I couldn’t sleep last night. I tossed and turned in bed, I was too hot and too cold and sweating and freezing and coughing.
As a result, when I woke up this morning my hair didn’t feel great. On the contrary, it felt greasy and yucky and glued to my head.
In my normal life, I would have shampooed it once, probably even twice, in the morning shower.
Not today. I figured that this would definitely be to put the method to the test, so I stayed away from the shampoo bottle and instead I rubbed my head with conditioner – Goldwell Kerasilk Rich Care Treatment. Then I rinsed, and rinsed, and rinsed.
To tell the truth, I was expecting to have to re-wash my hair after this treatment. I was really surprised to find, as the hair dried, that it felt fresh and clean.
I’m intrigued, and up to the surface pops the girl who thoroughly enjoyed chemistry in school. Here’s my experiment:
Discussion: Shampoo has a cleansing effect thanks to its anionic tensides. Tensides are fun little chemical structures with one lipophilic side, which loves grease, and one hydrophilic side, which loves water. The lipophilic side attracts the oils in the hair, and then when the hydrophilic side follows the water down the drain the lipophilid side of the tenside drags the oil with it. Crystal clear, right? Look at this picture:
 The blue is water, the yellow is oil and the sperm look-alikes are tensides. Look how one side (lipophilic) is attached to the oil, and the other side (hydrophilic) is in the water. The hydrophilic side wants to stay in the water no matter what, and if the water runs away the hydrophilic side follows it, taking its lipophilic siamese twin with it, and the oil as well because the lipophilic side refuses to let go of it.
We all know that oil and water don’t mix. You can’t simply rinse off oil with water. It’s impossible. Consequently, you can’t simply rinse your hair with water and get rid of excess sebum. No can do.
What you might not know, though, is that conditioner contains tensides too, though cationic as opposed to the anionic tensides in shampoo. It’s the tensides that stop the conditioner from being a two-phase liquid where the oil floats on top.
Theory: It is possible to wash hair and get rid of excess grease with conditioner, as long as the conditioner does not have silicones in it (long story, I won’t go there now).
Discussion: The surface of your hair kind of looks like fish skin, with lots of scales. When you color your hair, the number one reason for why the color fades too soon is because your hair is too porous: the scales are wide open; and you literally rinse out the color each time you wash your hair. Shampoo is alcalic, which opens the scales even more, making matters even worse. Conditioner, on the other hand, is acidic, which has a closing effect. If your hair is porous, using only conditioner should be very beneficial, and a bonus might be that the hair color stays longer as it’s being held in place by the scales.Â
Theory: Washing your hair with conditioner might help artificial color to stay longer.
Method: Wash hair with conditioner only for as long as I can take it. Keep a record of treatments, and pay attention to all changes.
Feel free to try this at home, and if you do, please let me know your thoughts and results!
I used only conditioner this morning and my hair feels fine.
I wish I’d known that about shampoo widening hair’s pores back when I was in Buenos Aires! I was the frizz queen due to the humidity, and I bet that if I’d refrained from using shampoo, I’d have had a little more control.
I’m trying the experiment too. For conditioner I’m using a really nice treatment from Argentina that I brought back. So far so good.
Once the selkie finds her hair… ?
That’s pretty much what I’m looking for too, Tina: Frizz control. Not much success on that part so far, but then again I’ve only been on it for a few days.
oh, remember though to not just slab on the conditioner as usual but to use it the way you use shampoo: Rub and massage the scalp with it! It feels weird and goes against everything I’ve been taught, but it feels good afterwards.
Ok, I’m off to wash my hair with conditioner! Will report in tomorrow!
Like removes like. This pertains to skincare as well. As much as oily skined people love to wash their face with soap, it isn’t the best way to cleanse the skin.
Apparently dry cleaners also use the method of like/like to remove stains, at least this is what I read in Vogue Magazine!
why aren’t the hairdressers who usually cut my hair as interesting as you?
loved the lesson.
Did you put it on your ends as well? I’m assuming you would. My hair is so dry…I’ve read about this method on makeupalley but never tried it…btw, I love your pics/posts on italy. I found you on ST.
Best!
Yes, roots and ends both. Thanks for visiting, please come again!
I am finding this subject fascinating! As a result, I used only conditioner this morning, and so far, so good. I’ll keep you posted…
You make chemistry fun. I hated it in school lol.
Interesting study. I shall try this experiment as well (great timing, as I’ve just bought a new tub of conditioner and a bottle of hair dye).
Your cite is very interesting, found you thru my sister’s blog, Ramblings of a Gypsy Soul. I was just stressing out about my super dry hair and what great timing this experiment is for me… Am definitely trying this. Let you know how it goes.
So, I tried this method this morning with my Pureology extra moisture (the purple bottle) conditioner and I’m not sure it’s going to work for me. Maybe it would have worked better if my hair wasn’t sooo dirty by the time I got around to washing today. I don’t wash my hair very often…aren’t the french that way
…don’t really need to since my hair is on the dry side and takes several days to get oily at the roots. But for whatever reason, today it was super dirty but I gave it a shot anyway. Maybe I used too much conditioner. I have a LOT of hair so I might have overcompensated. Drying my hair took twice as long and it doesn’t look or feel clean. It actually looks a couple days dirty.
I’ll try again but make sure the next time it’s not so dirty.
Thanks for reporting back Kristi!! I’m still not quite sure that I believe in my own theories, but as with everything it may work for some and not for others. I’m gonna have to shampoo my hair soon whether I want to or not, because I’m in bad need of a color retouch, but I think I’ll try to avoid it again after that. After all, everything I do with my hair, aside from shampooing, is meant to repair the damage and restore the natural moisture and oil balance: conditioner, deep treatments, leave-in, curl cream, tip serum, you name it, I do it all. It kind of makes sense not to wash away those oils to begin with. But as I said, it might not work for everybody. Thanks for playing along though, and please keep me updated!
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