I keep my hair rather short, and find that I can use a bar of soap with ease and get great results. For the most part, I use an OO soap on my hair, but some other good bar soaps for shampoo: Issy Almond JR Liggett's Dr. Bronner's After the shower, and my hair has dried (and after I apply an aftershave to my face), I rub a VERY small amount of raw shea butter & an EFA of my choice into the hair....keeps a matte finish to it, but soft and not oily.
My hair.....what I have of it is also short. I use pure olive oil soap as a shampoo bar, with no problems at all. I do use a good h air tonic....various flavours of Pashana are my favourites as they care for the scalp and give my hair a healthy look. Brian
Soap will work quite well as a shampoo for shorter hair.. but it has a higher PH balance.. a rinse with vinegar will restore the ph balance, but for shorter hair it doesn't really matter. It is recommended that if your hair is longer than 2" (and mine is more like 2 feet) that you use a regular shampoo... believe it or not SLS is gentler on your hair than the soap and the ph balance is much better for your hair.
I concur with Sue about using soap on your hair. The higher pH of soap stresses your hair more than syn-dets (SLS, SLSa) will. EFA - every oil has essential fatty acids (it's how some of us soap makers can estimate what our new recipe will be like before it is made!) Basic fatty acids (and how they pertain to soap making): Linoleics Very Conditioning, Moisturizing, Rinse clean feeling, high in Omega 6 Oleic Conditioning Palmitic Stabilizes lather Ricinoleic Conditioning Stearic stabilizes lather Almond Linoleics 8%-28% Oleic 64%-82% Palmitic 6%-8% Avocado Linoleics 6%-18% Oleic 36%-80% Palmitic 7%-32% Stearic 1%-5% Grapeseed Linoleics 58%-78% Oleic 12%-28% Palmitic 5%-11% Stearic 3%-6%
Heck, my hair was so stressed it got up and left a long time ago. What little I have left, I keep cut short and I use baby shampoo on it. That seems to work fine. But I have thought about using the OO soap I already use as bath soap, just to see how it would work. Good thread, Joe.
I got stuck with a puck of the Herban Cowboy "shaving" soap :rofl Where was I? Oh yeah, so now I use it as a shampoo bar and it works rather well that way. My hair is fairly short, like above the ears, but not super short.
Since my hair is also thinning, I keep it very short, but I don't use anything in it except Baby Shampoo, because my scalp has a tendancy to be very sensitive. Jeff
i read somewhere (might have been one of your own posts over on B&B :rofl ) that SLS will also dehydrate your scalp. truth? fiction? i've been using my savon de marseilles as a shampoo as well and it seems to work pretty well. and yes, like everyone else who seems to do this, i have short hair as well it's kinda nice only having to use 1 bar of soap to shower, rather than a shampoo, a body wash, and a face wash
I've been using bar soap on my hair for a long time, as I find it leaves my feeling and looking more natural. Shampoo makes my hair too fluffy and leaves me looking like I'm wearing a bad televangelist's toupee....
When I cut my hair I started using soap. It worked great. Now that my hair is getting longer I've switched back to regular shampoo. The soap seems to dry it out too much.
My hair gets cut w/ a #1 guard and clippers every week or 2 so it's never longer than a 1/4" or so. I started washing it w/ soap when I started using my first glycerin bar not too long ago. As the soaps I use get better and better, I don't see myself ever buying shampoo again. I agree - it is very nice just having one high quality soap that you can use for your body, face and hair.
My perception about applying bars on hair is going wrong . I have seen many people who are using Shampoo's for bathing purposes but it will be a new experience for me (if i shall go for it although i am not sure )
I've been using OO on my hair for a few weeks now and really liking it. I finally found a good use for my CAR cubes that are too small to use the brush on anymore!
