Looking to extend washing...tips?

[GoldberryHair]

I wash my hair every other day, which is good, but I know the longer you go without washing it the better, my roots start to get pretty greasy at the end of the second day...any tips on how to extend my washing life? lol I know there are dry shampoos out there but I don't know which ones are good, and how good they are really for your hair...

[buttercupmcgee]

I am partial to baby powder instead of a dry shampoo. I sprinkle it along my part or surrounding my face if I'm wearing it pulled back, and rub, then comb it in. It soaks up the oil. The only draw back is I have to pay some extra attention during the rubbing part because my hair is dark and I want to blend the white away. But, having light hair this should be smooth sailing for you.

A good boar bristle brush will also redistribute the oil, so I find that using one and then flipping my head over and tying it into a high bun helps conceal the dirt. If it's still too oily for your liking try either sprinkling some baby powder/dry shampoo on top, or using a cute headband/ scarf.

[Madora]

I wash my hair every other day, which is good, but I know the longer you go without washing it the better, my roots start to get pretty greasy at the end of the second day...any tips on how to extend my washing life? lol I know there are dry shampoos out there but I don't know which ones are good, and how good they are really for your hair...

To help remove oil, cover your brush with a white cotton sock then brush.

To help extend washings, brush your hair with a clean brush every day. I "quick" wash my bbb every day by using a nail brush and scrubbing over the bristles, then rinsing with cold water and then laying it (bristles side down) on a micro fiber towel. My hair tends to be on the dry side, so I don't have a problem with extending washes (I shampoo once a month).

I'd steer clear of dry shampoos. They clean by friction, something your hair doesn't need.

[kdaniels8811]

The less you wash your hair the less it will need washed ... eventually. It takes several weeks for your scalp to stop producing so much oil so try extending by a day for a week or more, then by two days, etc. Maybe you are already doing this, in which case I apologize. My hair used to be greasy by the end of the day so I sometimes washed twice a day! As I have gotten older and found LHC, I stretched washings and now wash the scalp only about every 5 days or so. Good luck! And protect those long ends with oils or conditioners when you do wash.

[sun-kissed]

I'm currently stretching my every-day routine to once a week, or longer if I can.

What I'm doing is I started washing every-other day for 3 weeks(with dry shampoo, but I had to stop because of nasty buildup), then every three days for 3 weeks, then every four days for 3 weeks. Right now I'm trying to go a whole week, so I'm skipping from every four days to every seven days. I can easily go four days now, but today is day five and it doesn't look so good. :p

I'm not one to cover up my oily hair(homeschoolers can have bad hair days, no one sees it but the cat!), so if you're looking for tips on that I can't really help that much. You should wear it up 24/7, keep your fringe or long bangs away from your face, and stay away as much as possible from dry shampoo, as it causes dirty-looking buildup if you don't wash the day after you use it. I know some people buy scarves and such to wear on their worse days, if it doesn't interfere with their work dress code.

[hs_atreides]

I washed once a week for six months and I never had my oil production decrease. I did get used to slick-do's, lol. It seems that some people have great luck with decrease washing and oil production normalizing but some (like me) don't.
Baby powder worked for me, but I also had to blend it in carefully.

[spidermom]

All that happened when I tried to extend the time between washings is that I got used to having icky-looking hair. It wasn't worth it.

[longcurlygirl<3]

Massaging your scalp and do the snowy moon's method helped a lot for me. Or k=just spraying water on my top hair and smoothing it down help + keeping it up and getting use to it :)

[Night_Kitten]

I've read somewhere on this forum about a cocoa powder being used instead of a dry shampoo on darker hair, as it blends better as opposed to the white powders. I haven't tried it myself though, so can't tell you how well it works / doesn't work...

[Chetanlaiho]

I just started using batiste dry shampoo (the one with the nice scent xD) and I love it! I only use it on my bangs though, don't really care if my length looks greasy ;)

But it leaves my super, super oily bangs (honestly if I'd oiled them they would hardly look any different) fresh, bouncy and looking like I just washed it with shampoo! (which makes it drier but fluffier, the dry shampoo just makes it fluffier, which I like ;))

[Kelikea]

Have you tried CO washes? I've recently switched to CO and now my oil production is less. Something about washing/shampooing more=body produces more oil to replace what was washed away. (A vicious cycle.) It can happen with your face or your scalp. OCM has helped my face and CO (VO5 vanilla mint tea) for my hair and scalp. Now I CO 1-2x a week and castor oil 1x a week. Good luck!

[Airmide]

I started out by switching to CO and going from every day to every three days and then extending a bit longer. I was a big greaseball for about 3 weeks while my scalp adjusted, but now I've been able to stretch much longer. I hardly ever wash my hair more often than every 2 weeks and often go longer than that. Now I do CWC (actually CWWC) with VO5 or I've started experimenting with sulfate free like Nature's Gate.

PLEASE be careful if you're using baby powder!! Read the ingredients, as talc is usually in baby powder and is very bad for you, especially if you inhale it! You can use corn starch, which is safe. Some baby powder uses corn starch instead of talc so you may be able to use that.

Personally I haven't tried the powdering to extend washes. I thought it would just feel like gunk on my scalp. I guess I could try it sometime, but if it might damage my hair I wouldn't want to risk it. It sounds fun now though, since I thought maybe I could add some perfume oil and scent the powder!

Also you could try scalp-only washes. I'm not very good at them so they usually turn out to be scalp-waist only washes lol, but it's still better for my ends. I roll my hair up and put it into a plastic bag, then hold that as much as possible above shoulder length.

And updos can really help getting through any greasy stage. I start out wearing my hair down for the first several days, even a week. Then I switch to half-ups, then braids, then french braids, and end with buns.

[SwordWomanRiona]

I've starting using Klorane's dry shampoo (the nettle-based one for greasy hair) this Summer and it works great for me :). I use it as sporadically as I can and only to the roots, which are the ones that get too greasy too soon. I'm a bit preocuppied about the small damage I could perhaps be causing when brushing the powder off (with my very fine hair, it gets charged, but I must brush it a bit thoroughly to get the white off!)...but I've had no build-up problems, because I only use it in 'emergency situations' the day before I normally wash or the morning before I wash. So no problems for me there...
Another thing that has helped me stretch washes a bit is tea-rinses, because tea is astringent and works well against greasy hair. I tea-rinse once a week.

Before I started tea-rinsing or using dry shampoos, I just tried to make my greasy roots presentable by wearing my hair up and smoothing away the nasty creases with a brush, again and again. It looked reasonably fine, but I am bugged to death by my greasy roots when I have to go out and can't wash my hair, so dry shampoo has been a life-saver for me. So don't go making me afraid to use it, people! :p (I don't use it everyday, anyway).

[SwordWomanRiona]

I'd steer clear of dry shampoos. They clean by friction, something your hair doesn't need.

The only thing that makes me a bit apprehensive before dry shampoos is the fact that I have to brush the same area of (fine) hair rather thoroughly, but I don't think that has damaged my hair, because I do it as gently as I can and I dry-shampoo as sporadically as I can, too. Plus I don't massage the dry-shampoo at all, I just spray, leave it in the hair for a couple of minutes, brush the stuff off. And it works great for me, I don't need all the friction to make the shampoo work :D! (In fact, I didn't even know I was supposed to massage the dry-shampooed area...). That's positive, I suppose :).

[bushy]

I love to go to the salon for a wash and condition. Then I CO only after about 4 days. Seems like I can go without a wash for much longer this way. At first the oil was horrible after the 3 day but after doing this recently for 3 months, my hair is fine by the 4th day and I am ready to do 5 days this week.

[Cassie 123]

This article by Igor (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=77) has a quirky tip for getting your scalp a little cleaner: give your scalp a little blast of cold water right before or during your wash to get a little more sebum washed out of your pores.

I'll second the recommendation for COing, using an oil-free conditioner and thoroughly washing the scalp. Here's another article by Igor (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/vbjournal.php?do=article&articleid=70) about a way to make CO even more cleansing. You can follow up with a richer conditioner that you keep well away from your scalp.

Also, I would say to stretch your washes just one day past your visual comfort zone; nobody else will notice your greasy roots if your hair is up. Don't, however, stretch washes past the point where your scalp actually feels itchy or uncomfortable.

This is all assuming that you actually want to stretch washes, because washing is a chore or because you prefer second day hair. If you don't actually want to do it, then for goodness sake wash your hair as often as you like. It's not going to stop you from growing long, beautiful hair.

[LadyInBlack]

This is all assuming that you actually want to stretch washes, because washing is a chore or because you prefer second day hair. If you don't actually want to do it, then for goodness sake wash your hair as often as you like. It's not going to stop you from growing long, beautiful hair.

Agreed. I wash every other day, and often daily. My hair looks and feels healthier when I wash more often.

[Vallena]

Also, I would say to stretch your washes just one day past your visual comfort zone; nobody else will notice your greasy roots if your hair is up. Don't, however, stretch washes past the point where your scalp actually feels itchy or uncomfortable.

This is what helped me the most when I was first increasing the length of time between my washes. My hair was so used to being washed frequently, it produced more sebum than necessary.

[Flying Penguin]

Reading this thread has inspired me to stretch my washes. :) I wash every 2-3 days. The third day is kinda greasy. But I would love to cut back to only washing once a week (or as long as I can!) It would save a lot of time. :) I think I'll wash every 3 days until it looks only a tad bit greasy on the third day, then try 4 days.

Question: If you "break the cycle" once (wash earlier than the scheduled wash day) will that mess it up and your hair will go back to getting greasy earlier? I'm just thinking about if there's a particular day that I want freshly washed hair, how bad messing up the "schedule" would be. :)

[Cassie 123]

Question: If you "break the cycle" once (wash earlier than the scheduled wash day) will that mess it up and your hair will go back to getting greasy earlier? I'm just thinking about if there's a particular day that I want freshly washed hair, how bad messing up the "schedule" would be. :)

No, not at all. It's easily varied. Using a harsher-than-usual shampoo can give some people rebound greasies, though.

[LunaMoon]

I had to do some changes in my diet to be able to stretch washings. I cut sugar, processed food (no diet stuff or fake sugar) and my skin and scalp are much healthier now (acne is gone!). I was used do have very oily scalp after 1 day and now I can wash my hair every 4 days or more.
My hair is much better now. Of course is not the effect of this 2 months diet, but I am sure is the result of not washing so often.

[proo]

I'm a once-a-week distilled WO wash gal - what's made all the difference for me is learning how to get the oil and wax from my scalp to my ends. It's a combination of regular gentle preening and interestingly, the crown braid because it tucks my ends up next to my scalp all day.

[archel]

I'm unable to stretch washes, BUT I am also unable to wash daily because my ends get dry. The best balance for me is every other day with a very very mild SLS-free shampoo and a very moisturizing condish on the ends down. Anything else just puts me in hair hell...

[WinterButterfly]

If you normally was on day 1 and 3 and 5 and so on, then what I would do is wash day 1, rinse with only water day 3, then wash day 5. That way dirt is still being taken off and oil rinsed and distributed a bit. On day 4 you will probably still feel a little oily. But it wouldn't be as bad as not rinsing on day three. And if you wanted to streach washes more, putting a little distance between the water only rinse and the first wash could do the trick. It is not as damaging as shampooing all the time. But your scalp should still feel nice. I usually wash my hair 2 to 3 times a week, depending on how often I am leaving the house. I usually wash Friday Tuesday and sometimes Thursday. If I wash Thursday I don't wash friday . But I may wash Saturday. Basically I go 2 to 3 days without washing. But I'm going to start streaching my washes more again because wet hair is annoying to me. I got into the habbit of washing too much when I wanted more fresh hair for when I was in class. Yep, I'm a little vain. I like to show off my longer hair when I get the chance.