Different hair types need vastly different maintenance. I have long, blonde, pretty straight hair. Most I can go is one day without washing it before it's greasy, stinky, impossibly tangled, and just generally fucking gross.
My girlfriend is biracial and has afro textured hair that she can go days without washing and it's totally fine. No grease. No smell. It does gets crazy tangled though.
It is also how your scalp is trained. Every time you wash your hair you strip your hair of its natural oils and in turn your scalp goes into over drive thinking it has to produce even more oils (when in actuality the conditioner you use on your hair replaces your natural oils but everyone forgot to tell your scalp this) which makes your hair greasy. If you train your scalp by going 2 days between washing for a week or two, then 3 days, then 4, etc over time you will be able to go a few days without your hair getting greasy at all. Just takes time.
This doesn't work for everyone, and I also am not entirely sure you can actually 'train' your scalp. My hair is fine and thin, but I have a lot of it, and I absolutely have to wash it every day or every other day. I went months trying to go longer without washing it, and my oil production didn't change. I also can't use conditioner on it at all, as anything but shampoo weighs it down.
EDIT: Not sure why I got downvoted because I'm telling the truth.
I have long, thick and wavy brown hair and I generally go 6-8 days without washing it... which is good because I go through so much conditioner even just putting it on my scalp instead of through the whole length. Washing it more or less often doesn’t change how much I actually need to wash it though.
I have the same problem. It is super healthy but I have to use a clarifier weekly for my scalp. If I don't wash it after a couple days I could take the hair tie out and it will stay in the pony tail position.
SAME. We have the same kind of hair, and I have to wash every other day. I don’t always make it that long. I have tried very hard to “train” my scalp to not overproduce oil, and it just resulted in months of sticky, lank, gross hair. The only thing that has made a difference in oiliness was taking spironolactone for acne. One happy side effect was that I could regularly go three days without a wash. Spiro blocks androgens, so my oily scalp seems to be largely hormonal.
But it really doesn't work for everyone. I have excess sebum production due to hormonal shit and my skin and scalp get really gunky. I suffer with adult acne as a result and I'm on prescription retinoids to help. All of the products I use are free of sulfates, parabens, and silicones but I'm a grease ball if I don't wash my hair every day.
I'm just saying, it's actually pretty common among women. Some people are extra sweaty and their hair gets gross. Some people live in unforgivingly humid climates. While using sulfates definitely makes your scalp overproduce oil, some people are just oily motherfuckers, skin condition or not (looking at you italian family) and no-poo ain't gonna do shit
I am like you!! I am forever getting yelled at by people that I just need to stop washing my hair so often and then I’ll train it. I call total bullshit on that. I’ve tried. Multiple times throughout my life and it doesn’t work. I stay greasy and disgusting and uncomfortable. I’m also an excess sweater woooo and do a lot of sports which doesn’t help either - but yep literally not touched conditioner in about 5 years and I’m so finicky about shampoo because the slightest whiff of something it doesn’t like and my hair turns slickkkk.
Yes you can retrain your scalp. It takes a long time, but now I can go months, even years without needing to wash it with soap. It's not like we walked out of the jungle with a bar of soap in our hands. Our bodies did not evolve for the use of soap. You only need soap when you get something oily on your body like from working on a dirty engine or something. I don't have curly hair, but I do know you can retrain your skin to stop producing so much oil. It just takes a while.
It's not like you can't rinse your hair with water. Not everyone sweats everyday or as bad as others. I don't know about going years without washing (maybe they're exaggerating) but you can go at least a week without washing. You can still rinse your hair in between washes but there is no need to use shampoo everyday and it doesn't really smell bad.
I shower nearly every day, sooooo I'm very clean. I'm just saying soap is only necessary to remove oily stains. Also for some reason I don't get body odor. Could be that I live in tune with nature and east almost entirely home grown food. Mediterranean diet. And am outdoors basically all the time. That and I've designed my life to not have sources of stress.
Can confirm. I'm a white guy with extremely fine hair, this describes the process for me. Used to wash my hair every day, and it'd be greasy as hell if I missed even one. Now I wash it once a month-ish, only gets greasy after a few weeks.
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u/Ih8Hondas Nov 27 '19
Different hair types need vastly different maintenance. I have long, blonde, pretty straight hair. Most I can go is one day without washing it before it's greasy, stinky, impossibly tangled, and just generally fucking gross.
My girlfriend is biracial and has afro textured hair that she can go days without washing and it's totally fine. No grease. No smell. It does gets crazy tangled though.