Reading the responses to that thread, it made me wonder:
Is everyone who uses shampoo on their head supposed to use conditioner after shampooing? Or are there certain individual conditions that might make conditioning hair either unnecessary or even contraindicated?
Personally, I shampoo every day but never use conditioner. My hair is super, super oily … to the point that I’ve been self-conscious about it since childhood. Shampoos that strip my hair of their natural oil, therefore, have been something I actively seek. The various brands of clarifying shampoos – purportedly meant to remove buildup from hairspray, gel, and such – do the job inexpensively.
My father has it just as bad. He typically washes his hair with bar soap like Ivory.
Now then. I have heard the trope about “letting your hair keep its natural oil is good for your hair, so go a few days between washings.” Well … I’ve tried that for up to three days just to see. The results aren’t pretty – pancake-flat and heavy hair that looks like someone has combed Mazola through it. I could only get away with the natural oil level of my hair if I wore a crew cut or something - maybe.
Is that advice about “wash your hair less often” meant for 100% of all human beings, or is it rather meant for the strong majority that don’t have super-oily hair?
I have similar hair. Oddly, stripping the oil results in more oil production. Hair needs oil, that’s part of why women with long hair were (still?) told to brush every day to distribute the hair along the length.
Try co-washing(washing with conditioner), it cleans off the excess oil without drying/stripping the hair. This is what I use.
Pretty rare that I use conditioner. Maybe if I’ve been swimming in chlorinated water which really drys me hair out I’ll put some conditioner in. Or during the really really dry times of winter.
Well, no, I don’t need it as long as I don’t mind hair that is so brittle and fluffy that I look like I just went through a wind tunnel. As long as I like my hair breaking off when it reaches a couple of inches long. As long as I am happy to wake up in the morning with super bed head that lasts all day long.
I don’t even use shampoo. I heard about the “no poo” movement one day and decided to try an experiment. And yep - my hair got flat and greasy and stayed that way for weeks.
And then cleared up. It’s now light and fluffy or whatever words you use for hair that’s not greasy. It’s also got less curl than it used to have, though there’s still some waviness to it. At one point when I was getting a haircut the hairdresser asked me what shampoo I used, and seemed surprised when I said I didn’t use any. (Though perhaps she was thinking my hair was horrible and just wanted to know what to avoid. I didn’t ask.)
A word of caution though: I’m a dude and have short hair. (And also could get away with it looking bad for a couple of weeks without anybody saying anything.) If you google the “no poo” movement you’ll find that most folks with long hair use something when they wash, because water alone isn’t cutting it for them. They just avoid the chemical stews that are shampoo and conditioner.
Well, once upon a time conditioner was called cream rinse. It generally required mixing a capful or two into a glass of water and pouring through one’s hair. (See this old commercial for Tame creme rinse.) Few people bothered, but then, men were using hair oil like this stuff, and women curled, teased, and sprayed their hair into obeisance. Neither I nor my childhood friends used conditioner, and our hair was just fine. We did, however, have to suffer the painful combing of many tangles after shampooing.
However, if I forgo conditioner now, my hair has the properties of a dust bunny because its texture has changed.
It depends on your hair porosity, density and curl. It also depends somewhat on your oil production, but many people who think they have oily hair are just using harsh products too often and causing the scalp to overproduce.
I condition every time I wash my hair, which is 3-4 times a week.
When I was a teen, I had to wash my hair daily because it was so oily - twice a day even. I also had to use conditioner or it would knot up. I would apply conditioner only to the ends to get the detangling benefit without adding to the greasy situation.
Over time, my hair stopped needing such frequent washing. It also no longer knotted without conditioner, so I stopped. My hair has always been very healthy, and fast growing. I’ve had it every length from pixie cut to halfway down my back.
When I started regularly colouring my hair it needed a bit of conditioner in the ends, but even that seems to have sorted itself out and I’m back to no conditioner.
Point taken. All the same, conditioner seems to have many vocal proponents.
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MoonMoon, for some reason I kind of forgot about straight-vs.-curly as a factor. My hair is arrow-straight and I can take for granted running a brush through it even right out of the shower, no conditioner required. But, as many have pointed out, everyone’s different.
Huh. If I didn’t use conditioner, I wouldn’t be able to get a brush or comb through my hair. Using hair color has only made it worse. Although it’s curly, it doesn’t have the appearance of coarseness, though.
Depends on your hair. I have one family member - Number Two Daughter - with fine flyaway hair that practically drinks the stuff. I use it if I think about it but if there’s none about - no biggie. My husband uses bar soap, and his hair looks perfectly fine
