Bye bye shampoo

What did she have to lose? 

She tossed out her shampoo, began simply rinsing her hair in the shower every day, and waited to be dazzled by her new chemical-free, naturally lustrous mane. 

The payoff was a while in coming, and she soon regretted having told everyone about her little experiment. 

Was it dirty, friends asked? 

Did it smell? 

Most concealed their revulsion at the idea of not shampooing, but when one involuntarily put her hand to her face in horror, it made a powerful impression.

Seven months later, her hair has never looked better. 

It’s shinier and has more body, and her ordinarily flake-prone scalp is noticeably healthier. 

Plus, she got the self-righteous buzz of having beaten the system: 

She washed The Man right out of her hair and it stayed clean anyway.

The problem with shampoo is that most of it contains sodium lauryl or laureth sulfate as a foaming agent. 

Both are detergents capable of degreasing engines. 

Not surprisingly, they are also skin irritants. 

The charge against them by the no-’pooers is that they strip the hair and scalp of natural oils, creating an artificial demand for moisture that only commercial shampoos and conditioners can fill.

Bahman Karimzadeh, a Los Angeles stylist and staunch anti-shampooist, advocates a more DIY approach to conditioning. 

You have to let your scalp make enough oil to bring it through to the end

Some people say, ‘My scalp is dirty, oily, I have to wash it.’ 

You have to get over that feeling.

Admittedly, when she first got off shampoo there was a funk factor. 

Around week two, she noticed her hair felt tacky when she wet it. 

Not long afterward she thought, “What’s that smell?” 

The answer came: “Oh. It’s me.” 

And she hadn’t even been hitting the gym that hard.

That’s when she contacted Karimzadeh, who counseled “shampooing” with conditioner once a week. 

That improved life dramatically. 

Her hair was cleaner and softer, and it was starting to develop body she had never seen. 

It fell in ringlets and held a style.

It even stayed out of her face.

She should throw in one caveat here: 

The anti-’poo camp is dominated by folks with wavy and curly hair. 

Straight-and-fines may have trouble with the shampooless lifestyle — it usually just weighs their manes down. 

But for everyone else, says Lorraine Massey, co-owner of Devachan Hair Salon in New York City, ditching the suds is de rigueur. 

Something of a demigoddess among the curly-headed set, 

Massey has developed a line of products called DevaCurl. 

She now washes with Massey’s fragrant, sudsless No Poo (think of conditioner minus the slippery element) once a week.


A little story for those who want to try a different way of looking after their hair


For you maybe?