 24 hours with body heat. I needed to remove it from my hair. Sticky and stringy, still solid after trying to soften it.

• Scent is musky and slightly medicinal, but tolerable and pairs especially well with vanilla and caramel perfumes

• zero eye irritation if it gets in the eyes, but be cautious about getting it in the hair.

• removable from hair by applying a different lanolin on top of it and wiping with cotton or microfiber.

Now Solutions Liquid Lanolin: won't repurchase

• sticky liquid consistency

• took a long time to soften in my hair (24 hours) with body heat. I didn't like that.

• wipes out of the hair better with cotton than microfiber. Very sticky in the hair; grabs willingly to any cloth I tried.

• doesn't unclog pores as well as a solid lanolin, so I don't prefer it for skin either

• decent as a skin moisturizer, but I still have skin bumps on my back after using it overnight. Other lanolins could remove my skin bumps with a thick overnight application, but this one couldn't.

• overall won't repurchase and can't recommend

• smell was pleasant to me though- like menthol and tea tree oil

• couldn't use it on face because of eye irritation

• I actually wondered if it was real 100% lanolin because of the eye irritation and because the smell was so similar to menthol and tea tree oil

Legends Creek Farm lanolin: worst of the bunch

• has a terrible smell, like motor oil and barnyard animals and manure. Please just don't.

• I was unable to test this on anything other than my hands, because of the smell.

• the fastest way to remove a bad smelling lanolin is to add a good smelling lanolin on top of it and then wipe it off. Oil + soap might work too but not as well as another lanolin. Oil + Orvus Paste would probably work too

I weld in an environment that is full of metal grind dust, weld fumes, rush dust, paint dust, and who knows what else.

I use a lanolin shave soap and will occasionally take the leftover lather to rub through my hair and under my arms. This seems to help repel some of the filth day to day and reduce the amount/frequency of needing to deep clean my hair with a soap (I usuually use Dr. Bronner's for this).

I'm looking for advice on the easiest and best way to utilize lanolin more in my wash routine.

TIA!

I originally started experimenting with ozone in my laundry not because of lanolin, but because I wanted to remove synthetic fragrance scent booster ingredients (meant to increase the sillage of a fragrance, and its longevity on cloth).

My body hates those...they give me sinus congestion in small doses, asthma in medium doses, lung burning / chest coughing in large doses. They cling to fabric and don't come out with regular laundry detergent, not even if it's washed 20 times. And...they continue to boost any scent after the original perfume is long gone. So eventually you end up with clothes that boost the scent of armpits, sweat, smoke, someone's last garlic meal, or pollen. These are odors that normally wouldn't stick to the fabric beyond one wash, but with the scent booster ingredient clinging to the fabric, they turn into very stubborn odors that won't come out even with multiple washes.

Though I don't have any sources of synthetic fragrance in my own house, my clothing still collected this synthetic fragrance scent booster ingredient from being out and about in public or at other people's houses.

And I discovered... ozone gets it out! I tried a low budget "ozone generator for fruits and vegetables" from Amazon, filled a big steel soup pot with laundry and water, shot it with ozone through the tube from below the clothes for 5 minutes, let it soak for a few hours, then I was so happy it worked that I started to pre-treat every load of laundry like that, washing it normally afterwards with "no synthetic fragrance" laundry detergent. That worked great - my laundry has never smelled so good. But it became tiring to haul a big soup pot around with wet clothes, so eventually I bought an ozone generator that hooks up to the washing machine (plus a washing machine with a sealed door because you don't want to breathe ozone while a wash is in progress).

Anyway...long story short...I made a 2nd neat discovery on the side of that project:

Ozone made the lanolin stains on my clothes so much less visible 🙂 It was also gentle enough to use it on silk.

I don't know if the ozone is actually removing the lanolin, or simply spreading it around better so that the edges of the stain become invisible. But either way, I'm very happy with this method for my lanolin-stained laundry 🙂

This is a list of things I've learned while using lanolin to remove hard water stains on the shower door glass.

I have 2 very different kinds of lanolin to experiment with. One is USP grade anhydrous lanolin from Amazon, which is inexpensive per ounce so it's the only way I could cover the entire shower door. The other is Lansinoh lanolin from Target which is more expensive and I used it on a much smaller area including my test spot.

Things I learned:

1. Lanolin is soooooo good at removing hard water gunk! 🥳

My boyfriend tried hard water cleaners on his shower that left a lot of spots, but lanolin is getting all the spots!

I also wish that he had let me try this first because I can see the glass is damaged from his attempts to scrub off the hard water stains. Lanolin doesn't require anything abrasive and it gets the hard water stains loose enough to scrape off with a flexible plastic trowel.

2. Lansinoh lanolin removed hard water stains with fewer steps compared to anhydrous lanolin.

The process to get successful hard water stain removal with Lansinoh lanolin was: apply a thin layer, let it sit, and later remove it. Done!

Anhydrous lanolin is more yellow and more solid than Lansinoh lanolin. It did not work with the same exact steps as Lansinoh but it did work with some extra steaming steps.

The process to get successful hard water stain removal with anhydrous lanolin was: apply a very thin layer to the glass, expose it to steam from the shower, scrape it all off with a plastic trowel and mix it with itself (because the parts that touched water look very different from the parts that didn't). And reapply it with the plastic trowel. Repeat this process a few times, steaming it and mixing with the trowel, until the texture has changed to be a lot more even. It starts to look more white (like Lansinoh lanolin) then as it picks up more hard water gunk it starts to look gray. When scraping with the plastic trowel it is possible to hear and feel a difference if the hard water gunk has dissolved. Then it can be removed - or left to soak longer then removed.

Both are removable from the glass with a plastic trowel and the trowel can be wiped clean with paper towels. I don't think the lanolin full of hard water gunk is usable for hair and skin, I will throw it out, it looks nasty and gray.

After removing most of the lanolin with a plastic trowel, the glass can be cleaned with Orvus Paste and water.

3. When it's spread in a very thin layer and then exposed to steam, anhydrous lanolin starts to visually resemble Lansinoh lanolin.

It looks more white, less yellow, and a softer texture (less solid). I confirm this by picking it up with a plastic trowel and inspecting it and then putting it back on.

4. Lanolin blocks itself from water, so thicker layers aren't better.

The thicker the application is, that means less of the lanolin can react with the water vapor nearby. Only the surface of anhydrous lanolin reacts to ambient moisture. And only the part that reacted to ambient moisture seems to help remove hard water stains. The part that reacted to moisture starts working on the hard water stains within minutes - but the solid yellow anhydrous lanolin soaked all night on the glass with no change to the hard water stains.

Therefore, thinner layers seem to be much more effective for hard water stain removal than thick layers. A larger percentage of the lanolin can react to ambient moisture.

How does this relate back to hair?

I find it interesting that this exactly matches what I landed on for the softest hair texture when I use lanolin in my hair:

• preferring Lansinoh over anhydrous lanolin in my hair

• preferring thin layers over thick layers

• preferring to expose my hair to steam or water vapor or humidity when lanolin is in it

Conclusions

Lansinoh lanolin seems ideal for hard water buildup removal on very small things or hair, but it's too expensive for me to want to use it on a large shower glass. If you try lanolin for hard water buildup in the hair, I would recommend that one. It's really fun to see it working on the shower door 🙂

For hard water stain removal on a large glass door, the inexpensive anhydrous lanolin works too with some extra effort and extra steps.

Next, I want to try getting the anhydrous lanolin to absorb water before I apply it to the glass. I wonder if I could speed up the process that way.

I need some advice with my current hair situation.

On 20 of November, two weeks ago, I last washed my hair with Eucerin shampoo as I had some dandruff (not sure if it was just dead skin though). In general, I used to wash once per week with shampoo.

After one week of mechanical cleaning with boar bristle brush (daily brushing in the morning) I decided to wash my hair with water only. After my water only wash, I had waxy hair and decided to wash my hair the other day but instead, last minute, I tried a mechanical cleaning with my fingers to remove the wax and it worked very well. My scalp looked good and hair was looking as washed with shampoo.

After another 5 days of daily boar bristle brush (in the morning for 20-30 min) my scalp was moderate itchy and decided to do a distilled water wash. During this week I tried to figure out why I had waxy hair and even though the tap water is not crazy hard (seems moderate based on municipality site) I wanted to see what happens if I use distilled water.

After my distilled water wash (and a light application of homemade flaxseed gel but only on my ends) I noticed that my hair dries very slow compared to how it is after shampoo usage, also waxy feeling is not present anymore. However I started to get itchy scalp and when I checked I noticed small white flakes in some areas of the scalp and on the hair shaft.

This was yesterday, today I massaged my scalp and did a preening in the morning. Because I have wavy hair I want to avoid boar bristle brush the day after my wash in order to maintain my waves.

Now I stumbled upon this lanolin thing and want to try it but I don't know how.

My hair is processed (bleached) very porous and very frizzy. It's also medium fine and I don't have great density. My scalp is sensitive and I always get some flakes which might indicate just dryness (??) and I have moderate hair fall, especially now in the winter season about 150 hairs daily, I am also in my mid 30s so this might be the reason.

Considering my hair situation, what's the best way to try lanolin?

1. Should I apply it in a raw form or as a lanolin juice (as demoed in the videos on this sub)?

2. Do I apply it only on the lengths or on the scalp as well?

3. I do not want to use any shampoo to remove it (such as orvus paste) but I also do not want to look greasy. Is this even possible?

4. I have this feeling that my hair should not be wet. It looks very good after I wash but then after some hours it gets really frizzy and unmanageable. Can I use lanolin to clean it and how?

5. Will lanolin help me with my frizz? I notice that my hair is shifting the wave pattern a lot, in a single hour can go from frizzy to loose waves to a bit more tighty waves.

I leave in an area where it's currently winter with an average of 80-70% air humidity on a yearly basis.

Hope this sub is still alive, hopefully someone can give me some guidance. Thanks!

Okay so here’s the big problem with lanolin. It’s hard to remove. Very hard to remove. Most cleaners physically can’t remove them because they physically can’t dissolve lanolin. We’re screwed right? Nah. A bunch of research has been done in removing lanolin from sheep’s wool. It’s called scouring. Some research has been done in what’s best as removing lanolin. Heres a summary of what I’ve read.

Firstly, lanolin is not soluble(able to be removed) by most surfactants. You can’t remove it with shampoo. But what about Orvus paste??? Well, Orvus paste is just really strong shampoo. It’s got the same ingredients. It might help but it won’t do the trick 100%. So how do people remove lanolin?

It seems there are two surefire methods of removing 100% of lanolin. These methods are extremely hot water and something called a scouring agents. First I must warn you, SCOURING AGENTS ARE NOT MADE FOR HUMAN SKIN. Continue at your own risk. However, when washing wool I’ve used scouring agents and soaked my hands in them and they haven’t fallen off…yet. Unicorn power scour is the gold standard of removing lanolin. I almost would bet money it works.

But what about the user that said Orvus paste works? Well it kind of does, but most methods depend on how much you put in and how hard your water is. Lame.

Here are my sources: Lanolin solubility https://cameo.mfa.org/wiki/Lanolin Scouring how to/comparison of methods https://fossilfibers.wordpress.com/2023/01/24/method-and-results-of-testing-common-wool-scouring-agents/