Hi

[Emelyn]

Hello, I'm Emelyn. I joined the forum hoping I could improve the health of my hair. I have very hard water where I live and I don't think my hair likes it very much. I've had really bad results with cones and sulphate shampoos and conditioners, so I switched to a gentler shampoo around 6 months ago. I ditched conditoner completely as it seemed to weigh my hair down so much and make it dirty so quickly. I am using olive oil as a replacement for the conditioner. Lately I've noticed quite a few splits and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Hopefully I'll get lots of info as I read through the threads!

[Timea]

Welcome to the forums!

[LadyStrange]

Hello! It seems you have pretty similar hair to mine, and where I live has INSANELY hard water. You can probably mine the insides of our taps for minerals lol. I can give you the bullet points of my general hair care if you'd like :D My hair, while still not totally healthy, has been looking tons better since I started making little changes to my hair care.

[Johannah]

Welcome! :blossom:

[Cania]

Hi and welcome! ^_^
I believe you can get filtered shower heads for hard water, might be worth a look~

[Emelyn]

Thanks for the welcome Timea and Johannah!

LadyStrange, I would love to see your hair care routine. My poor hair needs all the help it can get!

Cania, that's a great idea. I'll look into that!

[lapushka]

Hello and welcome! :)

Personally I wouldn't ditch conditioner. Just make sure to apply it from ears down only (never on the scalp).

[Emelyn]

Thanks lapushka! Maybe I should try the conditioner again with a shower head that helps with hard water? Hmmm...

[LadyStrange]

Awesome! My hair care routine isn't perfect by any means (I'm still using cone shampoo for cripes' sakes -_-). I've gotten down to washing every other day, though sometimes I can push it further. I definitely don't wet brush, and I generally comb before I get in the shower if my hair is too ratty so I don't have to do so afterward. Actually, I haven't used a brush in forever since it makes my hair static-y and I feel like I get a lot less hair fall with a comb :/ I only condition the ends of my hair and only shampoo the roots, unless my hair is filthy haha. Every once in a while, especially in winter since it gets so dry, I rub a tiny little bit of argan oil on the ends so they don't get so crispy (my hair damages and breaks if you so much as look at it wrong lol). I haven't used heat tools regularly in probably about 3 years, which has helped with the splits and the crispies a lot. I try to let my hair hang dry- like I wrap it in a towel just long enough that I'm not dripping everywhere and then let it hang out to dry. I'm gonna try using coconut oil as a 2-hour leave-in treatment and see how that goes in terms of moisturizing my hair. I actually used a rosemary rinse a couple times (just simmered some rosemary in water for about an hour- long enough for the water to get a little bit of a greenish brown tint to it) and it was amazing. I rubbed a teensy weensy bit of rosemary mint oil in there after the rinse so I could smell more like a lady and less like a cooking pot roast, and it was pretty great. My hair was really soft and pliable until the next shampooing.
So yeah, that's about it for me. Most of it is really common sense stuff lol. I'm waiting until my tresseme runs out so I can pick up some no-cone and no-sulfate stuff and see what that does for my hair. As far as your split ends go- I think that you can probably nurse them along for a little while but it might be safest to just trim them off to prevent it splitting further up the hair shaft. Actually I just trimmed my ends about half an hour ago haha
Are there any no-cone shampoos and conditioners you recommend? I don't even know where to start looking in that department :P

[Undomiel]

Welcome to the forum :blossom:

There's lots of articles and tips here in the archives: http://archive.longhaircommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22
I'm still working my way through learning new stuff all the time. It's fun to experiment and see what works for different people. I'm sure you'll find something that works eventually :)

[Emelyn]

Thanks for the welcome, Manwathiel! Those articles look great. I'll have a look through :)

LadyStrange, thanks so much for that. It's a huge help! I have to admit I do occasionally rip through wet hair when I'm in a hurry :couch: The rosemary rinse you mentioned sounds wonderful! Sometimes I worry about smelling like a salad after putting olive oil in my hair, so I know what you mean about the pot roast! :spitting: As far as no-cone shampoos and conditioners go, I mostly make my own from from scratch or I use Sukin Moisture Restoring Shampoo with their Nourishing Conditioner. I'm not sure if that's available where you live, though. I remember I used to use stuff from Living Proof, L'Oreal and Redken. I can't remember the exact names, I'm sorry. That was a long time ago!

[LadyStrange]

I'm not sure what color your hair is, but if you use the rosemary rinse often and over over a long period, it will start to darken your hair a little bit. I never got that far since I ran out of rosemary and was too lazy to buy more. lol. So yeah, I'm not sure if you're wanting to darken your hair at all, but if not, then don't do rosemary rinses on a regular basis :p

[Emelyn]

Ah, ok. Makes sense! My hair is blonde, so I guess I should use it sparingly. Thanks! :blossom: