I have never really washed my hair very often, not even when I was young.
When I was very young, my mother used to wash my hair once a week in the kitchen sink with Johnson’s baby shampoo. As I got a bit older I had to wash it more frequently as I was a competitive swimmer at provincial level at school (100m and 200m butterfly and 50m and 100m butterfly in the medley relays) and the chlorine wrecked my hair. I was training daily and my hair was dry and greasy at the same time, and it went green. I used to wear a swim cap but that didn’t help at all.
After I left school and stopped swimming, I used to wash once or twice a week and condition in between. Then I tried the no-poo (ha ha), or co-wash method, where you don’t use shampoo at all, but instead wash your hair with cheap conditioner. My hair liked it but I still liked a regular good shampoo so that did not last for too long. I went back to washing once or twice a week and conditioning in between.
Recently though – on DEEP sale at Sephora – I found a remnant of the huge wave of co-washing products that flooded the market in Sweden a year or two ago. Kristin Ess Frizz Management Cleansing Co-Wash.
The first time I tried it I hated it. I used it by itself with no conditioner afterwards, and it neither cleansed nor conditioned. My hair felt greasy, flat and tangled. The next time though, I used it before conditioner and really worked it into my hair. I realised that this co-wash was never going to be sudsy. It was actually a conditioner. And surprise surprise, my hair looked and felt great afterwards – shiny and soft with bounce and no frizz at all. Actually better than it does after a shampoo and condition.
I will finish this tube and enjoy it. I won’t buy it again, but I am really glad I tried it.