Yes, shampoos are all basically the same- they are cleansing agents. That does not mean they are identical. It is the differences (see basically) that lead a person to prefer any one product over any other.
So we do understand it, thank you very much.
Why don’t people understand that all vehicles are just modes of transportation? They’re all the same, just a way to get you where you’re going…
Sorry, I can’t consider that authoritative in any way, shape or form particularly as it doesn’t specifically address shampoos, but rather, cosmetics and the like in general.
Very good analogy.
To the OP, I like the way my hair feels/looks/smells when I wash it with Pantene, and I make enough money to afford it, and so I buy it. What skin is it off anybody else’s back? No doubt I skimp in places you splurge.
Tea tree oil in my shampoo makes my scalp all cold and tingly, like it just ate a York Peppermint Patty.
Like paying for a subscription here? 
(That’s really my way of welcoming you back. Honest!)
Actually, that’s a good analogy, too - though I don’t know if the OP has paid or not. Regardless, thank you for the welcome.
All detergents are just detergents. However, some don’t clean well, some irritate my skin, some don’t clean well.
YMMV
Yes, shampoo has to have some sort of detergent in it to get your hair clean. That doesn’t mean I should use dish detergent on my hair. I really notice a difference with shampoos.
My mom always used to buy Suave, since it’s cheap. I hate Suave. Even with the conditioner, it leaves my hair rough and tangly. I used to use Ivory shampoo, now I use Pantene. It’s not even that expensive if you buy the big containers on sale at Target.
I have to make sure to buy a nice shampoo/conditioner for my little girl, too–her hair is thick, wavy, and tangly like mine, only long (and thicker, I think, since she got her dad’s hair genes too). I use gobs of conditioner!
Wrong. One shampoo (at least )contains Ketoconazole, a powerful anti-fungal agent.
(For those that think all this stuff is just “snake oil”)
*Effect of ketoconazole 1% and 2% shampoos on severe dandruff and seborrhoeic dermatitis: clinical, squamometric and mycological assessments.Piérard-Franchimont C, Piérard GE, Arrese JE, De Doncker P.
Department of Dermatopathology, University of Liège, Belgium.
Ketoconazole (KET) is active to control dandruff and seborrhoeic dermatitis. Objective assessments comparing the 1% and 2% shampoo formulations are scant. This open, randomized parallel-group trial was carried out to differentiate the effectiveness of KET 1% and 2% in severe dandruff and seborrhoeic dermatitis. A total of 66 patients with severe dandruff or seborrhoeic dermatitis were randomized to each of the two groups. A 2-week run-in phase was followed by a 4-week treatment phase, in turn followed by a 4-week follow-up. The efficacy of treatments was evaluated by combining squamometry X, Malassezia spp. counts and clinical assessments. After 2 and 4 weeks of treatment, KET 2% was significantly superior over KET 1% (p < 0.001) for decreasing both in flakiness and Malassezia density from baseline. The same trend was observed in the mean change from baseline in the overall dandruff severity score. Only 6 mild adverse events were reported. During follow-up KET 2% showed a trend to fewer relapses than KET 1%. KET 2% had superior efficacy compared to KET 1% in the treatment of severe dandruff and scalp seborrhoeic dermatitis. Biometrological evaluations were correlated with the clinical improvements and therefore useful to incorporate in future dandruff studies. Copyright 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel.*
"*A randomised, single-blind, single-centre clinical trial to evaluate comparative clinical efficacy of shampoos containing ciclopirox olamine (1.5%) and salicylic acid (3%), or ketoconazole (2%, Nizoral) for the treatment of dandruff/seborrhoeic dermatitis.Squire RA, Goode K.
PPD Development, Chelmsford, Essex, UK.
BACKGROUND: The association between seborrhoeic dermatitis and dandruff and the yeast Malassezia furfur is well recognized. Symptoms include scalp itchiness and scaling. Due to its antimycotic activity, ciclopirox olamine is established as an effective treatment for these scalp conditions. Salicylic acid has keratolytic properties and aids in the removal of scales. OBJECTIVE: To compare the therapeutic efficacy of a shampoo containing 1.5% ciclopirox olamine and 3% salicylic acid (CPO/SA) with Nizoral (2.0% ketoconazole shampoo) in a study involving 154 subjects with dandruff - 70 of whom also had seborrhoeic dermatitis of the scalp. Nizoral is currently a registered treatment for dandruff and seborrhoeic dermatitis. METHODS: The shampoos were used three times week for 4 weeks, with 2-week washout and follow-up periods. Clinical and self-assessments were made throughout treatment and after follow-up (day 43). Within and between-treatment assessments of signs and symptoms were analysed. RESULTS: In the two groups, seborrhoeic dermatitis and dandruff improved significantly throughout treatment, with lower clinical and self-assessment scores at both the end of treatment (day 29) and follow-up (day 43). Only the subjects treated with CPO/SA shampoo showed a significant reduction in the itching of seborrhoeic dermatitis at these times. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrated that both CPO/SA and Nizoral were safe and effective in the treatment of dandruff and seborrhoeic dermatitis."*
Some shampoos are soaps rather than detergents. Some contain conditioners.
IANADermatologist, but here’s my take on it:
the skin in your face is softer than the skin on your legs and therefore, a different soap (and cream) usually benefits. People have different kinds of skin compositions, too (for example, I have the classical T-zone: forehead and chin always oily, but cheeks are dry; other people have a dry skin or oily skin all over) and therefore benefit from soaps and creams which compositions are specially aimed at the problems.
Yes, because it’s composition is different.
I don’t know because I’m too lazy to use one. But people with delicate skin or hygiene reasons benefit from using a special, softer sopa on their face.
That, of course, applies to the other questions, too - if you have a tough skin that can bear “abuse” (That is, not specialized products) and if you don’t care too much about dealing with stress wrinkles, then you can use the cheapest soap for everything. If you have any delicate/problem areas, or don’t want wrinkles, you have to spend time and money.
Yes and no. I had acne, too, and there was an obvious hormonal element (it always got worse during my period) there. My dermatologist then said that acne almost always disappears after age 25 when the hormones have finally settled down (which is a fat load of help to a teenager!, when 2 years already are an eternity). So some acne solutions - if regularly applied - can lessen the impact, but due to the hormonal imbalance, some pimples might still appear.
Uh. There are different kinds, that much I know. I don’t know if the word is even defined, or if each company uses it as they like it. I think a moisturizer is supposed to bring more water into the skin, while a lotion is intended for the general nourishing and caring aspect. (The antroposophic cosmetic company doesn’t have a normal lotion, but only pure oil in little bottles. They say that after you’ve showered, instead of rubbing dry, you take a little bit of oil and massage the water directly into your skin, instead of buying normal water inside your lotion.)
No, the OP doesn’t claim to know the answer, the OP simply made a statement without providing any facts or backup to this claim.
I’m certainly not naive about the role advertising plays, or that many products today are manufactured in the same factory and only packaged differently. But that’s what consumer reports and tests are for - you can find that out. (At least in Germany). But I would like some evidence before I believe that the different ingredients aimed at different skin and hair conditions don’t exist at all because it’s all the same base.
Yes, anecdote is not data, but if in trials enough women of group X with Problem Y (dry skin, thin hair, whatever) tried lotion/soap N with a new formula and felt satisfied, then that is a huge bonus for their advertising.
Certainly in the area of anti-age and anti-wrinkles cream, huge promises with little payoff or basis are made. That doesn’t mean 100% of what the companies say is made up and without fact.
If you are unsure or have any problems with your hair/shampoo face/soap combination, I suggest the simple experiment of buying the 5 or 10 most affordable different brands suggested for your problem, and try each for a week or 10 days, and then switch, and see for yourself. That’s how come a lot of women who tell you (without being paid) that they tried various brands of soap/shampoo, and none worked, until they hit brand W, which works wonderful.
If you don’t want to spend the money on trying out yourself (though that would be best for your own problems), at least read the consumer reports and tests (you do have those in the US, don’t you?)
I wouldn’t be so rash as to declare wrong. It is not correct to state that all shampoos are just scented detergents, but it certainly can be argued that most non-medicated shampoos have very few differences in the cleaning effect they have on your hair. Certainly different shampoos feel differently, but they do not accomplish this by altering your hair by cleaning it differently but rather by removing some and leaving a bunch of other chemicals on it.
To answer the OP – people simply declare that the function of shampoo is cleansing and everything it does must be cleansing while that is clearly not the case. It’s not a delusion that different shampoos are different – they do in fact tend to be different, just not as detergents. Nobody likes that dry, wiry, tangled clean hair feeling, so they get the cosmetics that make their hair feel, look and smell the way they prefer. In reality shampooing tends to be to hair cleansing what shoe shining is to cleaning your shoes.
Different shampoos may have similar ingredients, but that doesn’t mean they are the same. Despite the similarity in name, the detergent ammonium lauryl sulfate is not the same as ammonium laureth sulfate, nor are either of those quite the same as sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate, though all of these are used as primary ingredients in shampoo. These chemicals will have different solution pHs, will have different solubility in water/in oils, will react differently to dissolved minerals in the water/on your skin (Ca+, Mg+ etc) etc. Also, even if you read the labels of both bottles and they start with the same ingredients, their concentrations may be different. Ever hear the expression that “the dose makes the poison”? It’s kind of the same thing here; a 2% solution of ammonium lauryl sulfate will have different properties than a 2.5% solution (I’m making those numbers up… I don’t know what the percentages are in shampoo).
What “works” for you will be a shampoo that cleans your hair to your satisfaction under the conditions you shower in; if you have oily vs dry hair, curly vs straight, in hard water vs in soft water, etc. Each person is essentially a different test environment, so you can’t expect each person to have the same experience with a product, and you can’t expect each different formulation to yield identical results even on the same person/in the same shower.
Read the label of a bottle of shampoo and a bottle of conditioner of the same brand (“matching” products). All the primary ingredients are often the same, but you can’t argue that the shampoo and conditioner feel the same and do the same thing to your hair. The differences between two shampoos with nearly matching primary ingredients will be more subtle, but they will still be there.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the dollar-store brand is worse than the grocery store or salon brand. It just makes it different, and so that’s where marketing/scents/customer experience play a role. The fact is, there is a very, very good chance that Dollarama-shampoo is a direct rip-off if Salon-shampoo; chemically it’s relatively easy to determine the primary ingredients and concentrations in shampoo, and then all you have to do is toss in scents and preservatives and sell it. The research is done by the big companies, and with a handful of chemists, the profits can begin to be reaped by the generic brands. Hence the marketing by big companies; they want their money back! It’s just like the pharmaceutical world. In fact, the parent companies are often the same…
Yeah, by the way if you run out of your body wash and use Tea Tree shampoo instead, it makes your sensitive bits feel that way too. :eek: or 
per your preference.
And OP, there is a difference. If I use one one day and another another day and my hair feels different, there a difference.
Im sure theres a difference, but cost of manufacture wise, my bet would be the difference is pretty tiny, and packaging and marketting make up the main difference.
Otara
Let me ask you this, Broken Hoe. Do you use the same detergent that you wash dishes to wash your clothes? To clean your windows? Why not?
I also suspect that washing my hair with Dawn would strip the color right out of it.
And let’s see some cites from a less biased source, shall we? The Q&A page states that hair dyes have the potential to cause cancer. Da’hell? That’s one I’ve never heard before. I’d like to see some other cites, please.
:dubious:
Guin is right. It’s true to say that shampoo is detergent, but that doesn’t mean any detergent is right, or even safe, for your hair. Some detergents are labeled as hazardous to the skin.
In a library, you can find the Consumer Reports shampoo ratings. They’ve been testing shampoo since before I was born. In the top 5 ratings, you can find something that’s great for you, and maybe even cheap.
One more thing. You are extra special. We all know that. However, if you get the notion that mere sham poo is not good enough for you, don’t try the real poo. Trust me on this.
Back before I realized that I looked horrible with long hair and cut it off, I’d regularly use - I forget the name, but some inexpensive shampoo and conditioner that I often see commercials for - and my hair would always have some tangles in it somewhere, every damn time I used the stuff.
A stylist recommended a more expensive shampoo and conditioner. From the first time I used it until the day I cut off my hair, I never again had to worry about tangles.
So yeah, I’d say there are differences.
This reminds me of the myth that all gasolines (and motor oils) are the same.
Peace,
mangeorge
The potential for connection has been studied and I am surprised you have never heard of it before, cites:
Hair Dye Use and Risk of Fatal Cancers in U.S. Women
Personal Use of Hair Dye and the Risk of Certain Subtypes of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
The woman who got herself gobbled early in the original Jaws movie had dandruff. We know that because they found her head and shoulders on the beach.
I’m sorry. I know that’s terrible.
But I have a point relavent to the OP:
I’m paranoid about dandruff, so I’ve used Head and Shoulders shampoo since I was young. I experimented a couple times by using a non-dandruff shampoo, and I’d start seeing some flaking within a week or so. So, for me, the shampoo was not the same, and H&S gave me exactly what I wanted - clean, dandruff free hair.
Remember the girl in The Breakfast Club who dusted flakes out of her hair? I could do that when I was a teen.