Great info, Anais and Karen! Wow, that castor oil experience sounds horrid.... I think I am definitely more of a shea butter person than an oil person. I also think the ACV rinses help with my itchy scalp, though I notice my hair seems dry the day or two after an ACV rinse. Does this happen to you Anais? Thanks again.
I've used shea butter a lot (not as much lately, though) and I had no problem removing it with CO. However it does depend on how long you wait, and the absorbency of your hair. It helped that they were small leave-in oilings, 2 days before a wash... then the shea just got SUCKED in after awhile! I do ACV with each wash and it helps "a bit".... i.e. I'm not sure if it really helps, but ACV prevents my itching.
Once I heavily oiled my hair with olive oil, and I tried just rinsing it out with water, and then applied conditioner and rinsed it out (without shampooing) and the next day my hair was terribly oily.
So, do you use shampoo on days when you oil?
Hi,
Little tip about oiling...before you wash...apply a tiny bit of unconcentrated shampoo into the palms of your hands. A tiny bit should work...just enough to cover your palms lightly.
Then pat the shampoo covered palms along the top of the oiled hair.
Get into the shower and turn on the lukewarm water. Or you can use the clean bottle-of-water-over-the-head approach. Drizzle water onto the shampoo and pat lightly to form a slight lather. Keep drizzling water until you have a full lather and then let the suds gently float down over your strands to the ends.
Then rinse really really well with lukewarm water.
The shampoo applied to the dry oiled hair will cut the oil instantly and if you are careful, the undiluted shampoo doesn't undo all the great advantages of the oiling process.
I love oiling my hair but often worry that the effort at getting the oil out undoes all the benefits. :-)
Try it and see if it works for you.
I do not advise that anyone use Castor oil on their hair. I did that years ago and spend literally weeks trying to get it out. YUCK.
Edited by Karen Shelton
That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger or drives you totally insane. :-)
I'm not oiling right now - it didn't work great for me. I use a very light spray with some oils in it (it is Burt's Bees carrotseed oil face spray) - the oils are carrotseed, sandalwood, patchouli, and rose oils. I mostly use it for the fragrance but I think the light oiling helps with dryness. I think if you use a heavy oil like olive that you would have to use shampoo or ACV to keep your hair from being greasy all the time...Anais? (by the way, Sasumi, your hair is beautiful and shiny!)
Once I heavily oiled my hair with olive oil, and I tried just rinsing it out with water, and then applied conditioner and rinsed it out (without shampooing) and the next day my hair was terribly oily.
So, do you use shampoo on days when you oil?
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I finally broke down today and did an ACV rinse and DSO, then conditioned and used Giovanni Direct Leave-In as the final conditioner. The itchies finally came, and also much stringiness. I am going to try to go one week with only CO again and maybe just wear my hair up all the time. It sounds, from Karen's experience, that the more time and the longer the hair, the better CO works, so I'm going to stick with it for most washes. Thanks Anais and Karen for the abbreviations and making this a regular thread.
I like your idea of having a sum total thread. If you like, you can edit the title of your first post as "CO experiences thread" or a similar title, and that will change the thread name.
The CO is still kind of going. I washed my hair twice a week the first
week and the next I left it five days. I was using somerfield own brand
conditioner for fine/greasy hair as the cleaner and the own brand one
for normal hair as the conditioner. My hair was clean enough at the
roots and it wasn't greasy although it was kind of...coated. The thing
is, the outer layer of my hair was all kind of separating and looking a
little stringy. It looked fine when pulled back but nasty loose. So
this morning I did a diluted shampoo. I think I'll stick to CO but
maybe shampoo once in a while to get rid of residue. Wasn't there
someone else who does that who said so on here?
I was thinking, like Anais's list of useful threads, maybe we should
keep this thread up, posting about our own experiences of CO so that
people wanting to try CO can read about it without starting a million
threads on the same topic. What do you think?
28.02.06 34 inches
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Hi, I thought I'd resurrect this thread - hope that's okay. Just wondering how the CO experimenting is going? I did CO this week and last (before that I did CO one day and diluted shampoo three or four days later). My hair feels a bit limp with the CO but seems very clean and shiny. No itchy scalp or dandruff either. The conditioners I'm using are alternating each CO with Aveda Curresence, Aveda Pure Abundance, Lush Veganese, with Giovanni Direct Leave-In at the end. Maybe the leave-in is causing the limpness? Hmmmm.
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Oh, and I almost forgot -- I'm SO glad you added the acronyms. I was just about to ask what they were or if you all could direct me to the place on the boards that they were previously defined. You read my mind!
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The first year I "freaked" that I was not shampooing full strenght every day. Eventually my hair "adjusted" and I found that if I did use full strength shampoo my hair felt like total hell. Now I NEVER use full strength shampoo but it took me some years to get to this point.
That is interesting. I used to wash and blow dry my hair EVERY single day no matter what and now I do it at the most every other day. I always felt either I was not clean if I didn't bathe every day, or that I didn't look my best, but it's simply not true. Now I almost like my hair better the second day -- not always but there are times. I can actually go out in public and do things with "dirty" hair. Ha, ha. It's just so funny because I used to be so uptight! And I seem to get the most compliments on dirty hair days too.
CO= Conditioner Only CWC= Condition, Wash, Condition COW-C = ConditionerOnly + Wash + Conditioner (which is actually diluted shampoo with conditioner mixed in it, looks like a milkshake) WO= water only (I tend to call it WO for Water Only because OW tends to be associated with COW)
Other abbreviations I've personally used, a few of which I better explain ..*sheepish. BSL= Bra strap length MBL= Mid back length TB= Tailbone ACV= apple cider vinegar BBB= boar bristle brush SM&H / Suave M&H= Suave Milk&Honey SCS / Suave CS = Suave Citrus Smoothie KLG= Kirkland Lemon Gingerroot SUE= socked-up end, referring to occasions where the end of a braid is sock-curled
Karen, maybe we can start an FAQ thread of some kind...
Hi AS...yes, yes, yes.....would you like to start one that we can make a stickie? Or even better, I can put it at the top in announcements for people to check out.
Any thoughts?
Thanks soooooooooooo much.
That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger or drives you totally insane. :-)
CO= Conditioner Only CWC= Condition, Wash, Condition COW-C = ConditionerOnly + Wash + Conditioner (which is actually diluted shampoo with conditioner mixed in it, looks like a milkshake) WO= water only (I tend to call it WO for Water Only because OW tends to be associated with COW)
Other abbreviations I've personally used, a few of which I better explain ..*sheepish. BSL= Bra strap length MBL= Mid back length TB= Tailbone ACV= apple cider vinegar BBB= boar bristle brush SM&H / Suave M&H= Suave Milk&Honey SCS / Suave CS = Suave Citrus Smoothie KLG= Kirkland Lemon Gingerroot SUE= socked-up end, referring to occasions where the end of a braid is sock-curled
Karen, maybe we can start an FAQ thread of some kind...
Karen- if I'm doing CO, then would I still need to occasionally shampoo to 'clean' the hair?
WO-water only
Hi LF,
It depends on your hair and how you feel. The first year I "freaked" that I was not shampooing full strenght every day. Eventually my hair "adjusted" and I found that if I did use full strength shampoo my hair felt like total hell. Now I NEVER use full strength shampoo but it took me some years to get to this point.
For your hair...experiment. Try different things. I also..in the early years...diluted the conditioners I used so that my hair did not get greasy. Sometimes I would use diluted shampoo on the bangs but no where else and then use only water (OW) :-) or CO on the middle to the bottoms.
Also, seasons require different treatments.
So just take your time and experiment with different options and get to know the rhythm and moods of your strands. Your hair will LOVE you for it. :-)
And keep letting us know what you discover. Since it helps everyone figure out their own path. Right AS? :-)
That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger or drives you totally insane. :-)
Yesterday, I washed my hair and did CO. No particular reason, just felt like it I was expecting my hair to go funny and greasy but...it hasn't! It's possibly a tad greasier then if I's shampooed it but mainly it just feels like silk and really shiny! (See sig pic for proof-taken after CO)
Does that mean my hair likes CO and wants to run and hide away from the big scary shampoo bottle or something! I know it's early days yet but it seems to agree with my hair! Well I suppose I barely used shampoo anyway-I'd use heavily diluted baby shampoo.
Intrigued...
Hi LadyFrog. I have been doing CO and heavy dilution for years. In fact, about 3 years ago I was at a seminar with the woman who wrote the Curly Girl book (Lorraine) and she came up to me at the break and said...you must do conditioning only washing...right? I asked how she knew and she said...the shine, the softness and how nice my natural waves formed in the back.
I have found that over time I can only do diluted shampoo about once or twice a month. I tend to CO every 5 days and then maybe on every 2nd or 3rd rotation I do DSO. Today I did a super heavy dilution with Phytojoba but it was the first time in 3 weeks that I used DSO. My last DSO was with Aveda Shampure and I cut back to 1/2 teaspoon to 1 quart. Which seemed to be good.
Most of the time my CO consists of Phytosesame or ARTec Smoothing. Lately I have been playing with RF Karite and just slathering it on.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiments. When I advise people to do either DSO or CO washing, they are very skeptical. It has been working for me for years and I know it is very good for super long hair.
Edited by Karen Shelton
That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger or drives you totally insane. :-)
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