Problems with water only... Thoughts?

[JennaSaisPas]

Hello all!

I've been lurking for some months, reading in the forums and archives, and I must say that I'm delighted by this place!

In all my travels here on LHC, I'm not coming up with the specific answer to my issue. I was hoping that someone who has done water only would chime in here. :)

I've been trying WO for at least 3 months now. I was a shampoo and conditioner in every shower kind of girl my whole life. In the past couple of years, I whittled down hair washing to once or twice a week, mainly because I air dry, and that's time consuming.
My scalp felt so horribly gross after 1 month that I did a baking soda scalp scrub and an ACV rinse to quell the itchies. That left me with squeaky clean scalp, and tons of gunky sebum about 3 inches down the length of my hair, mainly at the crown.

After about another month, I did a brown sugar / conditioner scalp scrub, because of the itchies again. Still, the sebum was in clumps at the crown.

I did buy a natural bristle brush at Whole Foods. It's a largish oval head, and I can see that there are some plastic bristles in there also. I've been using that, but admittedly, I am probably not brushing as often as I should. I don't want the plastic bristles to damage my hair, and I haven't found a BBB yet. I found Snowy's massage technique, and intend to try that. I did try dry bentonite clay as a dry shampoo in month one, and I couldn't brush it all out. I possibly used too much clay.

Anyhow, more than 3 months in, my hair is still gross. Gross as in I take my hair down and it stays in the same shape like I used too much pomade gross. I do my hair half up ( yay for retro 40's styles! ) and the remainder in a pony every day because I have to. If I leave my hair down, the back of my head looks way greasy and skanky. I don't need any product to hold the styles, thanks to all the sebum.

I'm not finding dirt in my hair, although I am trapping lint from my sheets. Eew. As a waitress, I sweat, but I'm not finding odor a problem, nor am I finding my hair is not coming clean. I don't think my roots are extremely greasy, but they aren't clean.

The issue I'm having is that, this far in, my hair still looks like a greasy, clumpy mess. I don't feel like the oils are washing out. They definitely aren't moving down the hair shaft, and even where they are, I feel like more and more is clumping over the crown of my head. I was expecting this for 6 to 8 weeks, but I'm past the 15th!

Can anyone make a suggestion as to what I'm doing wrong? I live in Atlanta, where the water does suck. I have fine hair, but a ton of it, and long as well. The longest bits are bra strap length at the moment. I've had waist and butt length before, but I want to get this under control before I regrow.

I wanted to possibly do an oil treatment soon, but I also use the OCM for my skin, and I'm worried that an oil treatment and subsequent washing out of the oil might make me have to start WO all over again.

Help?

[EmiliaF]

Hi :)

I am not WO yet, but am trying to stretch washes and get away from 'conventional' shampoo (trying the baking soda/ ACV thing).
What I do on days when my hair does not look at all presentable is using corn starch as a dry shampoo. I just take some, rub my hands together so it gets distributed evenly and then run my hands through my hair (just at the roots). Then you can just brush it out, although it's best to use a BBB for this. Without a BBB I would just leave it in for a while and then maybe rinse with water. It definitely soaks up some of the oil.
Also, maybe you've heard of the baking soda/ apple cider vinegar method. You use sodium bicarbonate in water as a shampoo and ACV as a conditioner, because it closes the hair cuticle.

Other than that I've only tried Rhassoul clay once and I think I used too much because my hair was really dry afterwards. I'm a little careful with it now, but might try to use a tiny little bit with the baking soda if this doesn't work anymore at some point...

Hope this helps!

[Anje]

I wouldn't be too worried about a nylon/bbb blend brush damaging your hair. The nylon's just there to help it penetrate a bit more deeply. Try using it daily -- they're great for lint removal!

What temperature do you wash your hair with? When I did WO, I tended to just rinse warm, but I think a lot of people get better results if they cycle the water temperature warm-cool-warm or just warm-cool. Seems like the cool water helps move sebum a bit better.

Another thing that helped me (especially given that I had fairly hard water) was to do a dilute vinegar rinse most of the time when I washed. It seemed like the vinegar dissolved and helped remove a greater amount of sebum than the water alone would touch. Also kept the minerals from building up.

[ratgirldjh]

Something that worked for me when I was on w/o was when my hair got extremely waxy I would do a heavy oiling with VCO mixed with lavender or rosemary oil. Then over the next several days wash out the oil with water only. You will have oily hair for a while doing this - but it really helps the built up sebum dissolve. When I finally washed out the VCO completely (about day 3) my hair was soft, shiny and felt more 'normal'. After this I was able to go back to w/o with no problems.

Using the water hose with the spray attachment (outside) really seemed to help get the oil off.

[JennaSaisPas]

What temperature do you wash your hair with? When I did WO, I tended to just rinse warm, but I think a lot of people get better results if they cycle the water temperature warm-cool-warm or just warm-cool. Seems like the cool water helps move sebum a bit better.

Another thing that helped me (especially given that I had fairly hard water) was to do a dilute vinegar rinse most of the time when I washed. It seemed like the vinegar dissolved and helped remove a greater amount of sebum than the water alone would touch. Also kept the minerals from building up.

I usually am all about the hot water, but I've dropped to warm with a cold finish. It's a bit awkward to balance a need for hot water to generate steam for the OCM face method, but not boil my hair... Anyhow, maybe the temp change will do well for me.

Also, I was only doing periodic ACV rinses, but maybe I should up those for a while.

I did a light CO a couple of days ago to break up the gunk... It helped a little, and I kept the product away from my scalp. Also, since then, the oil has moved a bit better with the brush. The sebum definitely got further down the hair length!

Thanks for the suggestions!

[JennaSaisPas]

Something that worked for me when I was on w/o was when my hair got extremely waxy I would do a heavy oiling with VCO mixed with lavender or rosemary oil. Then over the next several days wash out the oil with water only. You will have oily hair for a while doing this - but it really helps the built up sebum dissolve. When I finally washed out the VCO completely (about day 3) my hair was soft, shiny and felt more 'normal'. After this I was able to go back to w/o with no problems.

Using the water hose with the spray attachment (outside) really seemed to help get the oil off.

ROFL!!! I am totally doing that outside when my neighbor has gone to work. I have a feeling that the dog will be confused by my head cleansing method... :D

I may try the oiling, and put the tail of my hair in a bun while at work. The top bit looks fine oily, but the length could get gross... Like I mentioned earlier, I did a light CO on the length only, and that helped.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[nellreno]

I've only tried WO for a while. We have such hard water here that it didn't really work out no matter what I did.

But, one thing that does help me get the gunk away from my scalp is oiling it (I get the clumps at my crown too). I have a bottle of castor oil and coconut oil that I've mixed together and I massage it all over my scal, it really helps to get the gunk away from my skin and I can wash it out easier. With WO I don't know how well it will get out oil, if you want to try it you might have to experiment a bit.

[spidermom]

Try rubbing your finger down the skin behind your ears and smell it. That will tell you whether you're odor free or not.

I apply conditioner to my length first, then dilute my shampoo and wash whenever needed. I don't think I could tolerate what would happen if I didn't.

[pelicano]

My hair got incredibly dry (ends anyway) when water only, which was probably from all the hard water. I gave up on it when I leaned on a restaurant window and left a greasy white mark from the sebum!

[Proximity]

I transferred to bs and acv about 3 weeks ago. I can't give any wo advice because I haven't tried it, but I did find when my hair became so greasy after the first two weeks that I was at the end of my tether with it and almost ready to reach for the shampoo bottle that washing with eggs really helped clarify the grease out of it and gave me a fresh start. Since then my hair has been much better and I think the transistion is over. So that might be something you can try, just until your hair has really got used to being WO washed:)

[silverjen]

I was WO for years, took a break from it with shampoo bars, and am now WO again. Two things that help me with the greasies are a strong black tea rinse, and using apple sauce as a mask.

For the apple sauce, make sure you're using the no sugar added variety. I dump it on dry hair and work it through until all my hair is pretty well coated. Hang out half an hour, then rinse it out in the shower. It leaves my hair clean and soft.

Oh, and an occasional wash won't set you back any. If you just can't stand the greasies any longer, go ahead and use some diluted shampoo, then go back to WO. You'll find your hair stays clean a really long time after the wash.

[DoubleCrowned]

I started out WO in the shower with nice, warm to hot showers, which turned out to be much of the reason my hair got gooier and gooier.

I had good luck when I was about to give up on WO by first distributing the sebum with an oiled comb, oiling the ends and waiting until morning to wash. Then I washed, combed and brushed until comb and brush were gooey, and washed again-- with a fresh comb and brush ready. I think I went through the process three times that day, each time trying to spread sebum to the ends while in the shower, and trying to collect as much as I could on the comb and brush afterwards. After the third wash and dry, my hair looked okay in an up-do.

Next I powdered my hair with cornstarch before bed and rinsed it out in the morning. By this time I had learned that my shower water had been too hot in the past, so I washed the cornstarch out in room-temperature water in the sink. That was the turning point for me.

Now, I am keeping my hair away from warm showers. Instead I stick my head in the shower while the water is cool or wash it in the sink. I sleep with cornstarch in my hair if it appears that plain WO might not do the job in the morning, and oil the ends sometimes to encourage the sebum to spread to them. My hair looks and feels clean now. (about 9 weeks WO I think)

[Vervaine]

I second colder washes. Also, if you have hard water that could be a big part of the issue. Try rinsing with distilled water or some sort of acid wash, and brush brush brush. The WO transition is a rather maintenance-intense beast.

[proo]

Distilled water made all the difference for me - half gallon in a basin, soak length while using a wash cloth to smooth sebum away from the scalp. I also stroke my ends against my scalp when braided and dry.

[Hiriel]

If you've not washed your hair at all since going WO, only your scalp, I'd suggest trying to wash it once, quite simply! It'll get rid of your buildup, and if your scalp has adjusted to WO, it won't get greasy again in a loooong time. I washed after 4 weeks of WO and then after 8 more weeks, or something like that. Even though I'm not WO anymore, I don't think my hair has been greasy since ;)

[IanB]

I use shampoo a maximum of once a week after soaking with coconut oil the night before, otherwise it's tepid water only