The Shampoo How-To

 
Greasy hair is everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  You know what other things are everywhere?  Showers.  Shampoo. 
 No excuse, people.  Not even if your name is Megan Fox and you could make a straight woman want to munch carpets. Not even if you're Johnny Depp and you wear grubby clothes, dreads, and play a dirty pirate all day and still look downright fucking delicious.  You still need to wash your hair, and you need to do it right.

 It's no fricking wonder we don't know how to properly cleanse our hair.  Shampoo only became a mainstream item in the 1950's.  People are lazy and just assume that the chemicals in the shampoo are going to do all the work for them.  Time to set the record straight.  Shampooing is a PHYSICAL process; Not a chemical.  It requires some force, effort, and technique.  Like kicking someone's ass if they deserve it.  In the fight against grease and flakes, you need to break out your pythons and show em' who they're dealing with.


   Shampoo is full of scary sulfates and ingedients that sound like townships in northern Maine.  You want to use it on your head as scarcely as possible.  Yes, in my blog where I am bitching about people with greasy domes, I am telling you to shampoo less. Every other day is sufficient.  Every three to four days if your hair is thick.  The less amount of actual shampoos you do will help you fight against the grease, as these chemicals strip your scalp of necessary oils that maintain your hair's pH.  I won't get into all the chemical bullshit that goes on up there, but basically your oil glands overproduce when you shampoo too much. 


  So now that we know to shampoo less, we need to learn to get the most out of when we do shampoo. 


Here is a play by play:


1)  Wet your hair first.  Make sure it is completely soaked root to ends. 


2) Start with a small amount- a teaspoonful for short hair, tablespoon for thick hair.  Apply to the CROWN of your head.  The crown is the top/back where you have a cowlick.  You want to get as much of it as you can on your actual scalp.  Avoid the midstrands to ends of your hair, as they do not actually need shampoo. 
Work down towards the back of your ears and your neck, covering every surface of the scalp.  Next work from crown to front hairline in front of ears and then last the forehead. 


3) Using your fingertips/fingernails if you have them, scrape circles on your scalp.  Basically, give yourself a scalp massage. Pretend you are gently scraping off the top layer of scalp. 


4)  If you timed your shampoo right, your hair should NOT lather.  The natural oils in your hair prevent the lather.  Rinse your hair once you're sure you've covered every square inch of scalp.


5) Repeat. Squirt shampoo in hand, apply to crown, massage everywhere. This is when you'll get a lather.  Scrub your whole head exactly the same way you did the first time.  Avoid the midstrand and ends.


6) Apply a conditioner from the midstrand to ends and follow the rinsing directions on the bottle.  Roots do not need conditioner as they will produce their own nurturing oils within a few hours.  If your conditioner is too heavy and leaves you feeling like you have a buildup on your hair, condition before you shampoo.  If you shampoo correctly, it will still give you the conditioning benefits without the chalky, greasy feeling.

  Now go, my pupils, and use this knowledge.  Not only will you get the benefit of not looking like one of your favorite grease-tastic celebrities, but scalp stimulation and massage promotes blood circulation.  Blood circulation keeps your follicles producing hair (so you are less likely to bald or thin) and keeps them producing melanin as well (so you are less likely to gray.)  That being said, hair loss and graying are genetic, but how you go about caring for your hair will affect the speed in which they happen.