Fine hair gets greasy easily but the ends are dry and split easily-- help?

[HoneyDayTripper]

Hi!

So I have hennaed hair that is bra strap length, and I am growing out my bangs. They're at the awkward length--

I have two issues:

1. The longer my hair gets, the thinner /flatter it seems to be. So I decided to grow out my bangs to get some volume and fullness back.

2. My bangs are constantly greasy, but my ends are split and brittle and dry as hell. I rely on dry shampoo, but I suspect it's messing with my scalp. Whenever I wash my hair, I feel my bangs/scalp and it feels so awful and dry from dry shampoo. But how does one have bangs and fine hair and not use dry shampoo?

Possible problems:

-Harsh shampoo? I was using SLS shampoo (various drugstore brands) and Aussie deeeep conditioner. Maybe this is silicone overload combined with too stripping of a shampoo. But then I switched to sulfate free and it tangles like mad. I was amazed that my Maui conditioner stopped the greasy scalp problem, but then it seemed to make the rest of my hair stick together in chunks/strings and is impossible to detangle.

-I love my hot baths. Yikes. I take one every day. Now, I try to wash my hair quickly and then get it out of the water the rest of the bath and rinse in cold water when I get out.

-I've gotten lazy about coconut oil. I used to do that all the tie, but then I switched to It's a Ten detangler and that worked well for a long time.

I can rule out:

Hot tool damage. I don't blow dry my hair (except for bangs) and I don't use curling irons or flat irons.

Malnutrition-- I've been taking prenatal vitamins and omegas faithfully.

What do you think?

I'm planning to just switch back and forth between a sulfate free gentle shampoo and regular SLS shampoo and see if that helps. I'll do the same with silicone and natural conditioners. I'm also going to start oiling as in "pre pooing" with coconut oil.

[MusicalSpoons]

Dry ends = you need to condition more. Maybe CWC or WCC, even leaving one on for a long time. Pre-poo with oil can be great, as long as your hair likes the oil you use; some people's hair adores coconut oil and for others it makes it crunchy, so just see how it goes :) if not, whatever plant oil you have on hand, even for cooking, would probably do the job. HOWEVER maybe start by clarifying - shampooing your whole hair with silicone-free sulphate shampoo, to get rid of any build-up, then deep condition it. That way you're starting afresh.

Do your shampoos contain silicones?

There's is a middle ground between the harsher SLS shampoos and sulphate-free: just SLES (usually with cocamidopropyl-betaine). Also some sulphate-free shampoos use sodium olefin sulphonate which can often be as bad as SLS, people report it as drying.

Oh, henna - maybe your hair doesn't like protein (I wonder if that may have been the problem with Maui? :hmm:) because the henna acts like protein itself and often any extra is too much for hennaed hair.

Just some thoughts, I hope there may be something useful in there :)

[shelomit]

My hair type and troubles are very different so I don't have specific advice, but if you are worried about the heat of the bath affecting your hair you could put it into a shower cap on days when you're not washing it or for the rest of the bath after you've washed it. It sounds very obvious, but I hate to get my hair wet without reason and only recently started using shower caps--extremely helpful!

[Laurab]

Just a thought, do you ever wash just your bangs?
You can do it in the sink or something with a gentle shampoo. That way you're not washing your whole head as often, but you can reduce the dry shampoo?

[HoneyDayTripper]

Thank you! I don’t know about my ingredients but I will do some research. I’m going to oil more. I know my hair used to love it. I’m also looking at my profile history and seeing ibises to use Palmers shampoo years ago. Might be worth trying cause I had healthy hair then. Going to cleanse and deep condition for a fresh start.

[MamaLou]

I also have fine hair (but a lot of it) and my hair gets greasy as well. If I stretch my washes I use the greasy hair to my advantage by making braided styles, like double dutch braids. I mostly wash my hair every other day because I don't like having greasy hair.

My hair used to be the exact same as yours (dry ends) and my problem stopped when I started doing CWC (conditioner - wash - conditioner), ROO (rinse out oil, i use coconut oil), and LCO (liquid, water in my case - cream, i use leave in conditioner - oil, i use coconut oil). You can find more about those techniques on if you search on this forum. For me silicone, sulphate, silicone-free, and sulphate-free products work all great on my hair, I only avoid shampoos with silicones because that doesn't work with my scalp.

[elsiedeluxe]

This is my hair too, fine and very straight. I don't use dry shampoo at all, and it seems possible that it could be causing some of your damage. I really like to oil my ends, and find that the oil I use (argan) disappears into my hair pretty quickly, while still providing some slip and some protection. I do not try to stretch washes, because as you note, fine thin hair gets greasy looking quickly. I wash when I'm going to be out and about, always. Sometimes this means every other day, sometimes this means every day. I think it's ok to shampoo more often as long as the conditioner you're using is moisturizing.

I also like to take hot baths. I find that if I don't do something for my hair in the bath, it will tangle terribly when I get out. Usually I put oil on it when I get out of the tub, but sometimes I'll just wash and condition in the bath. For a while I was into rinsing with vinegar in the bath, and that gives my hair a lot of slip without moisture, so could be good for stretching washes.

But overall, I've made peace with the fact that stretching washes just doesn't work for hair like mine. I'm amazed when people can wash once a week or twice a month, but I notice that they usually have coarse or curly hair, and for them infrequent washing works just fine. Not for me.

[spidermom]

I love to take hot baths, too. However, it makes my scalp sweat (especially when I tried a shower cap), and as a result I have to wash my hair more often. Now I make myself wait until my hair is getting oily at the scalp, which means I wash my hair and take a hot bath about twice a week. On those days, I oil the ends and wear braids for the day. At the end of that day, I wet my hair, apply deep conditioner from neck level down, coil my hair at the back of my neck, and enjoy my hot bath. I finish with a shower to rinse out the conditioning treatment, wash my scalp, then condition the ends again. This seems to prevent my ends from getting dry.

[lapushka]

In between washes, I used to put my hair in a ponytail and wash my bangs in the sink. Easy and a lot better than dry shampoo!

[ZoeZ]

I have medium fine hair, and I've found that wetting my hair before shampooing, and then putting conditioner on the length below my ears and using shampoo only on my scalp has really helped curtail split ends. This seems to protect the ends from drying out from the shampoo.

I don't wash the ends at all, even though the shampoo runs down into them as I wash, and just rinse as normal. Then I condition again, rinse and use a small dab of conditioner on the length/ends as a leave in - my scalp doesn't like conditioner, I break out in tiny bumps if I don't rinse and use it as a leave-in, hence only doing the length/ends after the final rinse.

This may or may not work for you, but maybe gives you some ideas for protecting your ends. Cheers.

[FrayedFire]

Dry shampoo is the devil. How did the changes you made work for you?