The engineering approach to shampoo

After trying a lot of things, I recommend Nexxus or some other expensive shampoo with visible immediate results.  I also recommend Dr Bronner's "pure liquid soap" as it seems to be gentle.  Tresemme works for cheap.  For the no-poo camp there is the baking soda.  But use it carefully.  Shampoo also depends on conditioner with different degrees.  See, I'm totally unbiased.

Your hair type is critical, which explains that there are so many shampoos on the market.  The scalp will produce body oil at the root carrying down to the shaft.  After shampoo and drying, try fingering your scalp for a while and see how grease your finger tips feel.  And try it the next day or longer if you don't wash your hair that often.

Do you need to disrupt the natural process that much?  If your scalp don't produce enough oil for the long shaft, I would think it's easy to remedy, if you don't want to cut short your hair.

The problem with oily hair is that bacteria will feed on it, accelerate skin flaking and results in dandruff.  I think that's from medical sources but that's not the universal cause for dandruff of course.  That's not really a big deal as I have dandruff but I have great hair and they don't turn grey and they don't fall down.  The other problem is that if you try fragrance free shampoo and not strong enough your head will smell weird.  It could be all normal - that everybody's head will smell different and weird like without deodorant.  But it's just not socially acceptable.

So be warned.  If you go no-poo carelessly, you could get dandruff and your head can smell weird.  It's hard to know if you have pre-existing conditions.  If you wash your hair everyday with a normal fragrance shampoo, any flakes will be minute and you can't smell anything other than the shampoo.

People always say this is good if you have dandruff.   But I really need somebody to say that I had dandruff, I used this, and dandruff never come back.  A pharmacist say that you have to rotate with different dandruff shampoo to keep dandruff at bay.  I have to wash my hair everyday so it makes little different whether I have dandruff or not.  Nobody is going to split my hair repeatedly and watch and count the minute white spots floating down my hair.

Baking soda is many things to many people.  If you use powder or paste, it can remove years of accumulated grease in your kitchen.  If you use a teaspoonful or two per cup to rinse your hair, it may be too mild.  Too mild that my head smells.  My hair is great though.  I will experiment some more.  The stuff is just too convenient and cost next to nothing and so many people swear by it.

Never drop baking soda on your hair after oil treatment or vice versa.  That's how to make solid soap.  Your hair will be full of soap scum. 

Dr Bronner's seems to be mild, even though it has lots of sud.  But it's not very pure soap.  I remembered it had some glycerin in it for moisturizer.  But everything should be organic.  As with pure soap for skin, if you don't have suitable conditioning, your hair can be messy.  Whereas for Nexxus, if you hair type is one of those, your hair hardly need conditioning after the shampoo.

Whatever you use, you have to use it for a while to see the effect.  For example, some conditioner coat your hair a bit.  So if you change to some other systems, it takes time for the coating to disappear.

My great discovery is that, if you hair need detangling, and if you don't use conventional conditioner, it's a great time for detangling in the shampoo phase.  Just use a detangling wet brush to comb your hair while there are lots of sud.  In the following procedures, just don't mess up your hair again.