Last night, my hair desperately needed to be washed. I really wanted to try just the conditioner, but there’s a little message in my brain saying “No, no, must have shampoo!”
However, I radically altered my regular routine; normally, I use about four pumps, total, of shampoo, and about three pumps, total, of conditioner. Last night, I used a mere half-pump of shampoo, and only applied it to the very top/front of my scalp (about the place where my bangs start); then I used about five pumps of conditioner, and massaged it into my whole scalp (instead of just applying it from the tops of my ears down like usual); let that sit while I finished my bath. I combed it through with a wide-tooth comb as I’d been told, and finished with a little extra conditioner on the ends of my hair. My hair looks and feels fine today. I think I’ll stick with this regimen for a couple of weeks (at this rate, the large-size shampoo I buy will last forever) and see how my hair responds. If the response is favorable, I’ll try dumping the shampoo altogether.
I have used Wen for a few years now. My hair is fine, dry and curly. I do like the way it works (and the Sweet Almond Mint smells great). I wash my hair about 2-3 times a week.
However, I found I liked it less once I moved from San Diego to Virginia, which makes me believe all of my “good hair days” were probably the result of low humidity, rather than any particular product. I will keep using it though, until someone convinces me of somthing better!
I had long enough to sit on hair, and the bottom fourth was pretty dry and damaged. I was given some Wen along with some Lush bar shampoos. I was doing a lot of water aerobics and I found that an out of the pool shampoo kept my hair from being frazzled the next day. When I wasn’t going to the pool I used the Lush during the week, and then used Wen over the weekend. I really liked the way it worked, and that I could leave some on the ends and it tamed my hair. Then I got a cut and color, so I am using shampoo made for color treated hair.
My step sister has this beautiful wild and (naturally) thick curly hair. She uses Wen exclusively and adores it. Her hair looks and feels wonderful.
I like the Sweet Almond Mint, but we both agreed that the Fig was our favorite.
Basically, when you “wash” your hair with WEN or any other conditioning product, you use an ENORMOUS amount of product. Enough to saturate your scalp and all of your hair. Pour about ½ cup of product in your hands and massage into the crown of your head (front, top and sides) and use the pads of your fingers to really work it in. Pour another ½ cup of product in your hands and work it into the back of your head and massage it in thoroughly. If you have short hair, this might be enough since your hair must be thickly covered. Add a splash of water to the whole mess, clip your hair to keep the product on and get on with the rest of your shower, about 3-4 more minutes. Rinse everything out thoroughly and finger comb through your hair. Add a couple of tablespoons of product to your hair as a leave in conditioner, wrap in a towel and style. It took about two weeks for my hair to get used to this new method, but it works for me and my hair is easy to take care of now. I must confess that I use this method with regular conditioners and I get the same results as WEN. Sally Beauty Supply has a line of cleansing conditioners called Hair One for about $10.00 each and those are pretty good as well. Hope this helps.
I’d suspect many conditioners would produce similar results, especially used in quantity. There are plenty of no-shampoo threads that were started here and many of them advocate much cheaper products. The hardness of your water (IIRC as mentioned above) can also, apparently, be a big factor in whether or not this works. I have super-hard water at my house so last I recall, it wouldn’t help me.
Side note: Beautypedia rates the brand as so-so overall - about 40% of the rated products were good but expensive, 40% were meh and expensive, and 20% poor. Things to watch out for include essential oils that may irritate the scalp, sensitizing preservatives in the leave-on conditioners that can also irritate the scalp, and insufficient silicone to protect treated hair.
I do customer service for Wen. BTW, I was told that the reason the name Wen was chosen was because, and I quote: “It’s New spelled backwards.” I don’t particularly care for the product itself, but it could be because I have finer hair and the one I used was too heavy for me. I do, however, speak to customers who have been using it for years and say they will never use anything else. If you read medstar’s post, that’s exactly the way we advise people to use it. Some of my customers really love the styling cream and re-moisturizing treatment mask that are available. My advice is try it, especially if you have coupon or other means of getting it for a discount. Don’t be afraid to use enough (16-20 full pumps for shoulder length hair) and get the right one for your hair type.
I still think it’s absurdly funny that a hair/scalp care product has the exact same name as an unpleasant disfigurement of the scalp.
Surely the first step in evaluating a potential product name should be to consider whether it means something, especially in the same language as the territories it’s marketed into.
So, fiancee’s bottle is almost empty, and her verdict is “really no better or worse than usual.” And since “usual” is the $0.79 bottles of shampoo and conditioner from the market, she’ll probably be going back to that.
This post is suddenly hilarious because I originally read it and thought, “You know, if you don’t like the way your hair looks after conditioning alone, you’re free to go back and use shampoo,” and then I had the same exact experience just now. For whatever reason, my brain convinced itself that I absolutely needed to shampoo, even if just a little. It was a three step process: quick, half-assed condition, followed by a barely shampoo, then a complete conditioning. I used a pea-size amount of shampoo, which wasn’t enough to create a lather, but produced a few suds, in between conditioning, and the final step involved using a large amount of conditioner, and working it through my hair and scalp with my fingers, the way I would a shampoo.
I like the look. I bypassed day one poofiness, and went straight to the day two almost-there-but-not-quite that immediately precedes the day three sweet spot. This seems like a good thing, but I am concerned that my day seven this-is-greasy-and-wrong status will arrive sooner. We shall see.
Well, I worked up my courage this morning and just went with conditioner. My fear that my hair was just going to look like a grease pit when I was done proved groundless. It doesn’t look as squeaky clean as it normally does a mere 12 hours after washing, but it looks plenty clean enough, and oh boy is it soft!
I’m prepared to have to wash (without shampoo) more often for a couple of weeks while my scalp gets the memo that it can cut out all the ‘emergency oil production’, but I suspect (hope!) it will settle down after that.
Don’t forget that WEN comes in different flavors that do different things. Here’s a list of what does what:
Fig is the heaviest and most conditioning. It’s recommended for very dry and abused hair and anyone with thick, curly dry hair.
Tea Tree is for anyone with scalp issues such as dandruff.
Cucumber and Aloe is light and works best for oily scalp and dry hair issues.
Sweet Almond Mint was the first flavor and is a universal choice.
Lavender is supposed to be the most volumising.
If you’re interested in trying WEN, I recommend buying a variety pack of small sizes of each flavor and trying each for a week, washing about twice a week. You can also mix flavors, using one on your scalp and another on your hair in the same session.
Well, for right now, I’m just using the conditioner I already have in my bathroom. I may change my mind later.
BTW, medstar, I did not wet/dampen my hair before I put the conditioner on this morning. I was unclear, from your instructions, whether I was supposed to. My reasoning was that if the hair is dry when the conditioner goes on, it can penetrate the shaft better. Was that right?
No, when you’re “washing” with conditioner, saturate your hair with warm water. This will help the conditioner penetrate better. Everytime I’ve put conditioner in dry hair, it just gets greasy.
1/2 cup, then another 1/2 cup and then two tablespoons?!? :eek:
How is this preferable to using 1tsp of shampoo and then 1 tsp of conditioner?!? And how big are the bottles Wen comes in, because it sounds like one “non-shampoo” would do for almost any commercial sized bottle of conditioner.
I went no-poo in November of 2009. I have a thick head of super-fine, very oily hair which gets colored about every 6 weeks. I used to have to wash daily or every other day. Since November 2009, I wash maybe twice a week and get compliments on day three after washing!
I “wash” with a baking soda/sea salt combo (1 Tbsp Baking soda and 1 tsp sea salt to 1 cup warm water) that leaves a little squeak to the hair after rinsing. I just massage my scalp really well like I did when I used shampoo, there just aren’t any suds or anything now. Leave on for a minute while I scrub my face, then rinse well. I use organic conditioner, leave that on while I wash the rest of myself, shave, etc., then rinse everything from top-down to finish.
It’s nice not to have to shop for shampoo any more, and what a money saver! I use the organic conditioner since that way I feel like I’m being “green” with the salt wash. I will also use the tubes of conditioner, that come with the hair color, for travel and in between bottles of the organic stuff. So as not to waste them.
Sometimes between “washing” with the salt combo, I’ll just scrub my scalp under the shower with just the water and condition, and that’s satisfactory, too. It’s just been so ingrained in us that all that sudsy shampoo is necessary, and it seems it’s really not!
Well, I just not-washed my hair again. I know what medstar said about wetting the hair before adding the conditioner, but doing it on dry hair seemed to work fine last time, so I stuck with that. My hair is still wet (I’ve only been out of the bath about five minutes!), so I don’t know how it looks.
I really thought, last time, that it would look dirty/in need of washing sooner than with shampoo, but it really didn’t. We’ll see what happens this time.
The reason you are supposed to use so much conditioner instead of a small amount of shampoo is that your finger pads are doing the work of moving the “cleanser” around; not the detergent. You need to thickly saturate your scalp and hair with conditioner so that the conditioner holds on to the dead cells, old styling products, excess oil, etc., and the whole mess rinses down the drain. Hey, I realize this is a new way to do things, I thought it was bizarre myself when I first heard about it. But my hair is bouncin’ and behavin’ now so I continue on.
If it works for you norinew, keep it up. Everyone’s situation is different and I’m certainly no expert. I’d say give this new routine about two weeks and evaluate your results. I hope you like it.
There isn’t a chance you will ever get me to use 8 ounces of anything other than salt water or plain water on my hair! The expense alone is ridiculous. Isn’t that bottle 32 ounces? That would only be 4 uses per bottle.
:eek: