After reading this article on The Independent, I decided to try not using shampoo.

I’ve been thinking about doing something with my hair for awhile now, because I haven’t liked the way it has been looking. I haven’t had it professionally cut in more than a year, instead of opting for the do it yourself hair cut, which has had some interesting results. (I may have accidentally created a fringe one time, but everyone said it looked great.)

My hair is quite dry and breaks very easily, probably from all those years of dying it black. However, my hair is not black anymore and is more my natural colour than it has ever been. It even has a reddish look about it.

Anyway, back to the no shampoo thing. After reading the article, I decided to stop washing my hair. No shampoo, no conditioner, just rinsing it under water. The first few days were ok. My hair was looking slightly oily, but was not actually that bad. In the article it said it would take about 10 days for the natural hair oil to calm down a bit and stop producing as much. Unfortunately, I did not make it that long.

I lasted 7 days before I caved and shampooed and conditioned my hair. Afterwards, my hair felt fantastic. It was soft, shiny and just looked all-round fabulous.

But after a few days of shampooing and conditioning my hair again, it started to look lackluster and dry.

Somehow I have ended up shampooing and conditioning my hair every second day, with adding oil to it the night before I wash it again. My hair seems to be ok, but I’m still not satisfied. It is still quite fragile.

So I don’t really know what I’m going to do with my hair in the long run now. I know it definitely needs a cut, so I may attempt that again.

It was an interesting experiment to break from the norm though. How cowboy-ish of me.

How often do you wash your hair? Have you given up shampoo? What do you think is the best way to care for your hair?