How long have you gone without washing your hair?

[xcrunr2go]

I'm curious to know, anybody just don't ever wash their hair? What are the results? Any pros/cons? I'm starting to get greasy after 1 week but I've heard the grease will subside & eventually your hair will self clean......

[caadam]

You should visit the NW/SO thread (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=144)! The people over there never wash their hair. They use the sebum from their scalp as a coating over the hair shaft, and will use a number of different methods to keep their hair and scalp maintained.

Maybe you can read through the thread and get an idea. Ask them questions. Everyone in that thread is super nice and helpful. :)

As for myself, I pop in it every once in a while, but I'm a WO person. The longest I've gone without washing my hair has been a little over a week recently. I just washed my hair tonight. lol

[Bunnysaur]

I think I once made it two days :p

[Amanah]

I've made it 3 days, but then I feel the need to use a dry shampoo, which makes my hair tangle. My hair is only shoulder length. I'm betting that it's easier to go without washing when you hair is much longer then mine.

[Ticky]

I think the longest I made it (since starting puberty, before that it would never get greasy really) was about two weeks. I wash once a week now.

[bte]

The theory is that if you never wash your hair, it adjusts to the situation and self cleans. I think it might work for some, but for others it doesn't. Certainly worth a try!
One factor which I think is important is fresh air. If you are outside in the open air a lot, then I suspect it is easier for your hair not to get too greasy than if you are in an indoor environment, especially if it is very hot or humid and/or there are smells in the air. Working as a pizza cook would be a fairly extreme example!
As for myself, I have occasionally, through illness or on two occasions, living for a short time in a place where the washing facilities were so disgusting that I thought it cleaner to avoid them as much as possible, I have not washed my hair for between a week and ten days. I felt particularly sticky at about day five, beyond that the self cleaning process seemed to set in, and I felt a lot better. However, I still felt a lot better still when I was able to wash my hair again.

[tigereye]

Most recently, 11 days. When I was a kid I could go weeks and weeks, but kids seem to have a different scalp.
Anyway, I usually wash once a week, but I forgot to wash it before going away for the weekend, and since I'm come-free I didn't want to use any of the cone-laden stuff lying around, so I just left it. My hair isn't very greasy anyway, but it does feel horrible just before wash day. It's true though, when I left it the greasies did start to subside. I did have to wear it up, or at least in a ponytail though, because otherwise it felt ok but sat weird.

[kitekats]

I guess, for a week, but it felt horrible and I just wanted to sink in the ground from that ugly feeling, :)

[longhairedlady]

A couple weeks. I am more comfortable with no more than a week.

[pepperminttea]

No water, no shampoo, no nothing? Two weeks, ish. Water only washes? Five and a half months. (My scalp never adjusted.)

[Madora]

Six weeks..but it was brushed every day with a clean bbb. I also wear head scarves a lot so that helped keep stuff off my hair, which I wear up.

[Venefica]

I went for two weeks once when our bath tub broke, it took that long to have it fixed. It might have been a few days over two weeks actually, I think that is the longest I have gone without washing my hair. I start itching if I go over a week so I generally wash it once a week.

[dwell_in_safety]

The longest I have gone is a week, which is usual for me. I may actually have gone a couple days over that spring break of my freshman year of high school. I didn't wash my hair at all, then. I just stayed inside and played video games every day. :D

[spidermom]

I've gone a week a number of times. I wanted to become a person who washes only once per week.

I hated my hair so much during those experiments. So I am a person who washes 2 or 3 times a week, depending on need.

[elbow chic]

I made it three weeks one time, just out of curiosity. A friend of mine had great shiny hair and her "secret" was that she only ever used water to rinse hers. She said she had a two-week "adjustment period" and then it was smooth sailing after that. I was intrigued.

But mine was SOOO, so nasty. lol

I believe people who say they can go months at a time w/o getting greasy. Not for me.

[Ndayeni]

Now and again I end up going a week or 6 days between washes, but it's usually getting pretty greasy and gross by then. Besides looking bad, it gets really itchy too, which starts driving me nuts. So I wash twice a week to avoid that. Sometimes it doesn't really need it yet when I wash, others it does, just depends on what the weather's been like, how I've been wearing it, etc.

I'd agree that longer hair can usually go longer between washes. When I had mine at chin length, and heavily layered, I usually had to wash every other day or every third day because it would get too greasy much faster, and was too short to put it up to camoflage the greasiness like I can with it longer now.

[JellyBene]

Once I went an entire four months without washing my hair, I just scrubbed it down real well with water every other day. For the first two months it was VERY greasy, the third month was better and by the end ofthe fourth month it was nearly perfect. I would have continued this method forever but herein New Mexico we have very hard water and it just wasn't working well. When I took a vacation to the Oregon coast the water was very soft and pure, it cleanedso well that I was even able to wear my hair down after 4 months of no shampoo! Unfortunately as soon as I returned home, the waxy-grease came back and I got discouraged and resumed shampoo. However, I believe this experience worked as an amazing conditioner for my hair and likely contribues to its softness today.

[Strelitzia]

Once I went 4 weeks with no washing at all because I was really ill - and actually although it was really itching by the end, it didn't really look dirty and only the back of my head was really greasy from lying against a pillow for ages. I don't think I've ever enjoyed having clean hair as much as I did when I washed it then!!

I do push it to 2 1/2 weeks sometimes if I'm feeling lazy, but when it starts to itch, it's shower time! Would love to be one of those people who can leave it for months at a time :D

[Henrietta]

8 days and it was greasy to below my ears. Horrible, but I tried to stretch washes. Now I know it's totally impossible for me :D

[ladyfey]

3 days while I was in ICU. It was disgusting, first thing I did after getting to my new room was shower!

[LizTheLyre]

a little over a week. not cute.... very greasy, i couldn't do anything with it, but as soon as I washed it it was so frizzy it was unmanageable. I just couldn't win, but I've found a system that works, thankfully.

[ravenheather]

With no water-3 days. With wo rinses 5 days.

[terylenerose]

7 days. My hair did mostly fine with it, but it was oily and pretty straight by that point. I think if I'd kept with once a week washing longer my oil production would have adjusted.

[Atira]

about 3 weeks. That was no wshing at all, not even water. I was in the desert in Namibia, two hours from any town.

[curlylocks85]

I'm curious to know, anybody just don't ever wash their hair? What are the results? Any pros/cons? I'm starting to get greasy after 1 week but I've heard the grease will subside & eventually your hair will self clean......

*BUMP*

I can go 3 weeks to a month without washing. After that, my hair will start to smell from mother nature's elements. My hair does not get greasy. My hair devours any moisture or oils that it encounters. It is easier to put up and looks more shiny. Every hair type responds differently. I hope this was helpful? :)

[cat11]

Well right now its Saturday and I washed my hair last on Friday. It wouldn't look good down but with some dry shampoo at the top it looks just fine up :p Friday is my wash day and I wash weekly so this is a day over for me... might be my longest? I'm not sure though. I probably have neglected it longer.

My boyfriend got back from tour yesterday so I went right to his house instead of taking a couple hours to wash my hair :p The detangling and shower and steps and crap always ends up taking at least an hour if not an hour and a half

[flickm]

Several months when I was trying to go no poo. It stopped being greasy but got waxy. Then I was using cassia monthly, and that cleaned it, but it was still waxy in between. After a year of that I started using various washing methods, since my hair refused to adjust totally to seldom washing. I tried eggs, flax seed, and then baking soda. I went two years without shampoo then caved and started using a non chemical shampoo. My hair has got used to less frequent washes and can go a week between. I've gone from rhassoul clay to shampoo bars with vinegar rinses and can still go a week between washes, and my hair is better for it, fuller, wavier and healthy. The baking soda and vinegar was brilliant for my hair but a horrible, messy process.

[yahirwaO.o]

About 2 week and half LOL. My hair is super straight so my scalp oils were all the way to my ends. It smelled not so pleasent. I was in a place where water wasnt really the best and had my hair covered in a french braid till I came back home and had a nice shower. :o

[curlylocks85]

I'm curious to know, anybody just don't ever wash their hair? What are the results? Any pros/cons? I'm starting to get greasy after 1 week but I've heard the grease will subside & eventually your hair will self clean......

*BUMP*

I can go 3 weeks to a month without washing. After that, my hair will start to smell from mother nature's elements. My hair does not get greasy. My hair devours any moisture or oils that it encounters. It is easier to put up and looks more shiny. Every hair type responds differently. I hope this was helpful? :)

[lapushka]

I had a medical emergency (turned out after months to be Meniere's disease, but at first it showed signs of being positional, so bending at the sink was an issue to get the hair washed). I could only get my hair washed every 2 weeks for that reason. My SD cropped up like a monster. But it allowed me to stretch to a weekly wash. Before this my hair needed to be washed 2 to 3 times a week. This 2 week stretch allowed me to go up to a week without washing, and I found out that harsh sulfates keep my SD pretty well under control (after the Nizoral took care of the flare-ups).

[lilin]

I'm curious to know, anybody just don't ever wash their hair? What are the results? Any pros/cons? I'm starting to get greasy after 1 week but I've heard the grease will subside & eventually your hair will self clean......

Define "washing." :D

I've now gone about 3 months without putting anything on my hair except water, really. Warm water in particular is fairly good at removing oil on its own, with a bit of scrubbing. The first couple months were all over the place, but my hair stays pretty clean for a long time now. I can go a week without even water before it starts to feel at all oily. Granted, my hair is short right now, so we'll see if this lasts when it grows out. But honestly, my hair feels very clean most of the time.

The crazy phase does eventually subside. It took about 2 months for my scalp to completely settle down and for my hair to be somewhat predictable.

For those two months, it was up and down a lot. I had to get a shower filter, as the super-hard water just wouldn't clean anything. Since then, it's gone much better -- and the filtered water actually makes my skin much better too. My blackheads are gone and my skin is less itchy, now that I'm using the shower softener.

Sometimes I'd come out of the shower still feeling a bit oily. Sometimes I'd feel WAY too dry and overly stripped (yes, really). I had a bit of acne at my hairline for a couple weeks. My hair would be too stiff, then too frizzy, on and on it went...

...And just when I was about to give up, my scalp suddenly sorted itself out. My hair has been very well behaved since then. It feels clean and well-moisturized. It's shiny and soft and lovely. My skin is also better than it's been in years, I think.

And it's actually really hard to screw my scalp up, surprisingly enough. I went for a head massage the other day and before I knew what was happening, she had covered my scalp in oil. I was dreading the nightmare of trying to get all of that out with just water. But surprisingly enough, some of it had soaked in by the time I got home, and the rest rinsed out with some scrubbing in just a couple minutes. My hair felt glorious after that, and I actually might do it again sometime!

Like I said, we'll see how it goes as it gets longer. But I am really enjoying it right now. Even if I do have to change my routine when it gets longer, I'm hoping to keep the cleanser washing down to a couple times a month.

[Lucy Elizabeth]

4 days I think!

[Sarahlabyrinth]

10 days. But I'm not interested in stretching washes. For most of my life I washed my hair once a week, apart from a few months where I washed every day in the mistaken belief that daily washing was better for my hair and ended up with a dry, frizzy, breaking mess.....

These days I like to wash gently, with diluted S and C, twice a week and my hair loves it.

[Nadine <3]

Once a year I go on a two week camping trip where we have no running water. I could wash with lake water with biodegradable shampoo but it's a hassle and I'd rather not have to carry it in my pack. I do two dutch braids, comb it out at night and redo it. Take it out and give my scalp a scrub when I go swimming... My hair gets really gross, yeah but I tied bandannas around it or wore a hat. Everyone else was gross so I fit in, but it's always the greatest feeling to get home and have a hot shower with shampoo.

[Jynkies]

Once a year I go to a 10 day historical event - it's based in a campsite and although there are showers there's just not enough hot water to sustain 300 people washing their hair - my hair goes up into milkmaid braids with a linen cap over it and stays like that for all 10 days.

By the time I get home a long, hot shower and a shampoo is the best thing I can think of.

[Shepherdess]

I think the longest was probably 2 weeks or so, not sure though. Even with BBB and massages, my scalp gets very itchy and greasy and my shedding increases immensely after a week of not washing. I might be able to go with scalp only washes, but I highly doubt I could keep my scalp healthy enough without washing it at least 1-2 times a week. My hair itself does feel nice when not washed for so long, but my scalp is miserable.

[elsieivy]

My hair can manage to go quite a long time without washing. My scalp on the other hand... I think a week is the longest I've gone and my scalp was pretty upset with me for doing that.

[Anje]

Back when I was doing water-only washes (which lasted about 8 months), I think I had a few times when I went a bit over a week between scrubbing it under running water. My scalp was WAY more adjusted to that sort of thing then, compared to now, where I'm getting some visible oiliness after 3-4 days.

My scalp can widely vary how much oil it produces, depending on how frequently and how harshly I wash it. If I'm using full-strength shampoo, I get about 2 days. With diluted shampoo or CO, I get more. With WO, a week wasn't a challenge once I was adjusted. I also vary seasonally with oil production and need to wash more frequently in winter when the air is dry and my skin produces more oil to avoid getting dried out. Not everyone's scalp does this... but I wouldn't have found out that mine does if I hadn't experimented with it.

[Marika]

4 days (I've done it twice this year unintentionally). My hair seems to reach its maximum "greasiness point" on day 3 because it didn't look any dirtier/greasier on day 4. But my scalp started to itch and smell really bad. I usually wash every other day (S+C/CWC/WCC).

[flickm]

4 days (I've done it twice this year unintentionally). My hair seems to reach its maximum "greasiness point" on day 3 because it didn't look any dirtier/greasier on day 4. But my scalp started to itch and smell really bad. I usually wash every other day (S+C/CWC/WCC).

If you had stuck it out, it might have balanced itself. Mine never did, but not washing more than once a week and not using commercial shampoo means I CAN go a week without dire consequences.

[Aderyn]

One month. It was a bit greasy, but if I had stuck to it and not washed for like 6-8 weeks, I'm pretty sure my scalp would have adjusted to monthly washes. For my hair, it's mainly just toughing it out with greasy hair for double the amount of time I want to stretch the wash to (i.e. stretch to one week - gotta go 2 weeks without washing and I'll be mostly adjusted).

I wash (WCC) my hair once a week now, though, because I want to get through my stash of products, try new products and because I actually enjoy washing and conditioning my hair.

[Deborah]

I water-only washed for 22 months some years back. It was a fun experience, and my hair was fine, but I tired of it eventually. The nice result has been that since I stopped, I can now wash my hair just once a week, and it does great, where before the WO experience I needed to wash twice a week.

I love being able to just wash it Saturdays, like I did as a child, and still have nice hair all week.

I never did go back to shampoo. I was conditioner-only for a long while, then tried Indian herbs and never looked back. I wash now with the herbs and do a final rinse in cold water containing citric acid powder; no shampoo, no conditioner, and my hair is clean, shiny and very healthy.

[luxurioushair]

I can't go more than 2 weeks, it's just my personal pickiness or something.

[gthlvrmx]

I lasted 3-4 months (actually, 1 whole summer vacation) without washing my hair and even taking a shower(I may have showered once or twice but I did not wash my hair). My brother and I did that in elementary school once and boy did it feel great to be lazy :) Of course, we washed up when went back to school. Our room smelled awful, though, because we were in there all day and night. No showers, 100F+ weather, and staying in the same place really made us stink up.

[yahirwaO.o]

I lasted 3-4 months (actually, 1 whole summer vacation) without washing my hair and even taking a shower(I may have showered once or twice but I did not wash my hair). My brother and I did that in elementary school once and boy did it feel great to be lazy :) Of course, we washed up when went back to school. Our room smelled awful, though, because we were in there all day and night. No showers, 100F+ weather, and staying in the same place really made us stink up.

Yeah as a guy I know we can handle this type of thing (goals aka men bets) better LOL.

[Miss P]

When my hair was long and could be put up...two weeks. But now that I have chin length hair, four days max.

[*ReiKa*]

I think I never went beyond 7 days... and that's happened a long time ago, when I could handle staying 7 days without a wash.
Now my roots get oily faster, and I don't stay more than 5 days without washing it... and at the 5th day my hair feels and looks just awful... I don't feel the need and I don't want to stretch for longer, I'll just wash it. Greasy hair makes me incredibly uncomfortable, even if I am on my own at home for days.

[Lolino]

I think the longest is close to two weeks. These days I usually last a minimum of 3 days up to about a week between washes, depending if I have to actually go somewhere except the grocery store. After a while my scalp starts to actually hurt until I wash it.