Perhaps if your hair is particularly dry, this won’t pose you problems, but if I go too long without cleaning my hair with anything other than water, it becomes visibly oily. Humans secrete waterproof substances through glands particularly concentrated in the scalp, so a buildup should not readily be cleaned through water alone.
That’s interesting—Curly Girl claimed that shampoo was unnecessary, but a brief experiment seemed to imply that not using shampoo left my hair feeling nasty. It’s possible I didn’t run the experiment long enough.
I think the gland output varies from person to person. I think some people have glands that will back off if you stop shampooing, but some people’s don’t.
This is consistent with what I’ve heard and personally experienced. I gave up shampoo about 1.5 years ago, but then some time later switched, at the recommendation of my mum who has very similar hair to mine, to a product that’s actually called No Poo. It does some sort of cleansing thing but doesn’t actually lather/foam like soap. I use it once every 1-2 weeks and my hair is absolutely wonderful. It’s nearly a foot long when straight, fwiw.
Perhaps if your hair is particularly dry, this won’t pose you problems, but if I go too long without cleaning my hair with anything other than water, it becomes visibly oily. Humans secrete waterproof substances through glands particularly concentrated in the scalp, so a buildup should not readily be cleaned through water alone.
This is temporary. My hairy was quite oily for about two weeks but now it’s about as oily as it was when I was shampooing every day.
That’s interesting—Curly Girl claimed that shampoo was unnecessary, but a brief experiment seemed to imply that not using shampoo left my hair feeling nasty. It’s possible I didn’t run the experiment long enough.
I think the gland output varies from person to person. I think some people have glands that will back off if you stop shampooing, but some people’s don’t.
This is consistent with what I’ve heard and personally experienced. I gave up shampoo about 1.5 years ago, but then some time later switched, at the recommendation of my mum who has very similar hair to mine, to a product that’s actually called No Poo. It does some sort of cleansing thing but doesn’t actually lather/foam like soap. I use it once every 1-2 weeks and my hair is absolutely wonderful. It’s nearly a foot long when straight, fwiw.