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lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 02:39 PM
Is there anything I can do to change my scalp? It seems that no matter what I do, it is just super oily from the crown forward. The back of my head seems fine. I've tried stretching washes (only got as far as every other day, and had to spend so much time/effort on dry shampoo on the off days that it wasn't worth it. Also my ends get pretty dry when I do this.), CO, sulfate shampoo, and non-sulfate shampoo. I do a scalp only wash every now and then, but still have less than 24-hours before it is an oil slick again. My face isn't super oily, just my scalp. It is really cramping my style. Any recommendations?

lapushka
March 15th, 2016, 02:45 PM
I do best with the harshest sulfates I can find and those are Pantene & HE because they contain both SLS & SLES (&CB). I have SD and it keeps it at bay. Other shampoos are milder; most EU shampoos only contain SLES & CB and I do notice them being milder, because I'll have a little flaking going on on my temples and on my forehead line towards the end of the week. I won't have that with Pantene or HE (not usually).

Maybe try one of these shampoos out. Formula is everything if you want & need to stretch washes.

lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 03:04 PM
I do best with the harshest sulfates I can find and those are Pantene & HE because they contain both SLS & SLES (&CB). I have SD and it keeps it at bay. Other shampoos are milder; most EU shampoos only contain SLES & CB and I do notice them being milder, because I'll have a little flaking going on on my temples and on my forehead line towards the end of the week. I won't have that with Pantene or HE (not usually).

Maybe try one of these shampoos out. Formula is everything if you want & need to stretch washes.

I've tried about 4 varieties of Pantene, and at least that many HE (both old formulas and new). No luck but thank you for the recommendation.

lapushka
March 15th, 2016, 03:22 PM
That's too bad! :(

I guess if you've tried it all, there's just no other thing to do than either wash every day, or use the dry shampoo. Does it make a difference whether you wash in the morning or at night? I used to wash in the morning when my hair was at its greasiest to get one more day looking fresh out of it. Wash in the morning (day) (night) (day) = 3 (and 2 days). Wash at night (night) (day) (night) (day) = 4 (and 2 days). That used to be my reasoning.

lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 03:31 PM
Washing at night = greasy by the time I get up in the morning. I just cut these stupid bangs and they are getting stringy by mid-afternoon after washing in the morning. They look cute, but I think I'm going to end up with them pinned back more often than not.

Wusel
March 15th, 2016, 03:32 PM
I've read somewhere that an exfoliating shampoo with salicylic acid helps with extreme scalp oiliness. But my scalp isn't oily so I didn't try on myself if it works.
Only my face is mixed-oily and blemished and I use the Paula's Choice salicylic acid exfoliant and it helps so maybe it's actually good for the oily scalp too...

Ellethwyn
March 15th, 2016, 03:35 PM
I've had the same problem. Not using conditioner on my scalp, only on my ends has helped me. I still wash every other day, though. But, my hair isn't as oily since i stopped using conditioner on my head.

If i had bangs, they'd be so oily all the time.

lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 03:42 PM
Funny that you should mention salicylic acid, Wusel! Just this morning I gave T-Sal a try because I had a few bumps that I knew I'd scratch at if they didn't go away. It wasn't exfoliating, though. I don't know that I've seen an exfoliating shampoo! My concern with using super harsh shampoos is that my scalp will want to make even more oil to make up for it. I don't know if this is true.

Ellethwyn - I usually use conditioner from ears down only (my scalp in the back is fine with this even though it does get some conditioner).

lapushka
March 15th, 2016, 03:44 PM
Funny that you should mention salicylic acid, Wusel! Just this morning I gave T-Sal a try because I had a few bumps that I knew I'd scratch at if they didn't go away. It wasn't exfoliating, though. I don't know that I've seen an exfoliating shampoo! My concern with using super harsh shampoos is that my scalp will want to make even more oil to make up for it. I don't know if this is true.

Ellethwyn - I usually use conditioner from ears down only (my scalp in the back is fine with this even though it does get some conditioner).

For me this isn't true. But it could be true for others. You have to experiment with this. Some get less oil production from using milder things (sulfate-free; CO) and others (like me) just can't go that route and get even more oily when using those methods.

I think it's safe to say that if you've tried it all... just stick to what works and what prolongs a wash the longest for you.

lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 03:47 PM
I would absolutely do that if anything worked. I guess I was looking for advice on things that I haven't yet tried, since what I have tried hasn't worked.

lapushka
March 15th, 2016, 03:55 PM
Well... I'm out of options really. I don't think there's much else to try. :shrug:

lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 03:59 PM
Thanks anyway. I will see if anyone else has a suggestion.

Arctic
March 15th, 2016, 04:06 PM
Maybe some root volume would help. Blowdrying upside down, using the diffuser attachment to fluff the roots, clipping the roots curly girl style as they air dry... something like that.

My experience with chemical exfoliants is that they seem to make the sebum flow even more bountiful :p

(PS. Salicylic acid shampoo = exfoliant.)

For mechanical exfoliating, brown sugar or sea salt (fine grain) scalp scrubs are lovely. (Usually I choose sea salt, and I just mix it, with my shampoo.)

I wish I could give good tips. My hair used to be like yours, but it seems to have calmed down a tiny bit. Instead of 12 hours, it gets visibly oily after 36 hours or so :o. I think simply age but also my coarsened and volumized hair type have had their affects.

ETA: Oh and touching my hair, especially with my hands, makes it oilier faster.

Swan Maiden
March 15th, 2016, 04:10 PM
Do you use a moisturizer on your face? I had greasy scalp this winter and I figured out it was from my face cream migrating into my hair. I had such dry skin that I needed a heavy face cream.

Do you touch your hair a lot?

Eta: Do you use a brush? If so, is it cleaned often?

lapushka
March 15th, 2016, 04:16 PM
Ooh! One thing. Brushing it lots. I used to brush my hair a lot many many years ago, morning, and night, each day every day, and that was just too much. Now my hair only gets a brush through it weekly - it helps! Not only with the oil production, but with my wave pattern as well.

lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 04:20 PM
Maybe some root volume would help. Blowdrying upside down, using the diffuser attachment to fluff the roots, clipping the roots curly girl style as they air dry... something like that.

My experience with chemical exfoliants is that they seem to make the sebum flow even more bountiful :p

(PS. Salicylic acid shampoo = exfoliant.)

For mechanical exfoliating, brown sugar or sea salt (fine grain) scalp scrubs are lovely. (Usually I choose sea salt, and I just mix it, with my shampoo.)

I wish I could give good tips. My hair used to be like yours, but it seems to have calmed down a tiny bit. Instead of 12 hours, it gets visibly oily after 36 hours or so :o. I think simply age but also my coarsened and volumized hair type have had their affects.

ETA: Oh and touching my hair, especially with my hands, makes it oilier faster.

I haven't tried blow-drying in years. Maybe I'll give that a try. When I did blowdry regularly I can't remember what it was like - but I also used mousse, so that would have had an impact on how my hair felt then too.

Does mechanical exfoliating cause any damage that you can tell? I'd be worried about scrubbing too much, but it sounds like it would feel great!

Touching = oily for me too. That's part of the struggle with 2nd day hair. I have to use dry shampoo to make it presentable, but I have to touch it to use the dry shampoo which leads to even more oil...



Do you use a moisturizer on your face? I had greasy scalp this winter and I figured out it was from my face cream migrating into my hair. I had such dry skin that I needed a heavy face cream.

Do you touch your hair a lot?

Eta: Do you use a brush? If so, is it cleaned often?

I use argan oil as a face moisturizer, only at night. So my hair is washed after I put oil on my face. I also use OCM on my face, but at night only. I generally wear my hair up all day and don't touch it much. With the new bangs that's a struggle, but I've found that I can give them a twist and stick the end in my bun and they stay up just fine, so if I find myself messing with them I can stop.

I don't use a brush. Should I? I usually just finger-comb and/or use a horn comb.



Thank you both for the trouble-shooting and suggestions! As you can tell I am about at my wits end.

Swan Maiden
March 15th, 2016, 04:23 PM
If you are doing well without a brush, no need to change that. I have to wash my brush weekly because I feel it has buildup that leaves my hair greasy.

I hope you find a solution.

Swan Maiden
March 15th, 2016, 04:25 PM
Maybe try washing once a week with a squirt of blue Dawn dish soap. I know it sounds crazy but thats what I use when I feel my hair needs a restart.

Arctic
March 15th, 2016, 04:28 PM
No the salt/sugar scrub doesn't seem damaging at all. They both start to soften/dissolve when mixed with shampoo, sugar faster than fine sea salt, and this takes away rough edges. I never scrub so hard that it would hurt or be unpleasant, it feels really good and relaxing.

Salt can be drying if overused, but I have never noticed problems with salt scrubs, as they are not on your hair/scalp that long, and I don't use them very often. Sugar would be more moisturizing (humectant), but it might also worsen yeast based scalp conditions, if person has that.

I massage the salt scub on my scalp like I would normal shampoo, with the exception that I have more of it than I would have plain shampoo.

lillielil
March 15th, 2016, 04:30 PM
I am totally trying a salt scrub, because it sounds like it would feel great! Maybe salt + Dawn :D

lapushka
March 15th, 2016, 04:34 PM
I am totally trying a salt scrub, because it sounds like it would feel great! Maybe salt + Dawn :D

Who knows. It might well work! :)

Robi-Bird
March 15th, 2016, 04:43 PM
Absolutely give salt a try! I use it occasionally when I get cystic acne on my scalp, I've got a nasty one that I'm working on at the moment (screwed up and got conditioner from a deep treatment on my scalp, bad bad joojoo). Salt and dawn or salt and your shampoo, make a thick paste and massage in. I favour sugar for most exfoliation but salt is gold for the scalp, in my experience at least.

pinutzz
March 15th, 2016, 06:37 PM
I guess I am in the same boat as you, lillielil. Wearing my hair up every day, not playing with it, brushing once after shower, clean brush, no face cream, no conditioner on scalp and regardless of what shampoo in what concentration I use or when I wash my hair: after ~24-30 hours I look like I am wearing a helmet made from grease.

I think just as acne in teenagers is a hormonal issue so is an oily scalp. And any topical treatment can only deal with the symptoms - getting rid of the cause would probably require something so aggressive that daily shampooing seems very harmless in comparison.

For now I am using a home made dry shampoo (baby powder mixed with cornstarch) every other day, but I am actually not sure what is worse for my hair: the mechanical damage from applying dry shampoo or daily washing?

My hair is not long enough yet to make scalp washes a true alternative - I would get everything wet in the process. But as soon as my hair makes it to waist I will do that in place of dry shampoo or maybe alternatingly.

I hope you find a solution to your oily scalp issue - let me know if you do!

Arctic
March 16th, 2016, 02:22 AM
- - I use argan oil as a face moisturizer, only at night. So my hair is washed after I put oil on my face. I also use OCM on my face, but at night only. - -

You know, after sleeping on this, I think this ^ might be part of the issue - even if you use oils in the night and wash your hair in the morning. (BTW, do you also wash your face at any point with something soap/surfactant based, to remove the oils?)

My posts are often warning people about oils, even though I know that most people here love oils. I love oils too, but based on my own experience they have been very problematic for my skin, and I know I'm not the only one.

As a short back story, I have very acne prone skin, that is triggered (for example) from topical oils. As a new LHCer I got into oiling my hair post wash, as well as using oils in different deep treatments. My hair loved it but after a while my acne started to get slowly but progressively worse, until I had the worse acne of my life. I didn't immediately connect it to oils (I was going through very stressful time in my life and thought my skin was reacting to that), and I started to use strong topical acne medications without much help. After some time I started to have suspicions about oils, but was in a denial because I loved what oiling had done to my hair.

The thing was, that I never put oil on, or even near scalp (or face). I used very small quantities, my post wash oiling was a drop or two and deep treatments and such were probably done alternating between weekly-fortnightly-montly applications. I washed my hair often (tried to stretch from daily washing to little less frequent, avaraging probably every 24-48 hours) and while I had experimented with CO (didn't suit my scalp), diluting shampoo (same), sulphate free (ok but nothing special), and all that jazz, I usually used full strength sulphate shampoo to wash my hair with.

Yet, I had to finally admit the facts in front of me: the oils seemed to be able to travel upwards and onwards on my hair shafts, on my skin, and oil traces were probably on my pillow, my hands, my clothes. From the ends of my hair oil molecules were able to glide and migrate to my whole face. When I finally decided to try and quit oils as a test, I saw quick improvements on my skin (though it did take a longer time for it to calm down completely).

When my experiences/observations are combined with this: the success people have been having with the rinse out oil method and pre-shampoo oiling (etc.), which both seem to suggest that some oil is left behind even after washing. My observations and the theory behind these oiling methods combined, I have no doubt this same issue (or quality, however you want to see it) is valid and possible with skin too. That washing, even with surfactants/soap, will still leave some oils on the skin just like it can leave traces on hair (which can then glide around and travel along the skin/hair to larger area).

What I am trying to say, is, that even though you don't have acne issues yourself, I wouldn't be surprised if the oils you use on your face would seep into/onto your scalp (they do travel on skin and on hair) and from there to your roots and hair shafts, and wouldn't be completely washed off the next morning. In other words it's according to my observations complitely possible your are inactively oiling your roots/hair/scalp, and even with washing some traces are left behind. The placement of your oily area would support this theory.

(ETA: And if you happen to be one of those people for whom oiling scalp can cause excess shedding and hair loss, this might be even more serious, complex issue.)

The one question that comes to my mind is, whether this is an issue you have always had, or did it start after you started the facial oil usage? It is not very common (though not unheared of either) for people over 30 to have so oily skin/hair, that it gets visible oily after only some hours.

lillielil
March 16th, 2016, 07:40 AM
Arctic, thanks for coming back to this! First, I do wash my face with good ol' soap at least once a week. My wash oil is a mix of castor and either coconut or olive. I find that it completely dissolves any makeup, and since starting to use it regularly I have had absolutely zero acne, which is a nice change! I also find that my face is a lot less oily, oddly enough. I've always been cautious about putting oil on my skin after spending so long hearing "no oil, it will make acne worse", but my skin reacts so much better to this routine than to anything else I have ever tried. Before switching to oil cleansing I did not have bad acne (as an adult - sure did as a teen), but I did get a hormonal flare-up once a month that was pretty annoying.

I had oily scalp before using oils on my face. I've had it forever, as far as I know. Heck, I even had oily scalp when I was on Accutane many years ago, which dried everything else out to the point of being extremely painful. Even during that time I remember washing my hair in the morning and having to put it up in the afternoon because it already looked stringy.

All that aside, I'd be willing to try forgoing the oil for a while as an experiment. I don't know if I can go without anything on my face except soap since it does get a bit dry, but for the sake of science it might be worth it :)

Arctic
March 16th, 2016, 08:31 AM
I might be completely wrong, but this would somehow seem logical possible solution.

That's interesting your acne has gotten better with OC! I wouldn't even have guessed you have ever suffered a hint of acne! I have seen others mentioning many benefits from OC, but I can't even dream of trying :(. I got acne even from oil pulling, when I tried it few times.

To be honest I personally wouldn't use soap on my face either. I have been using a sulphate free cleansing gels for years, they are pretty gentle. Lately I have been testing micellar water. Soap and/or sulphates would make my surface dryness prone but very oily skin very dry on the surface.

lillielil
March 16th, 2016, 08:56 AM
Weird, right? I tried it on a whim (I generally do not buy into all the stuff about oil "drawing toxins out") and it worked really well for me. There was no "detox" period - just nice skin right away. And my skin was terrible for years. Hence the Accutane, after years of torture at the hands of several dermatologists, including Retin-A, long-course antibiotics that stained my teeth, and dry ice. As a teenager I pretty much wore pancake makeup every day. The Accutane made it tolerable, but as an adult I definitely had some lingering issues.

In general I prefer soap to detergent-based cleansers, which is why I had really hoped that shampoo bars would work for me. To be honest, I will probably try them again at some point in the future. The soap I use is usually homemade or similar. My skin has never really agreed with cleansing gels, but I'll give it another try with no moisturizer when DW gets home (I'm not going out to buy one, but will try hers). Isn't it weird how different things work for different people? I wish I knew why...

Swan Maiden
March 16th, 2016, 11:13 AM
I was wondering if a boar bristle brush would help to spread the oil down to your ends and away from your scalp...? I know your hair texture might not agree with a bbb. Just a thought.

lillielil
March 16th, 2016, 11:16 AM
I tried using a BBB in the past, but I think the brush I had was way too soft - it just poofed up my waves. I think I would need a much stiffer one to actually penetrate and move oils. I like the idea of it, though, since the ends of my hair do get pretty dry.

I should add that I put some salt in my shampoo this morning for a scrub. It melted pretty much immediately (will try slightly coarser kosher salt next time) but felt nice.

Arctic
March 19th, 2016, 04:31 AM
Any updates?