Comment by ecdavis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ecdavis | Hacker News Reader

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>a few days without shampoo, (even if I rinse) and my hair becomes extremely greasy and nasty looking

Ideally you need to go a week or two without shampooing to allow your hair to adjust. The thinking on this (and I don't know if it's based in science) is that your scalp is producing excess oil because you keep washing it away. When you stop using shampoo your scalp will, over time, slow down its oil production.

I have very dry skin, so I can't comment definitely on whether those theories about oil production are based in truth. I can detail my own experience, though.

I used to shampoo daily and had terrible issues with dandruff. A couple of years ago I decided to stop using shampoo as an experiment. After about 3 weeks my dandruff cleared up completely. These days, the only time my hair gets shampooed is when I get it cut - around once every 6-8 weeks. For a few days afterwards my hair feels very limp and my scalp is very dry and flaky.

I do make sure to rinse thoroughly with warm water on a daily basis.

Yup, that's the trick. I stopped using shampoo last year - my hair was greasy as all hell for around a month, then one day I noticed that it just stopped. Now, I just go into the shower and scrub thoroughly with hot water instead of shampoo. And it takes a couple days without showering for my hair to get oily and smelly now, instead of just one.

Oddly enough, my dandruff has stayed completely unaffected (and possibly gotten worse)...

Still use a plain bar soap on my body though, can't get past the self-stigma of the thought of only rinsing down there...

"Down there" actually smells permanently better when you stop using soap. That was my personal experience anyway, and others who have tried this have reported the same.

You're actually not supposed to soap your genitals directly. Even those who use soap don't recommend this. The bacterial balance of the glans penis and the vulva is more delicate.

When you stop using shampoo your scalp will, over time, slow down its oil production.

I think a similar thing works with anti-perspirant. I switched to deodorant only and after a couple weeks I noticed I sweat less. I now only use deodorant, and my t-shirts and normal shirts last a lot longer before getting nasty looking under the arm pits.

  Ideally you need to go a week or two without shampooing
  to allow your hair to adjust.

Yes. Everything you say is true. I think many people give up after a few days, like the person you're replying to did.

I second this. I used to fight the dandruff with shampoo, and then one day I just stopped, and used only water. There was a period where my hair got greasier, but then it changed and now it feels as nice and soft as it ever did with shampoo.

Every time I try this, my scalp itches like crazy. I'm not sure if it is dead skin cells that I normally remove with shampoo, or the excess oils.

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