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Water-only/Castor-Olive washing

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bluefoxicy

My hair is really friggin' nasty lately because I've been water-only washing it (besides that I sometimes skip a day for showers in the winter--and in the summer wind up taking anywhere from 2-6 in the same day augh). I shower at night and in the morning it's super greasy!

But I started that Monday, it's been 4 days. I'll give it 2 weeks for improvement and maybe a month to see how it turns out.

The other attempt I want to make is Castor Oil and Olive Oil mix. Castor oil to strip the oils (loosen the aerated, hardened waxy Sebum and the nasty, bacteria-fermented stuff that smells horrible), olive oil to partially replace and also to expand the oil volume to resist the castor oil. The idea is that a volume of castor oil is only effective against so much volume of oil, thus you raise that volume with something benign or good for the hair/skin--say, olive oil--to not completely strip the scalp dry. The fresh oils act like a solvent for rancid and hardened oils as well, and effectively carry away all that crud (along with the dirt etc) as an emulsion, which fails to form an emulsion with water and thus is easily rinsed away. In other words, the nasty stuff gets gooped up in the olive oil, and the water washes the olive oil and nasty stuff away.

That is of course semi-personalized and difficult to get right: a different blend is needed for a different amount of sebum in the hair and scalp, and you need enough sebum to keep the excess oils from sticking to the hair (i.e. more castor oil rinses away more oil, so more olive oil leaves more oil behind by over-dampening the castor oil).

Does anyone have any experience with this and any general guidelines for a good starting point with C/O oil ratios? Also any harm in using Pinaud hair tonic with these methods (for fragrance as well as hold)?
 
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bluefoxicy

Why are you doing all this?

Why not just get a good shampoo bar and wash your hair? I don't get it.

Why are you using a degreaser in your hair?

Here's how normal hair washing works:

  1. Get a degreaser (shampoo, shampoo bar, SLS, castor oil, etc)
  2. Remove all the natural oils from your hair and scalp
  3. Add a bunch of unnatural oils ("conditioner") to your hair and scalp
  4. Complain your hair isn't "nice"
  5. Complain your hair is starting to fall out and you're only 30

I just want to rinse out the old, rancid oils and dirt and minimize the degreasing (SLS etc), the emulsification (dirt/oil/water emulsifiers), the metal oxide treatment (zinc and sulfur oxides as anti-dandruff compounds), the moisturizers to counteract the damage caused by harsh detergents, the preservatives (to keep moisturizers from going rancid or being eaten by bacteria), etc.

Switching to an oil soap like glycerine soaps or castille soaps isn't really much better, since they're still degreasers and tend to dry your scalp. Shampoo bars are, again, a mixture of things to remove natural oils and add unnatural oils to counteract the damage being done.

This is all over-engineered. Soap was a good idea, dial soap wasn't and we should go back to glycerin/tallow soaps (and a scrub brush or that puffy shower thing) to remove dirt (and scrub dead skin). 200 chemical degreasers for your hair were never a good idea.

Also, at this point, my hair is relatively not greasy (it's less greasy than if I skipped a single day washing my hair before) and softer, kind of like puppy fur. Zero hair care products. :)
 
I use KMF Olive Oil soap to wash my hair. Prior to that, I used regular shampoo for over 40 years with no ill effects.
 
You might want to sprinkle your hair with a little red wine vinegar in the morning. It will invigorate your hair and it's a product of nature rather than going with the Pinaud.
 
After you put the vinegar on, work 1/4 teaspoon of Dijon mustard through your hair and a little water. It's an excellent emulsifier and it will finish off the oil treatment.
 
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bluefoxicy

Just need to make the point that all soap is "oil soap".

Mostly shampoo is a "detergent" and SLS-based. SLS is rather non-toxic (ingest it and it'll make you sick; stop eating it and you get better), but it is a good degreaser and will strip oils from your skin and hair.

I suppose the point is that shampoo is not "soap" then?

eyebright said:
Aren't you contradicting yourself?

Nah. Back in the day caveman dirty. It rained and dirt came off, so eh. Then there was sand, and rivers, and bathing. Sand was good because it scrubbed stuff off. Soap was also good, made of tallow and then vegetable oils (glycerin soap), but it eliminated the exfoliating effect you got with sand. Soap was often used with a brush though, which was good.

Soap is excellent for hygiene and keeps your skin nice and clean. Bar soap (even Dial) is saponified oil, although modern soaps remove glycerin (a mistake, as soap is rather drying; quality cold processed soaps recommended for summer don't remove glycerin, while winter "hydrating" soaps actually add extra glycerin). Unfortunately, modern hygiene convention involves rubbing down with soap and washing it off, without the use of a scrub brush; some weird people use a shower puff, which exfoliates, and this is better than just coat and wash because it removes dead skin and more dirt than just rinsing off surface dirt.

I think the oils in hair are quite sufficient for cleaning hair if you scrub the scalp and wash the oils out with plain old water. A measure of natural oil needs to stay behind to keep skin healthy: you really don't want to completely dry your skin with nasty detergent soap (i.e. pure glycerin or SLS) and then add a "moisturizer" to put new oils into it. Why would you do this with your hair?

I think these are valid questions to ask, whatever the answers turn out to be. Exploration is never wrong.
 
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bluefoxicy

After you put the vinegar on, work 1/4 teaspoon of Dijon mustard through your hair and a little water. It's an excellent emulsifier and it will finish off the oil treatment.

I can't tell who's being serious and who's being ridiculous.

Because if you don't, it will get all greasy, smelly, dirty, and disgusting, that's why.

Yes, that's what happened for the first 4 days. After that, the grease and dirt tapered off quickly. It was also never smelly to begin with after the first washing; a LOT of grease, but that grease is rather odorless (it doesn't have the nasty mammal-juice smell of whatever is coming out of your sweat glands, until it goes rancid days later).

Currently my hair doesn't look or feel greasy; but rubbing it between my fingers and then rubbing the fingers together produces a texture change on my skin, sort of like if you handle candles and have a very thin dusting of wax plated onto the surface of your fingertips. Still too greasy I guess.

Very base responses (if you don't X, then Y happens) with no clear understanding of "why" tend to indicate that people don't actually understand a topic, have never had interest in exploring it, and have accepted what they're given. It's like "if you don't have a car, you don't have a job" in the US ... my parents were like that, they didn't think I could go one day without a car and when I said I'd ride the bus to work to take a week or two to mill over a buying decision they drove me to a car lot and would not let me leave without purchasing something (on the basis of some racist statements about loss of life). They also think if you don't have a house, you will retire poor and broke, etc. "This is how it is, because it is."

Which is, of course, great for selling you crap that either you don't need or that you really don't want because it's actively harmful, which happens a lot in this world. I don't mean stuff where "they've replaced it with chemicalz OMG!" ... that happens a lot too, some harmless, some good, some bad (*** high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, etc?); but I mean things that are critically important... no, really, they're best avoided, and harmful. Energy drinks are another good example: you NEED them for long-haul work hours right? Wrong; you will remain more alert and have more stamina to stay awake for long hours if you get enough sleep, and if you can't then something is severely wrong with your lifestyle. Energy drinks are also sugar free, but you know just ingesting glucose will give you some staying power? The glucose is critically important if you're trying to stay awake, especially with semi-toxic stimulants like caffeine; but the "sugar free" marketing is more powerful as a sales pitch, even though it's actively damaging to your body and actually makes it harder to stay awake.

(Complete wastes of time and money and space are easier to find, like all the kitchen/household tools you "need" that perform exactly one function you never noticed took more than a minute of your time anyway and has never been particularly hard. Must have the eurochopper to chop up onions in 3 seconds instead of 15!)

I've read the arguments on either side of this, it's safe to try, and it looks like it may be better in the end. I do this a lot: this is why I meditate, and also why I play Go as both a mental exercise and a basis of metaphor to understand some of the more deep, complex, and subtle elements of life. Such things are considered ridiculous wastes of time these days, yet both have drastically improved my quality of life by some magic.
 
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Please don't complain about people telling you what will happen if you clean your hair with oil and water right after you have finished telling people what might happen if they clean their hair with shampoo.
 
I think the oils in hair are quite sufficient for cleaning hair if you scrub the scalp and wash the oils out with plain old water. A measure of natural oil needs to stay behind to keep skin healthy: you really don't want to completely dry your skin with nasty detergent soap (i.e. pure glycerin or SLS) and then add a "moisturizer" to put new oils into it. Why would you do this with your hair?

Why? Because if you don't your hair will be "super greasy" with "aerated, hardened waxy Sebum and the nasty, bacteria-fermented stuff that smells horrible".:blink:

Look, I understand your whole approach here. But the simple fact is that most of us use normal shampoo every day in the shower, mostly without a conditioner, and it gives us clean, nice smelling hair and scalps without overdrying or making us go bald at 30. Anyway, it's only hair.
 
Take a bath and wash your hair or lose all your friends . What are four years old . Ever wonder why people live longer in this day and age , They take baths .:thumbup:
 
Ok, so. This is MY opinion, not the undiluted word of some deity. But I'll give it to you anyway.

First. Male pattern baldness isn't caused by hair products, its caused by scalp sensitivtiy to DHT and DHT levels (DHT is a testosterone derivate produced *internally* not something added from the outside). Its determined by genetics.

Second, we don't really know how clean cavemen were. We don't know how they got that clean (or didn't). We do know several things though. Today we have indoor plumbing and access to large amounts of warm, clean water. We also have access to a great number of good products. I'm willing to bet we are cleaner than said cavemen. I'm also willing to bet we are healthier, and live far longer lives.

Third. And this is a bit of a pet peeve for me. Natural does not mean "better"!
For petes sake, badger droppings are natural. This does not mean that rubbing them into ones hair is a good idea. Hair is dead tissue, it doesn't know or care what oils keeps it supple. It can't be "healthy". Its already dead, remember? Its like the leather in your shoes. Possible to keep supple and maintain a good surface on. And make last for a long time. But never ever healthy. Hair doesn't know or care if its kept supple with the bodys own oils or with silicones. And besides, making the strands last long is only important for those of us with long hair -- the short hairs (most guys here I guess) cut off the strands long before they ever get worn.

Which leaves the scalp. The scalp is skin with hair growing on it. Like skin, it needs to be kept clean (rancid oils festering with bacteria isn't great for it). It also needs not to be dried out. If one does have long hair, washing as infrequently as possible causes least wear. However, at best this is every three days or so ... otherwise the hair becomes a horrible greasy mop. And who wants to walk around looking like that?

Me, after years of pushing the envelope (and hopelessly greasy days) am now down to washing every second day (the other days I wear a very manly showercap :tongue_sm). And I shampoo only every other time, using conditioner only in between. On shampoo days during the winter (when the indoor air is dry like sahara here) I add a drop of olive oil in the wet hair after I wash. Not because its natural, at that, but rather because it works for me and is always handily available.

For long hair one needs to find what works on an individual basis, much like I understand one needs to find the combo for shaving that works. But its a big mistake to think that the "back to nature" approach is somehow inherently better. In my opinion, washing like a caveman will make one look like one. And smell like one. I doubt many want that.
 
After you put the vinegar on, work 1/4 teaspoon of Dijon mustard through your hair and a little water. It's an excellent emulsifier and it will finish off the oil treatment.

You might want to sprinkle your hair with a little red wine vinegar in the morning. It will invigorate your hair and it's a product of nature rather than going with the Pinaud.

I would think this was a salad instead of hair care.

I'll be honest about not experimenting with hair care a lot, (what I use works well for me) but I have tried vinegar rinse and found it helpful.

Phil
 
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NoelyDeezNutz

I can't tell who's being serious and who's being ridiculous.

Isn't that a bad sign, when someone offers advice of making a salad dressing in your hair, and you can't tell if they are being serious or not?

I abuse my hair to no end.... bleaching it, coloring it, shaving it... I still wash it every day and STILL get comments about how nice it is (I am friends with people that work in salons)

"natural" =/= better. This is a perfect example.
 
This has got to be the most surreal thread I have ever read!! A gentle detergent, such as Johnson's Baby Shampoo can effectively and gently clean your hair and scalp without damage. I'm sure you can find a myriad of shampoos that will work for you. Most rinse out conditioners are mostly detanglers to ease combing-if you need to find a good leave in conditioner or light hair dressing and call it good. Paul Mitchell "The Conditioner" works well for this as well as as a skin conditioner, AS balm. The ancient Romans used to wash their bodies with olive oil and scape it off with a smooth dull blade. Great if you want to smell like antipasto!
 
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