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The Official Hair Thread

maraca2020

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Thanks, would I use the same stuff for this look? Thanks again,

http://blog.justinchungphotography.com/post/35283309821/****-yeah-menswear
 

AndrewST

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How am I doing? Any advice? I use Crew and a blow dryer in the mornings (sometimes mousse for the back, on windy days) and wash maybe twice a week.
 

patrickBOOTH

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Ok people, I have been doing a lot of research about hair and reading a lot of blogs and forums that girls post in. I am reading forums and blogs written by and for primarily curly, or wavy haired girls and I have learned a ton. CalTex, this will probably be useful for you. Basically I have been looking for a haircare routine that allows my hair to be more natural and controlled so I don't have to use as much product in the morning and such. Something a bit easier. This is what I learned:

1. Stop shampooing with sulfate based shampoo.

The majority of shampoos are made with detergents and not actual soap. These ingredients are sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate, amonium lauryl sulfate, or amonium laureth sulfate. These were invented by the Germans during World War II because there was a soap shortage. These synthetic surfactants are what makes these products "foam-up". Basically they allow water and oils to mix so they can be rinsed away. There is a lot of hippy talk about these things and how they cause cancer, but it has never been proven. There are some things that have been proven, however. Sulfate based shampoos are a mild irritant, espcially in higher concentrations and if not rinsed properly. Sulfate based shampoos cause hair to fall out. If you loose a lot of hair in the shower, this could be the cause, not male pattern baldness. Sulfate shampoos strip your hair and wash away all natural and unnatural oils. These things are great at what they do and they are cheap that is why they are in products. The problem is you are washing away tons and tons of oils that your hair needs to look great. The ironic thing is many of these shampoos also have extracts of plant oils and moisturizers, but in reality it is bullshit because as soon as you lather up you're washing it right away. Most of the cheaper brand smoothing shampoos are using silicones to coat the hair to make it smooth. Some of them work ok, but they are very difficult to remove once on your hair, that is why they are usually added to the smoothing shampoos along with sulfates, which have a more difficult time removing them.

Now a lot of conditioners also contain smaller amounts of sulfates so read your ingredients.

A lot of brands are now making sulfate free shampoos so look for them, there is a brand called Kinky Curly that curly haired girls "in the know" go apeshit for. Get this. The issue most people have with these are the lack of foam, since there isn't any foaming agent people feeltheir hair isn't getting clean. Ignore this and keep at it. A lot of girl's out there make their own shampoo out of a simple home mixture of baking soda and water. Some swear by this.

I personally use Dr. Bronner's Tea Tree Shikakai Hand & Body pump soap, which bings me to my next point about sulfates and soaps. This soap is what it is: Soap. It is a natural castile soap with some added oils, shikakai powder, sugar and white grape juice for moisture retention. It is called castile after the region it was developed in Spain and it is obtained by saponifying oils from plants using lye to create soap naturally. Here is the issue, using these kinds of soap, especially with very hard water sources with minerals and such in it can leave your hair feeling tangly and or waxy. What this is is slight buildup. This buildup can remain on your hair and furthermore in your tub and in your drains, this buildup is what people end up calling "soapscum". Sulfates don't have this because they strip everything away, however there is a solution for this. The solution lies in the conditioner, which is my next point:


2. Use an acidic rinse after using castile soap

You can use the non-sulfate conditoner if you are using a non-sulfate shampoo, but for castile the Dr. Bronner's Shikakai Conditioning Rinse works wonders. Since you washed with castile you need to get the buildup off of your hair and make it smooth. You do this with a solution that is slightly acidic. Acidic solutions don't only just strip buildup they also close the shafts of your hair strands making it lay better and much smoother. A lot of girls make their own apple cider vinegar and water solution and pour it slowly over their heads while massaging their scalp and combing it through their hair in the shower. The Bronner's Rinse is mainly lemon juice, shikakai powder, which has been used on hair for centuries in India and plant oils. Now vinegar has a PH of about 5 and the lemon juice about 2 or 3 so you can imagine the smoothing properties these ingredients have on your hair.​

3. Stop shampooing your hair so much

Yes, a lot of people know that their hair feels nicer, or behaves better when it isn't dry from shampoo (sulfates), but these girls, and now myself included, are shampooing even more infrequently like only when really needed, around once every two or three weeks. Two are three weeks!?!?! You scream! Calm down. Girls who go the sulfate free conditioner route literally condition everyday, but what they do is scrub the hell out of their scalps while the conditioner is in their hair, not using their nails but their fingertips and very hard and long time. What others do it use their rinse daily and scrub with the vingear/water, or Bronner's rinse. What is great about this is the low PH kills bacteria that can cause dandruff and the scrubbing helps move dirt away.​

I understand this all sounds strange and gross, but it isn't really. There are so many girls following this routine. Think Style Forum, but only girls talking about this kind of stuff. It was all started by this woman Lorraine Massey in NYC who popularized this sulfate-free/no shampooing thing in her salon and actually wrote a book about it.

What I do:

1)Apply Dr. Bronner's (or any food grade all natural) coconut oil to dry hair, work it in and let it sit for at least 5-10 minutes
2) Shampoo with Dr. Bronner's Tea Tre Oil Shikakai soap scrubbing the scalp (but not with nails)
3) Pour the solution of Dr. Bronner's Conditioning Rinse over my head (use as directed on bottle!) and massage scalp and comb through hair
4) Rinse
5) Repeat step #3 and leave in and finish the rest of my shower routine before final rinse

On following days I just do steps #3 through #5 and only go back to step #1 when needed.

Sources

http://www.livecurlylivefree.com/curly hair basics.htm
http://www.naturallycurly.com/curltalk/general-discussion-about-curly-hair/
http://thecurlyhairproblems.tumblr.com/cgmethod
http://www.wikihow.com/Follow-the-Curly-Girl-Method-for-Curly-Hair
 
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OmniscientCause

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Nice PB...I shampoo Once every 4 days without sulfate and condition every day. I may go once every week, but I do workout a few days a week but I guess scrubbing with my conditoner does the same thing.

Ive been doing this for 3-4 months and I agree my hair is much healthier.

Only issue I have is with current hair product Baxter molding clay is tough to get out of my hair with the current conditoner I am using even when taking a nightly shower. (id rather not get it all over my pillow I assume that wouldnt be great for my skin.)
 

patrickBOOTH

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Nice PB...I shampoo Once every 4 days without sulfate and condition every day. I may go once every week, but I do workout a few days a week but I guess scrubbing with my conditoner does the same thing.
Ive been doing this for 3-4 months and I agree my hair is much healthier.
Only issue I have is with current hair product Baxter molding clay is tough to get out of my hair with the current conditoner I am using even when taking a nightly shower. (id rather not get it all over my pillow I assume that wouldnt be great for my skin.)


If you go sulfate free with an acidic rinse you may find you don't need the baxter, or you may find you won't have to use something so strong and it will rinse out with the acidic rinse.
 

OmniscientCause

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If you go sulfate free with an acidic rinse you may find you don't need the baxter, or you may find you won't have to use something so strong and it will rinse out with the acidic rinse.


Yea I havent been doing some acidic based rinse but I can look into it more. I heard baking soda and lemon juice works pretty well. But my hair is still pretty thick. So I would be using baxter primarily for the hold. The barber did a good job of layering it for how I style my hair last time. The front of my hair is much longer then middle to back and it allows it to lay flatter. If I dont push it back and to the side it goes down to the tip of my nose.
 

patrickBOOTH

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My hair is incredibly thick and wavy and doing my routine above helps incredibly. Again, you may not need as strong of a product for a hold. Plus lemon based rinse is likely going to remove even the hardest of products.
 

NaTionS

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I tried this shampoo less often thing for a while but my hair gets oily quick and even conditioning every day I end up looking like a greaser after about 3 days of no shampoo.

I'm using sulfate free shampoo now but like you said the lack of foam is weird. I never know if I'm using too much or too little shampoo.
 

patrickBOOTH

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Your hair will eventually correct the grease problem. If you work through it and just use a rinse like I mentioned your sebum glads will level out. It is a conversion period. Trust me, it works.
 

LeafyLi

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Hey guys, been lurking around for a bit in the S&D section when I found this thread.

So, in short, I"m an asian teenage male, and like most, I have dandruff. Until around a few months ago, I didn't care much about how I looked and didn't use conditioner or any shampoo. As a result, I've scratched off a good deal of hair. However, in recent months, I've started using a dandruff shampoo (head and shoulders http://tinyurl.com/cbocr52, which[FONT=verdana, tahoma, arial, sans-serif] is [/FONT]sulfate based I've found out)

However, I've found that it is not very effective, sometimes its ok and sometimes I can't stop scratching

And since it's the holiday season and I have a bit of money to spend, I have a few questions

1.Can anyone recommend me a good dandruff shampoo?
2. Should I use a dandruff shampoo in combination with regular shampoo? Conditioner? And if so what?
3. Finally, does anyone have a recommendation of a product that will help me grow back the hair I've lost? ( not sure if I need this)

Thanks in advance, and happy Thanksgiving!

Edit: So I've done a bit of research, and so far I've got

Nizoral 1%+ conditioner (no idea what kind, please help), and regular shampoo(not sure if I need)
 
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HAL 9000

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I'm rather curious. If I use natural or high end hair products to style my hair during the day, do I have to wash it out before I go to bed? Is it harmful if I don't?

I'm asking because usually... I don't wash my hair at night to rinse out the products. I'm hoping that, that isn't harmful. Thanks in advance!
 

Oli2012

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can anyone recommend me some resources on various haircuts and styles, especially for longer hair? I have a lot of trouble working out what would look good on me and communicating what i want to hairdressers.
 
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AHShadow

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Hey everyone,

For a few years now I've been trying to find something to help me keep my hair up for a whole day and I have never been able too. My hair is very very thin and straight (normal? asian hair). My hair is around 2-3" inches long right now, but even when it is shorter I have a hard time keeping it up. For now, I'm using a mix of Gatsby (Pink) and Paul Mitchell Lab Elastic Shaping paste. When I actually do my hair in the mirror, it looks amazing for like two seconds and then it kinda flops and goes down a bit. During the day, I have to continuously replace my hair (even though it holds for a few seconds only). I was reading this thread a bit and I think I want to try the KMS Sea-Salt Spray to make my hair a bit thicker and I was thinking I could use either Baxter of California's Clay Pomade or Hairbond Moulder.

Hairstyle I want to go for would be similar to this (Sorry for 1D pic):

DOQQS.jpg

And my hair looks like this (sorry for bad pic quality):

LUd7m.jpg

WxLmR.jpg

Thoughts??
 
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