exphairimentation

[ewt]

Okay, so the shampoo-free thing is working fairly well for me - my hair is still not as soft as it was when I was using masses of conditioner, but it isn't getting dirty and manky after two days, and the condition seems to improve over time.

My scalp, on the other hand... well, it's been very up and down. Specifically, it's really good for a day or so after being saturated with apple cider vinegar, but the rest of the time the seborrheic dermatitis is pretty bad, and that's making the roots of my hair oily (which isn't too bad) and also making me itchy and uncomfortable (which is what I'm trying to avoid).

The obvious solution seems to be to use the apple cider vinegar more often. However, I can't just start washing my hair every day - because my back won't really put up with me leaning over the sink or bathtub to only wash my hair, and my skin absolutely won't have me getting that much wet every day. The other problem is that the built-up dead skin and sebum and stuff stops the apple cider vinegar from getting all the way to my scalp much of the time.

So, new PLN:
-oil dissolves oil, so once in a while (once a week? once a month?) I will condition my scalp with a combination of oils chosen for their skin-friendly properties.
-ACV is good, aloe vera gel also helps me, and lavender oil is meant to be particularly good for balancing sebum production, so I will make a scalp toner liquid that contains these things and use it every day or every other day. It shouldn't leave enough residue to require rinsing out.

So, given those requirements, a fair amount of reading on the interweb, and the availability of materials on a Sunday that is also Christmas Eve, I have concocted the following:


Thick Oily Hair Goo:
-manuka honey (~2 tbsp)
-palmer's cocoa butter formula (~2 tbsp)
-pure coconut oil (~2 tbsp)
-lavender oil (half a tsp)
-olbas oil (ten drops)
-tea tree oil (five drops)
-dried rosemary (couldn't find any rosemary oil)
-olive oil

I really should have heated this a bit to get the oils to mix a little better, but when I got lumps of coconut oil in it I just melted them with my hands to apply them to my scalp. I'm currently sitting waiting for the hot water, with lots of this on my scalp and brushed through my hair as well. I smell like a cross between salad dressing and medicine. It certainly feels very soothing, though.




Thin Scalp Toner Liquid
-after-sun lotion that is mostly aloe vera gel (couldn't find any pure aloe vera gel and I've run out of what I have with me in Brighton)
-apple cider vinegar
-half a tsp lavender oil
-5 drops tea tree oil
-10 drops peppermint oil
-1 tbsp dried rosemary

I'll see how this works. The PLN is that the lavender and peppermint will mask the vinegar smell enough to make it bearable to put this on, brush my hair, and then go out before it's quite dry. If it isn't working well then I'll make a batch without so much aloe in it, and see how that goes.

I've been very sparing with the tea tree oil in both of these as I've been known to have a mild allergic reaction to it previously - things like dousing my entire head with it (another recommended technique for seborrheic dermatitis) are simply not an option for me.

If this works I will be very pleased. It will work out cheaper and less itchy than coal tar shampoo.

Time to go massage the oily hair goo into my scalp some more and then wash it off.


EDIT: Okay, I had to use castille soap to get the oil out of my hair, but it feels AMAZING now. I'll see what it's like when it dries...but so far I am very happy.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Oily hair goo will merely stay in your hair...
Really, egg is useful.

To make it less oily, wash it LESS often, not more often. The more often you strip it of its oils, the quicker it puts them back with extra. When I used to wash mine every two days, on the second day it would be disgusting; now I've worked it down to every week, it's still pleasant on day seven.

[bites-the-sun.livejournal.com]

I had a bad case of seborrhaic dermatitis on my scalp last year, caused primarily by trying the conditioner-only hair-washing method (never, EVER again, goddanmit) and the only thing that cured it was using Nizoral shampoo, which you can get for about a fiver at most pharmacies. I tried T-Gel (the coal tar shampoo) and the cider vinegar rinses etc, and while they briefly provided a little relief in terms of the constant itching and dried up the weeping sores a little, they didn't solve the problem, whic with SD is apaprently fungal.

Anyway, Nizoral was sweet relief for me, and the problem hasn't recurred since I used it, and my scalp was in a real mess by teh time I got around to using it.

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

seborrheic dermatitis

Do I want to know what this is?

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Nizoral was prescribed to me several times over the past 12 years, and never really helped. The coal tar shampoo is the thing that has helped most so far, but I am hopeful about apple cider vinegar.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Very bad dandruff.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Oily goo comes out of my hair okay with castille soap, which is the least-irritant actual-detergent thing I've found so far. I might try using an egg for this instead. I'm not planning to do the oily goo thing very often - it was more because my hair is in pretty bad condition from being bleached half to death for two years and using various shampoos which do nothing for my hair in order to keep a scalp condition under control.

I was down to washing my hair only once a week, and the seborrheic dermatitis was making it unbearable. I probably have this because of hormone imbalance caused by polycystic ovarian syndrome (which even my useless GP says I probably have - but I can't get a diagnosis until I've been off oral contraceptives for Quite Some Time, and even then there are false negatives), so it's likely that I'm always going to be prone to it. The problem is that if I don't treat the fungal overgrowth that causes the dermatitis, the dermatitis will prompt my scalp to make more skin and sebum than is normal. This means a) I need to treat the fungal problems regularly and b) every once in a while I need to remove buildup, especially if I've messed up and not treated the fungal problems adequately for a few weeks.

I'm planning to continue from here by applying the apple cider vinegar stuff every day or every other day, but still only actually washing my hair (with water, maybe some bicarb or an egg, or diluted castille soap if necessary) once a week, and see how that goes.

[karen2205]

Nizoral = ketaconazole as the active ingredient. I'm fairly certain it has SLS in it. I've been using this for the past six months or so (having been using coal tar shampoo for about a year before that). I've never really managed to get rid of mine - I've had it since I was a child. It just varies in quantity. Right now it's particularly bad + has extended to my eyebrows. I think this is because I stopped taking the selenium tablets I'd been taking suddenly. I've now started taking selenium again, but without any noticeable results yet.

I might try the tea tree oil thing.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

This looks interesting. I'm a bit nervous about doing it with long hair, though.

[arosoff.livejournal.com]

Nizoral works wonders, but only if your dandruff is actually caused by a fungus (since it's basically fungicide for hair/scalp). Most people's is, so it works.

Personally I think the whole SLS hysteria is ridiculous anyway, and frankly, not washing my hair just makes my scalp itch. (The no-shampoo method is also promoted for curly hair.) I've found that I do have to wash my hair (long and curly) twice a week or a little less. Go past a week and it itches. The other problem is London's rock hard water--no matter how mild a shampoo you use, the water here is terrible on hair. I need much heavier conditioner than I did in New York.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if SLS is the problem for me - but if I do a patch test on my wrist with commercial shampoo it gets all red and raw. If anything my scalp is likely to be more sensitive than my wrist, especially when it has sores from the dermatitis. This is why I want to avoid commercial shampoo.

Further, I'm not sure if Nizoral doesn't work for me because the anti-fungal dose is not strong enough or because I'm treating the wrong fungus or because for some odd reason I've developed resistance to it. Either way I'm not happy putting something on my head that makes me itch if applied elsewhere, and the apple cider vinegar seems to have some value, so I'm willing to give it a good go.

[bites-the-sun.livejournal.com]

I am prone to very dry skin and eczema and its has always been at its worst in places with very hard water (Bath in the UK) and/or over-chlorinated water(when I lived in Osaka; the water there is the most heavily chlorinated I've ever come across). The chlorine especially I know makes a huge impact on my skin. I always come out of bath or shoer water red and slightly blotchy; now when I've swum in say, river water, I've come out with the smoothest skin of my life and no redness - and I'm not even talking particularly clean river water here. I was once given a clip-on filter for my bath tap and the difference it made to how the water impacted on my skin was incredible. I currently live in a place with very soft water, so the dryness is never too bad, but the chlorine still itritates me. I'm saving up for a chlorine filter for the shower; I've heard it makes all the difference for people like me.

I agree with the SLS thing; it's totally overblown and most of the SLS hysteria comes from companies who are activelt trying to sell products with different detergents in.

[bites-the-sun.livejournal.com]

Have you ever tried a filter on your shower? You could have a sensitivity to chlorine that is aggravating an already existing problem, maybe?

I still sometimes use vinegar rinses; they're good for smoothing the hair shaft if nothing else.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Seawater makes me itch less. I haven't tried a shower filter.

My father and grandfather also have the sensitivity-to-something-in-tap-water thing; my father gets quite a bit of relief using a water softener, which makes me think that maybe it's a limescale thing rather than a chlorine thing.

London has both lots of limescale and lots of chlorine. Grah. When I grow up I will get a whole-house water filter and be done with it. In the meantime... yes, probably worth saving up for a shower filter.

[spodlife]

I don't know about hair, but I found Tea Tree brilliant at removing a verruca. It wasn't even strong stuff - I just washed that foot once a day for a couple of weeks with Body Shop Tea Tree body wash.