Credits: Social Media
I tried not using shampoo for 3 months to see how greasy my hair got
This is lifestyle journalism at its finest, people. In the world of social media, hair training has become something of a buzzword. But for lots of people, not using shampoo to wash their hair is totally normal. It’s neither a fad nor a trend, and it has nothing to do with debunking haircare myths or jumping on bandwagons.
I wanted to be one of those people. And, conveniently, I had just arrived back in the UK and, at the same time, worked my Lush shampoo bar down to the bone. The stage was set. It may be a myth that you can train your hair not to get as oily as it does when you first stop washing it with shampoo. Hair is not a dog. Each person has a specific capacity to produce sebum. I wanted to find out mine. FYI: Below is not me.
People skip shampoo for all sorts of reasons
If you believe the ads, everyone should be using shampoo daily. We should be pouring huge quantities of it onto our heads and massaging it gently into scalps while birds flutter overhead and a waterfall hums in the distance. We will look radiant, and we will associate our radiance with this or that brand of shampoo, trapped forever in a cycle of needless expenditure and brand tribalism.
Sure, shampoo does a good job of removing excess oils, dirt, debris, and odors. But most of us dont have dirt and debris in our hair, most of the time.�
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Medical News Today says unequivocally that, for most people, there is no medical need to shampoo at all. A thorough rinse is enough to get rid of actual dirt, and dandruff comes out easily.�
It also points out that for people with certain medical conditions, shampoo does serve a medical function. So, if you have a parasitic infection on your scalp, such as lice, please dont take this as a sign to forgo shampoo altogether.
Among the healthy-scalped, too, we have differing needs. Bald people, for example, neednt use shampoo. Certain hair types, and hairstyles, merit it more than others. If you have a buzzcut, theres very little to shampoo, and a tiny morsel will be sufficient.
Personally, my hair is of short to middling length, enough to work up a lather, but eminently manageable. This no doubt made it easier to experiment with extended periods of shampoolessness.
Some scalps produce more sebum than others, and at different rates dependent on hormones and age
Sebum is a light yellow viscous fluid. Its ingredients include wax, fatty acids, and squalene, something that sharks produce in their livers in astronomical quantities.
On average, humans produce about 1mg of sebum with every 1.5 square inch of skin, every 3 hours, according to Science Direct. If you make half that, you have dry skin. If you make a lot more, you may have seborrhea, aka seborrheic dermatitis. Its a chronic skin condition that causes flaky, greasy, scaly skin that can become itchy and inflamed. If you dont have the symptoms, you probably dont have the condition. Worry not.
Black African people tend to produce more sebum than Northern Asian or Caucasian people. Interestingly, some of that may have to do with diet and environment.
Faces and scalps produce more sebum than anywhere else on the body. If you get bad acne, as I once did, its likely because your skin produces more sebum than average.
During adolescence, sebum production ramps up by as much as 500%, according to Healthline. Parkinsons disease, some medications, and hormonal spikes have a positive impact on sebum production, too. Meanwhile, some birth control pills, anti-androgens, and acne medications decrease sebum production.�This is something I know something about.
What I learned about my sebum production when I tried cutting out shampoo for 3 months
Interestingly, I didnt find my hair becoming overly greasy.
This is interesting in light of what Ive since learned about the relationship between sebum production and acne because I used to get very bad acne. As a teenager, I took various medications, getting progressively stronger until they had the desired effect.
One of the medications I took was isotretinoin, which Healthline identifies as a form of oral medication that lowers sebum production by up to 90%. Eventually, it worked, but I had to apply moisturizer and lip balm to my face and lips regularly to stave off the drying effects of the slash in sebum production.
It may be that the medications I took as a teenager have had longer-lasting effects on my sebaceous glands than I previously thought. Over the 3 months or so that Ive not �or rather, only rarely �used shampoo, there have only been a couple of days when Ive considered my hair unpleasantly greasy.
Otherwise, I found it very agreeable. I still rinsed my hair and scalp thoroughly under hot water daily; I still used soap or shower gel to wash the rest of my body. And my hair looked better less frizzy, more full-bodied, and silkier when given access to its natural oils.
Thats my personal experience. I have quite thick hair. Its curly, and mostly fairly short, with enough on top to twiddle around a finger. I cant recommend cutting shampoo for people with thin hair, long hair, or straight hair. But for me, it worked.�
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