WO- question

[coscass]

I just ran out of conditioner. Now that I actually have incentive, I'm going to try WO for a while. My hair adapted to CO and loved it instantly- could my hair adapt to WO quickly, too? Say a week or two? Three max?

I'm just curious. I have dry, coarse, curly hair. Is WO better for certain types, or can anyone try it? The top of my head feels like a greasepit. It's something I haven't felt since starting CO, so it's definitely a strange sensation. Should I try brushing gently with a BBB to distribute some of this sebum down the shaft, or should I avoid it, since I am a curl head?

[countryhopper]

I've done (still doing) no poo, with occasionaly WO, so I'm not an expert. But curly hair is usually drier too, right? In which case WO could be very good for your hair. Transition time depends on your own hair/scalp and how often you currently use shampoo/conditioner (every-day usage might mean your hair makes more oil at the beginning will the sebum production gets used to the new change and stops overproducing)


Check out the official water only thread; I'm sure you'll find a lot more helpful advice than I can give!

[Hiriel]

I agree that the length of the transition period will definitely depend on how often you wash your hair now. I washed once or twice per week when I went WO, and my hair didn't reach the "OMG greaseball!" state until I'd gone 4 weeks with only water. Then I washed it with shampoo to get rid of the built up grease in my hair, and the next time I was able to go much longer, I think it was 8 weeks, without washing. Then I went 100% for some time, but now I've settled on washing about once per month.

I don't know about WO itself, but it's often accompanied by the use of BBBs to brush gunk out of the hair, and to move oils down the length. For what I understand, they don't tend to treat curly hair very nicely at all. But I don't use my brush much, and while I'm not 100% WO I hardly wash my hair a lot.

[Firegarnet]

I'd try lots of massaging, and preening with fingers. I still don't do enough myself, but you need to do more of that, I think, if you stay away from BBB (whether because they ruin curls or because they won't go through your hair-like they won't with mine).

Good luck! Transition and acceptance seems to vary from person to person.

[Anje]

I think it took me 4-6 weeks to adapt to WO from CO, when I did it. There was definitely a greaseball stage in there, which I combated by daily rinsing and sometimes doing a vinegar rinse, which seems to cut the grease for me when water won't remove enough. I didn't use the BBB all that much, largely because it mostly seems to cause an oil slick on the first 6 inches of hair and doesn't move oils any further than that for me. It also seems hard on my fine hair. I suspect that you'll do OK without the BBB, or else that you'll only want to brush before rinsing, to preserve the curls. Water was more effective for me than the brush was at moving sebum.

Dry curly hair often does well with WO, if I remember, though there are straighties who do it too.

My downfall was that my length just never got enough moisture, even though I oiled it regularly to supplement the sebum. It just plain prefers getting conditioner, but it would take 2 weeks for my hair to go back to its normal WO feel after conditioning.

[farewell_nancy]

I've read some people do baking soda rinses while they transition to cut down on the oil. I'd rather not do that since I've heard it can be very drying, but could and an occasional egg-wash work without throwing off my attempt?

[kjirstiben]

As a curly WO'er... I've found that WO really makes my hair feel great (moisturized, soft, etc, etc), but that I end up sacrificing a lot of the curl. It's difficult to do WO without a lot of hair-touching, either with a BBB or combing/preening, so curls tend not to stay defined. (I think there are a couple WOers on the official thread who've experimented with curly no-touching along with WOing.)

Personally, I don't mind my hair texture looking more like 2a/2b because of all the brushing, because it feels so nice, instead of the typically "crunchy" dry feel that I get with it. Since you're not artificially removing your sebum, the hair doesn't frizz when it's brushed, it just smooths out. I suspect, as well, that I could probably achieve a curly look the day after a WO, as long as I don't mess with it.

However, your hair should help with the transition stage--though I had a teeny bit of the oily look behind my ears and on the underside of my hair, it's so naturally dry on the top layers that it pretty much absorbed everything. (Though it did darken up for a couple weeks, which was odd.)

Hope this helps! Good luck to you with your WO experiment!