My friend has the most beautiful (bleached) white-blonde, shiny, healthy hair. I discovered her secret finally when I showered at her house.
"I use Wen," she said. It's basically an everything-in-one. A shampoo, conditioner, leave in conditioner...mix it with water and you get a hair toner! Smooth your frizzes!
I pumped several pumps and combed it through my hair. When my hair dried I felt like I had a halo around my head; it looked so shiny and healthy!
I checked up the prices. $32 for this stuff that lasts you only a month?! I couldn't bring myself to buy it and started looking for other alternatives.
Some online solutions included make-your-own with 3:1 shampoo:conditioner, and some people were adamant about "no poo" (aka no products whatsoever). I kind of like my hair smelling nice and looking shiny, so I came up with another theory when I thought about a simple science project back in middle school.
Water + alcohol + oil = emulsification.
Those are the exact ingredients of conditioner, which means, theoretically you can wet your hair, emulsify the grease and dirt from your scalp, and wash it all out with water.
I tried this and for three months I used conditioner to wash my hair. It was healthy, shiny, and smelled just fine. I got less split ends, and my hair never looked greasy after a wash. I alternated conditioners and found that all of them worked, although I avoided the ones with silicon to prevent buildup.
Once in a while I'll shampoo my hair or mix small amounts of shampoo into my conditioner, but now I don't really stress about needing to shampoo my hair. It's no longer a necessity.
