Conditioner Only (C/O) washAlthough it may sound strange, washing with condtioner instead of shampoo does get your hair clean!Read some background information: An interview with Dr Hugh Molloy, an Australian Dermatologist who recommends to stop using soap or detergents altogether. Use a cheap, light conditioner for this. Drugstore conditioners made for fine, limp hair, or "clarifying" conditioners usually work well. If it's too light to condition long hair properly, it will most likely work for C/O. Conditioners contain surfactants that gently lift oils and dirt from your hair and scalp, instead of stripping and drying your strands like many shampoos do. Even if you normally don't get conditioner on your scalp because it makes your hair greasy faster or makes you break out, C/O may still work for you, as for some reason the result feels totally different. It leaves my hair so soft and well moisturized! According to a fellow LHC member, LisaJaney, who taught me how to C/O wash, there are four main reasons why your hair may not feel clean after washing with conditioner: - the conditioner you used isn't light enough. Moisturizing ones usually don't work. - you didn't leave it on long enough - you didn't rinse well enough - you didn't use enough conditioner. You'll need lots and some more! Here's my routine: I wash my hair bent at the waist over the tub. First I wet hair thoroughly with tepid water, squeeze out excess, glob on conditioner. I use three times as much as my palm can hold - one for the back and crown, one for the front and sides, one for the length. My favourite C/O conditioner is Schauma Energie-Spuelung (Schauma is a German cheap drugstore line by Schwarzkopf). I lightly massage my scalp and finger comb the length to make sure everything is well coated and slippery. Then I coil and wrap the hair on top of my head, hop into the shower, wash, shave etc., dry off, use body lotion, brush my teeth and prepare a vinegar rinse. This takes me about ten minutes, I found that the longer the conditioner can do its work the cleaner my hair will get. For a vinegar rinse I use two table spoons apple cider vinegar (ACV) on one quart (litre) cold water, sometimes I add about ten drops hair essential oils (rosemary, ylang ylang, lavender). Lately I found that an ACV rinse every couple of weeks is sufficient to prevent buildup. Then I bend over the tub again, add some water and wash like I would with shampoo (scalp and, gently, length and ends too). Rinse lots with warm water, squeeze out excess, dunk length and ends into the vinegar rinse mug and "stir" a bit with my hair so the needier bits can pick up most of the EOs that are floating on the surface, then pour the rest over my head. Squeeze out excess, apply a heavier conditioner to length and ends (my favourite is the Nivea conditioner for colour treated hair), finger comb, rinse thoroughly first warm, then cold. Wrap into towel turban, wash & cream face and don contacts while hair is drying, take down, comb through, apply cone-laden end leave in serum, comb again and go :) I have been doing that for well over a year now. Currently I wash twice a week. I shampoo only about every six to eight weeks before I henna. Update: I recently found a less time consuming vatiation I do a lot now, a one step C/O wash. I wet down hair, apply a lot of light, "washing" conditioner to the roots and heavier moisturizing conditioner to the length. Sometimes I mix EOs into the conditioner I apply to the roots. I let sit, wash and rinse as described above, but skip the ACV rinse and second conditioner application. The results are similar to the two step C/O.  |