snoop
Well-Known Member
Hey Ladies
I just started the Water Only Hair Washing Method this week! I wanted to try it because I have found that when using conventional products & methods, in order to get my hair soft & moisturized, my hair would end up feeling too greasy which did not agree with my scalp or my hands or my couch LOL Also, I would love to be a lot less reliant on commercial products overall. And I'm very curious about how well my own sebum could actually condition my hair and help with detangling my fine fragile strands and how clean I could actually keep my scalp/hair with natural ingredients. This really fascinates me!
I tried this method 2 years ago when it first started getting popular on Youtube, but at the time I was using a boar bristle brush to try to distribute my sebum down my strands and my poor sensitive tender scalp could not take it. I also didn't know that I needed to clarify periodically (use something other than water) so when my scalp started itching like crazy I gave up. There wasn't as much information about the method for those of us with kinkier hair so I was doing it wrong. But now with so many of "our" people jumping on the bandwagon and sharing their experiences & modifications, I have a better idea about how to proceed and deal with any bumps in the road.
I plan to rinse every 2-3 days and supplement my sebum with butters/oils on the ends of my hair until I reach full coverage to avoid breakage.
If I run into problems with too much sebum buildup, breakage, or mushy over moisturized hair I will try to use all natural clarifiers/conditioners that do not strip the sebum. There are so many to choose from and I will have to experiment to see which ones work best for my hair & lifestyle (clays, coconut milk, banana baby food, cactus, fenugreek, marshmallow, etc, etc). I will also experiment to see if I can still use my beloved Bobeam Shampoo Bars as gentle non sebum stripping clarifiers. I really hope they work well with this method because a lot of them contain some of these all natural ingredients (clays/herbs) in an easy to use no mess no fuss shampoo bar.
I will update with my experiences....
FYI: There is a Google+ Community with close to 300 members called: Water Only Washing For Black Girls
https://plus.google.com/communities/101426194130082079829
I'll be waiting for your updates on this. I have a love hate relationship with it...I think it's so simple and easy to do, but I just got a bunch of people to start clay washing I don't want to turn around yet and be like, "haha I've left it for water only". (They wouldn't switch to that routine anyway....)
I was lurking on the Google+ community for a while but got paranoid about google and left. I'll re-join this week.
I've not really been following the routine as of late, but I thought that this week I'd made a bit more of an effort. Today was the second water rinse day since I shampoo washed and did a protein treatment on the weekend. I could smell my sebum which is a plus. I don't think that I will fully commit to the process since I am now doing regular protein treatments and I really like my conditioner. I will say that I find that the Komaza shampoo is very light and ph balanced so it doesn't really seem to strip my sebum. Maybe I'll do a routine of 2 weeks water then clarify with clay then two weeks water then shampoo and protein. I'll try to stick with that for a while and let you know how that goes as well.