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"No-Poo" claims?
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Sorry if this topic has been discussed before in the forum, I couldn't find any discussions about it after joining this afternoon and I had a few questions above and beyond what was mentioned in the blog. I've been reading a lot of positive stories online from people who have stopped using shampoo, and am wondering if I should try it. The people who seem to have the most positive experiences doing this have curly, dry, or frizzy hair, none of which are true for me. However, some people also counterintuitively say that this technique also benefits greasy hair. The claim is that when too much of your natural oil is cleaned off, your sebaceous glands detect that there is not enough and will overproduce oil to compensate. Therefore, if you stop cleaning the oil from your hair, your glands will eventually stop this overproduction and your hair will stop being greasy. Is there any truth to this? Unlike the rest of the internet, I trust this website to give me the straight facts!
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The no-poo shampoo method does actually clean hair. It just uses the surfactants put in hair conditioner to do the cleaning. This means it won't be as stripping and your hair won't "feel" as clean.
Whether you should try it or not is up to you. I would suggest you do. I personally tried it for 1 month. It worked well but I missed the foaming of shampoo and the feeling of being clean. Many people just get used to the heavier feeling of no-poo washing and love it.
As far as the "health" of your hair goes, the benefit to no-poo washing is that your hair may be slightly less damage but not much. The damaging part is putting the product in your hair while it is wet and moving it around. Then drying is even more damaging.
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I have a related question. Is the 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner any better for hair health than shampoo only? I mean we know shampoo alone is harsh and those 2-in-1 may not be enough..but can they permanently replace shampoo , to be followed by conditioner afterwards??
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I have tried to go 'no-poo' a total of three times over the last ten years or so. NEVER works for me although I desperately wanted it to- that's why I keep trying every few years, hoping I was wrong about the last time. I have tried the use-conditioner-instead-of-shampoo, the use-bicarb-soda-and-vinegar-instead-of-shampoo, and the use-nothing-just-brush-over-your-scalp-with-a-washcloth-to-distribute-oils. Always end up with hair that seems simultaneously dry and super-oily- feels like straw, yet combing leaves tracks! Revolting. And I haven't given up too early either- I've persevered through six weeks each time.
I really wish it did work for me. I am concerned for the environment and I know that the less products we wash down our drains the better for our oceans, and of course the less packaging and transport of products the better too. So I just try to minimise and buy from companies that are environmentally responsible. -
I've been trying the no-poo method for a few weeks now, and when I went home for Christmas my sister, mother, and even my father told me I needed to wash my hair because it looked so greasy. In the future, I'd like to try washing half my head with shampoo, then doing the whole thing with conditioner. I'm just worried that if the results are the same, having half a greasy head would look even weirder than a whole one.
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@neveen - 2 in 1 shampoos will not condition your hair as well as using a shampoo then a conditioner. They are more conditioning than regular shampoos but are not less stripping.
If it causes you to condition less often then a 2 in 1 is a good choice for you. The most damaging thing to hair is not the surfactants or conditioning ingredients. It is the exposure to water and moving hair around when it is wet. Wet hair is weak hair. -
I have used this method of washing my hair with good success for quite sometime. I still do it but switch over to shampoo for awhile too. My hair is long, mostly straight and normal texture and not oily in nature. To make this work you must use a no cone conditioner- no dimethicone, silicone- any kind of cone will give poor results. The best conditioners are the less expensive ones- VO5 and Suave work nicely. Just look at the ingredients- if there is something ending in 'cone' don't use it for condition cleansing. VO5 makes a clarifying conditioner that works well. Generally, you want to also skip any that claim to be moisturizing or smoothing. Volumizing conditioners are typically good though. You might have tried these already- many people like it and many find it doesn't work for them very well.
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I hate, hate, HATE that whole "don't use cones" crap. It's just more paranoia.
I also don't see how "no-poo" could possibly be clean. Shampoo is needed for the hair as much as soap is needed for the body.
Granted, I wish I didn't have to wash my hair every single day. My mom can go three, sometimes four days without her scalp getting too greasy. I don't know if that's because she had a complete hystorectomy at 35 or it's just I have bad genes from my dad or because I have PCOS. All I know is if I try to go more then 48 hours without washing my hair my scalp is greasy and itchy and nasty. So I wash my hair every single day. -
Whoa! That "don't use cones crap" has nothing to do with paranoia- read my post again. I was just passing along information about the type of conditioner that is recommended for conditioner only cleansing IF you want to do that method. I regularly use products that contain 'cones because they work for me. Some people are interested in condition only cleansing and it works for them and some people don't like it at all. Was just passing on a little info that will give better results for anyone who chooses to try it.
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Crystalcricket is right, silicones are not a great choice if you are going to use a conditioner to "wash" your hair. They tend to build up and interfere with the tiny bit of cleansing that conditioners do have. Essentially, washing with a silicone containing conditioner is like putting more dirt into your hair. The only part I would disagree with her is that if the conditioner contains Cyclomethicone, that's ok. Cyclomethicone evaporates from your hair just like water so after an hour or so, it is gone.
Whether co-washing works or not is a matter of perspective. It certainly doesn't clean your hair as well as a shampoo. However, you don't really NEED to clean your hair. There are no real healt benefits to it (unless you have a lice or bug infection). People just prefer the way their hair looks when they clean it with a shampoo. For some people, co-washing or no-poo feels good enough. -
I have been doing the no poo method for over a month now and it works well for me. I think the idea of washing your hair every day is a fairly recent phenomenon. It wasn't that many years ago when women would go to the salon once a week for a wash and set.
I suspect that my former perception of what my hair felt like when it was "clean" was really what hair felt like when it was "stripped." And then it would frizz up and I'd wonder why.
Isn't it just a matter of what works for you? If you want to put dimethicone on your hair and use a clarifying shampoo to get it out, and that works for you, great. If you want to put motor oil in your and use Simple Green to get it out, and that works for you, great!
I think Crystal is right. Some stuff just isn't going to wash out easily with conditioner. -
@Melissa - you're right. Whatever works for your hair is ok. Shampooing isn't really required for good health.
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