Today is the last episode of my little Water-only series, this time with the question: how do you actually wash your hair if you only wash with water? What do you have to consider and what has turned out to be good and sensible for me for Water only? The article presents my experiences to the topic, it can be natural that it looks completely different with you with other hair characteristics and other water. Nevertheless, my explanations might be helpful for one or the other.
1. brush before washing: you can find all important information here. This is the only way you can remove dust and coarse dirt from your hair BEFORE washing and in my opinion WO can work so much better.
2. wash head over heels: with me, this has absolutely proved itself! I have washed anyway always so, with Water only I tried actually again both directions and came also to the conclusion that head over heels better functions. One of the reasons is that the back of the head produces more fat in most people. Maybe it's because there are more glands, maybe it's because you're lying on the back of your head a lot and sebum production is stimulated. However, upside-down you can remove the fat from your hair much better or distribute it towards the tips.
3. vary the water temperature: While you should use lukewarm water for normal shampooing, at least not too hot water, you can vary a bit with Water only. I often started lukewarm, then increased to warmer temperatures and finally rinsed my hair cooler again. The hotter the water, the more grease is removed from the hair. This means that you can also adjust the temperature according to how greasy the hair is, the greasier the hotter it is, so to speak. For some people, however, hot water stimulates sebum production again after washing, which has to be tested, I have not noticed any such effect. A pleasant shower temperature or a little warmer than on my body also proved to be right for my hair.
4. massage scalp and base: Also with Water-only you should massage your scalp and the base of your hair well, rather better or more than with shampoo. Otherwise, you just simulate: imagine the foam in your hair and massage as if you had shampoo on your head! All this is best done with running water so that dissolved dirt or grease can be washed away immediately. This procedure also cleans the hair mechanically. Please do not use your fingernails and scratch, otherwise, you will hurt the scalp, but only massage with your fingertips!
5. insert the showerhead from all sides: If you only wash with water, you should take special care that the water really does flow through your hair from all sides, as if you really want to rinse out a cleaning product well. So hold the showerhead at different places, especially at the base around and the temples, but if possible also at different places of the back of the head. I like to set the shower jet as "hard" as possible and hold it very close to the head. If that is not possible with you, you should hold the head in any case differently under the showerhead and massage during it evenly from all sides.
6. sour rinse if necessary: I did not sourly against with each WO wash, because I have "only" medium-hard water. About every second time, however, at least something sour was used. Sometimes I put about 2-3 tbsp of my spiced apple vinegar into 1.25 l filtered water, which was poured over the hair (especially into the roots!), let it act briefly like a rinse and then carefully rinsed out again. This smoothes the hair and the acid also removes grease from the hair (strictly speaking this is no longer water only, but I didn't care). Especially when the hair feels waxy, this is a good and quick help. Sometimes I used only 1 tablespoon raspberry vinegar and reddish hair tea as a rinse, I left it in the hair, because the fruit tea smells good.
7. Washing in the bathtub: It is also very practical to wash in the bathtub from time to time. You can calmly dip your head into the hot water and enjoy massaging the scalp and the base. But this is even further away from Water only, at least for me, because I used bath additive and it contains (at least a little) tensides. But they are so extremely diluted that you can almost overlook it, aren't they? Since I was always concerned anyway only with the simplicity and the liberating of the WO method and not with the strict "it must be absolutely only water to the hair", I find that with the bath additive completely okay. In my case it never decreased so much that you would have the disadvantages of a "normal" wash, i.e. it would dry out the hair so much that you would have to take extreme care of it again afterward, it didn't completely remove the protective film of the hair that you build up after a while.