I don't write much about the products I put on my hair. I recently updated the Haircare section a bit, but I think that's all. The main reason for not writing about haircare, is that my routine is terribly unexciting. I don't experiment with new products and oils, never do deep treatments, never do anything special. I've found shampoos and conditioners that work for me, and I'm sticking with them. I was more adventurous when I first joined LHC and started learning about haircare. I tried conditioner-only washing (disaster!), and shampoo bars, which I used for a year or so. I stopped in January (or maybe it was February) this year, for a bunch of reason that I may write about on some other occasion. I successfully transitioned back to SLS/SLES shampoos, and I'm very happy about it.
Shampoo:
I have two shampoos that I really like, both are called Change. The purple one is for normal and fine hair, and the other is for dry and damaged hair. My hair fits in the latter category, but both shampoos work really well. They don't dry my scalp out like many other shampoos do, so I don't get flakies after using them.
Conditioner:
I use the cheapest conditioners I find, and they actually work really well for me. I condition my hair twice when I wash, first with a cone-free one, and then with a mix of cone-free and coney conditioner. For cone-free, I use SoftStyle (find them at Rema1000) and Xtra (find them in the Coop stores). For coney, I use FirstPrice. I also use this one as my leave-in conditioner.
How I wash:
I start by making my shampoo mixture in a small pump bottle. I use a bit of shampoo, 3 drops of Nightblooming's Triple Moon Hair Anointing Oil, and enough water to make it fairly runny. I never fill the entire bottle, that would be way too much.
I always detangle my hair before I get in the shower, because wet detangling doesn't work for me. I also oil my scalp with either Triple Moon Anointing Oil or Khadi Amla Oil before washing. I leave it on for at least 30 minutes, sometimes overnight.
First I wash my scalp with the shampoo dilution. I put a few pumps all over my head, lather a bit, and then rinse out. Then I apply cone-free conditioner to the length of my hair, and put the remaining shampoo mix on my head. Lather and rinse. I then apply cone-free conditioner on my length again, and let it sit for a minute or so before applying coney conditioner on top of it. Let it sit for a few minutes, and then rinse thoroughly.
And that's it. I put leave-in on afterwards, but I'll write about that in a different post.
A few days ago I realised that I only had 1 bar of Chagrin Valley Nettle shampoo and 1/2 bar of Rosemary Lavender left. With my hair, 1 bar typically lasts for 8 washes. This means that I have approximately 12 washes left before I'm out of shampoo bars. I usually wash every 3-4 days, or whenever I feel like it. Let's just make it easy and say twice a week. 12 washes, 2 per week means that my shampoo bars will last for 6 weeks.
I order my shampoo bars online, because no shops here carry the sort of super fancy, natural, chemical-free stuff I like to cleanse my hair with. Since these things come from abroad, shipping could take some time. I'm also a very lazy and forgetful person. If I don't act quickly, there's a risk that I may run out of shampoo bars!
This is why I decided to spend $49,95 on shampoo bars from SweetCreekHerbs. Well, half of that was shipping, but it was still quite a bit of money spent on shampoo. But! This was a package deal of 5 shampoo bars, so I actually saved money! And with 5 shampoo bars, I should have enough to wash my hair twice a week for 15 weeks. These bars are a little bit smaller than the bars from Chagrin Valley, so each bar lasts for about 6 washes.
I think I have justified my crazy spending sufficiently. Here's a random picture of me and a parrot.
