Les fées ont-elles une queue ?

What irritates me about these things - and those journalists who write articles on it going ‘Can I not wash my hair for a month?’ - is that almost all of them miss the point and none of them transition it properly, so they end up with a dirty and horrendously matted fleece and conclude that it’s just not possible, and like

I am now three years without shampoo. My hair, which I always wanted to grow super long my whole life but could never get past bra strap length without it snapping off, is now to my tail bone and thick and glossy. I no longer get scalp issues like dandruff. It curls almost without frizz. It’s great.

Firstly, the following applies only to hair types 1-3. If you have coily/kinky hair, get advice from someone who knows type 4 hair, which I do not know that the same methods would work for (I have 2b, though it looks a little straighter as it’s weighed down by the thickness/length)

Secondly, I’m afraid you will need to buy something. Specifically a boar bristle/synthetic equivalent hairbrush (these can range from Very Expensive for all natural recognised brand to a tenner nylon version from Boots. I just bought a new one for £20 which is boar bristle and bamboo with some longer, stiffer nylon bristles. I recommend getting one with both kinds of bristles if your hair is thick). If you have type 2-3 hair, you will also need a means of detangling. A wide-toothed comb is ideal, preferably wood to reduce static

Brush your hair morning and evening with the bristle brush. This cleans out grime and redistributes oils along the length of your hair, and gradually reduce how often you wash your hair, going from (idr how often people shampoo? biweekly?) to weekly to every other week, a couple of months at a time. Your hair needs to learn it doesn’t have to produce as much sebum as it has been doing. You may find you still need to condition. You can do this with normal conditioner, hair masks, or coconut oil. There will be a bit of a process finding out what works best for your hair. Use the detangler before brushing

Honestly at this point the only time I deliberately get my hair wet is when I dye it, and I think it’s looking pretty good, don’t you? (And I’ve stopped getting split ends)

I use a method known as CGM (Curly Girl Method - it’s a deeply stupid name). The bare bones of it is that you cut out shampoo entirely, and stop using any conditioners that contain either silicones or drying substances (those can include certain alcohols, for example). Hilariously, this often means you actually use much cheaper conditioners, because the lack of fancy substances brings the price down. In the UK, Sainsbury’s own brand apple conditioner works, for example, and costs less than £1 a bottle. You can find lists of CGM friendly products wherever you live online, though.

Anyway, yeah, let’s say your normal routine would be to wash with shampoo, condition, and brush every day.

With CGM, you wash with a combination of Increased Elbow Grease and conditioner. It’s called cowashing. You put the conditioner exclusively on your roots, and then scrub with your fingertips for a bit. Basically, it’s mechanical cleaning instead of chemical - like scrubbing food off a plate, using a bit of washing up liquid to lubricate, rather than dunking the plate into a vat of acid to burn off the food. Your scrubbing removes the oil and dirt from your hair, and the conditioner both reduces damage by making it slippery and also collects all that dirt. Then you completely rinse it clear.

After that, depending on your hair type, you do a conditioning round. My husband has straight hair so doesn’t bother. I have curly hair, so at this point I switch to something more nourishing like Faith In Nature and whack that in.

Crucially, this is literally the only point I brush it. Soaking wet, full of conditioner. And I very gently detangle with a wide toothed comb, or even my fingers.

(Then I scrunch it to start the curls forming, rinse it all out while still scrunching, and then scrunch in a gel; but that’s not relevant to the question, it’s just how my routine goes.)

Anyway, the lack of sulphides and other harsh cleansers means your scalp stops panicking that it’s being dried out, and it ‘transitions’ to a state where it no longer over-produces sebum (this is also why it helps with dandruff for most people - no more cycle of harsh drying followed by clogged pores). For me, this transition phase lasted a week. It felt a bit greasy during this time, but after that week, it was fine. That’s fairly normal. Some people can rarely take up to six weeks, but most are like me. My husband had a delayed transition during his third week, but again, it lasted… I think maybe 10 days?

There was also a second, longer transition phase where the silicones that had coated my hair for years slowly fucked off, which meant the strands could slowly start taking in water again. Once that happened I got really good hair, here’s a pic from a year ago for reference:

It’s longer again now, as I say. ‘Tis a mane.

In any case, a friend of mine followed this method for a year, and then transitioned to using water only, no products. She now uses a bristle brush as described above. Nothing more.

“We zoom out slightly to reveal the aliens are ALSO beating their own alien-fuckers away with a space-broom.”

everyone with ears:

Not enough for this!