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