Only Wash with Water?

Why would anyone want to do that? Why, for beautiful, shiny, strong, self-cleaning hair of course. Well, supposedly...

WHAT I"M DOING:
So I decided to start a 3 month experiment where I'm only going to wash my hair with water.

Why 3 months? In this article I read (which I talk about in the next paragraph), it took the lady a month for her scalp to adjust. But she had dry hair, and I have a super oily scalp. So, 3 months it is. I wrote a little bit about this in my intro message here:

Hey, My name's Jessica. This seems like a great place to learn how to take care of my hair since I'm trying to grow it out.
I also thought I'd join 'cause I'm trying an experiment on my hair where I'm only using water to wash it (now you think I'm crazy right?). I read this article about a lady who hadn't washed her hair for 11 yrs and supposedly it be came self-cleaning and beautiful so I thought why not try it? I don't mind looking like a bum in public so it shouldn't be too hard.
I was searching on this board to see if any one else had tried it, and I couldn't find anything so I thougth I'd start a thread to share my own experience. I think I'll put it in the alternative hair care section if you want to follow my experiment.
    Anyway, it's nice to meet everyone. From what I've read you guys seem friendly and helpful.

HOW IT WORKS:
So the logic behind this is we're sort of in a viscous cycle with our hair where we strip our hair of it's natural oil with shampoo. Then we use conditioner to imitate our natural oils. Well that seems sort of silly to me. I mean, sebum was made for our hair, so I'm sure it's good for us. But, you might be asking, won't that lead to nasty, dirty hair?
While the scalp is balancing out, the hair will probably be super greasy at first, and I'm sure that will attract dust and whatnot. But once that's done with, the sebum will actually create a slightly acidic environment that prevents most bad bacteria from being able to thrive while allowing the good ones to live. When we wash our bodies with soap, we may kill the bacteria that's on our skin for the moment. But bacteria is everywhere and it's soon back on our skin in no time. So our natural body oils are actually very important in keeping those bad bacteria at bay. That's why not shampooing the hair will actually make it cleaner!
Wooh, thanks for reading all that. Now... to the actual experiment.

THE EXPERIMENT:
So far I'm on day 9. I have really oily, straight, blonde hair. So I usually have to wash my hair every day if I don't want it looking oily. I don't use shampoo though, I've been using conditioner only to wash my hair for the past half-year (if you want to know how that works you can ask me, but I think this post's pretty damn long already).
I've been washing my hair in the shower everyother day with luke warm water and ending with cold. I've also been combing my hair with my horn-comb twice a day, massaging my scalp and using my fingers all to pull the oils down.
Needless to say my hair is pretty damn greasy. I wear it up, so it looks alright in public. The sebum's not all the way down my length yet(hair waist-length), so I've been lightly oiling the ends with cocnut oil when they feel dry so I can comb easier without ripping my hair out.
Oh, and the water here is medium-soft. I think that would be an issue cause when I lived wher there was hard water, it caused alot of build up in my hair, which I think would make it hard for someone trying to do water only washings with hard water.

That's it for now. If anyone else would like to join in, feel free. It would be interesting to see other's experiences (and what works and what doesn't).

Thanks for reading. Hope you found this at least somewhat intriguing.

Edited to add link to the article: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13291687,00.html


Edited by Sarsvati - April 17 2007 at 1:41pm

I feel like I'm kinda talkin to myself here, but oh well, I guess people don't post in this section alot.
Anyway, I found another interesting news article about a water only experiment.

If you're interested: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=394226&in_page_id=1879

your brave to be trying this. I would never be able to go more then 3 days without washing my hair. I feel like trying this experiment. well good luck . I hope you keep telling us about your experiment.

On the days I don't water wash my hair, it looks horribly piecey and greasy. Nasty. I look like a greaser if I comb it straight back .
I'm starting to get worried about pulling my hair out because when I rinse it I pull on it for about a minute straight to move the sebum down. And I also pull the oils down once or twice  a day before combing. Afterwards my scalp at the back of my part feels sore.
I might just be paranoid though because in reality I'm only losing ~30-40 hairs a day. And it would porbably be less than that If I didn't get impatient while brushing sometimes and rip through some of the hairs. Not counting the hairs I rip out, I'm losing ~20-30 a day.
That's not bad. So, we'll see...

4 weeks today.

I probably should've combed and rinsed my hair yesterday. because just leaving it, it only stayed nice about half the day.

It looked real nice today after rinsing it.  Icould've worn it down and it would've looked normal.

My hair has been a couple shades darker since starting this. Sometimes I think it looks dull, other times I think it suites me and looks nice. I don't know what the hell I think.

I 've decided to only comb my hair once a day now, before bed. I don't want to be pulling my hair out with too much combing.

Sometimes I'll go to put my hair in a braid and be shocked by the softness. I'll have to run my fingers through it for a bit.

I got pretty excited the other day when I measured my hair, which usually grows 1/2" per month, and found out it had grown almost 1/2" in just 2 weeks! I had gotten my hair cut  2 weeks ago, so eirther the growth's because of that or this experiment. 'cause I haven't done anything else different. I think it's probably from all the scalp stimulation of the brushing.

That's it for now.  Feel free to post in here if you have something to say.

Minor setback: I went to get my hair cut last wednesday, and it was store policy that they shampoo your hair beforehand (hygenic reasons or some bull$**). So  I let the lady shampoo since she really seemed to know what she was doing and exactly what  I wanted. So I have to start over. And after a whole month! damn
What I noticed after the shamp: my scalp hair felt light, airy and silky, not heavy anymore. The ends felt silky too, but it was drying to run my fingers through them. and the sunbleached parts were dry and tangly again. Before, my ends felt soft and silky, but it was similar so running your fingers over a very soft and smooth candle: it was moisturizing, not drying. Bad anagoly, but its hard to explain. The length also felt much stronger and protected before, now it feels fragile and exposed. Basically, the length was much better off beforehand in every way. And the scalp felt better after the 'poo (except I did notice that my head got colder more easily after the 'poo).
Now it's day 4. Yesterday it had started to look oily, but still felt light and freshly 'pood. this morning it looks freshly pood (which is amazing considering my oily history), but it is just starting to get some of that weight back.

I'm going to stop posting my progress. There doesn't seem to be much interest, so I figure one more post at the end of the 3 months should be enough.
So, see you then...


Edited by Sarsvati - April 29 2007 at 2:10pm

This is an interesting experiment.. I am curious to see how it turns out..

Edited by Divavocals - May 10 2007 at 7:16pm

MSHONEY wrote: I think water washing is a more natural way, the way God intended for us to care for our hair but I think our chlorinated water makes it harder to do. I think natural water like lake,well etc. has some type of properties made to cleanse our hair and bodies. Have you ever noticed how soft your hair and skin feels after you've swam in a lake or river? They have a silky feel to them. Keep us updated.

ITA.. A water filter helps.. I have a shower filter to help keep the city chemicals off of my skin and hair.. Someday the hubby & I want to invest in a home filtration and water softener system for the house..

Wow, I decide to stop posting and suddenly I get some replies!  That cracks me up.

DivaV- I'll definitely let you know.

MSHoney-

MSH wrote: Why are you cutting your hair? How does your hair smell?

I should've specified- I didn't cut all my hair, just my bangs which were half grown out. Still waistlength!
Personally, I've not noticed a smell. I asked my sister and a couple of my friends to smell my hair, and they've all said it has a "hair" smell to it. You know how the scalp smells a day after washing if you get your nose right up in there? That smell. I wouldn't say it's good or bad, it just smells like hair, and they all seemed to have that impression too.

MSH wrote: I water washed my hair for a week and it did feel and look better. I have/had dry hair especially before I cut it all off. When I water only wash it I notice that I don't need to add oils or mosturizers to my hair.

I'm sorry you had to cut it all off! That sucks.  I'm surprised you experimented with this too though. That's awesome. Do you have any tips? It sounds like water only was working for you. Why'd you stop? (Actually I can imagine it would be hard to get used to something so out there right away. I sort of eased into it by stretching out CO washes, so I was already used to greasy hair). Do you think you'll try it again?
My hair definitely feels stronger and more moisturized with WO too. And just last weekend (when I was 2 1/2 weeks into it) a couple of my friends who knew I was doing WO asked me if I was still doing it didn't look like it was greasy. woohoo! I had just water washed my hair that day and 'pooed the bangs.

MSH wrote: I think water washing is a more natural way, the way God intended for us to care for our hair but I think our chlorinated water makes it harder to do. I think natural water like lake,well etc. has some type of properties made to cleanse our hair and bodies. Have you ever noticed how soft your hair and skin feels after you've swam in a lake or river? They have a silky feel to them. Keep us updated.

That's exactly how I feel. My first post was a long rant about that. I also don't think it would be very possible to do this experiment if you had hard water with alot of chlorine or minerals in it because they would build up in your hair with no shampoo to wash them out. Maybe the people who think WO is absurd are those who live in places with hard water and can't go a day without shampoo. I have noticed the silky moisturized feeling after swimming in a lake. I loove that feeling!

Well  I hope you find a hair routine that works for you. Even if you don't go WO completely, I'm sure stretching out the washing times will help your dry hair immensely.
If you get a filter and start doing that, I hope you'll let me know how it works out.