The cleaning agent shampoo. It has substances known as surfactants and detergents that assist in cleaning your hair of oil, sweat, dirt, product buildup, and environmental contaminants.
The natural oils, proteins, and botanical extracts included in conditioners, on the other hand, aid to maintain hair silky, lustrous, and smooth.
Once rinsed, they leave a thin coating on your hair to shield it.
Most individuals wash their hair with shampoo, then scrub, rinse, and then use conditioner.
Shampooing gets rid of oil and impurities from the hair, but it can also make the hair brittle, frizzy, and difficult to manage. It is said that using conditioner after shampooing will help with this problem.
Is shampooing followed by conditioning the sole method for washing hair, though?
Reverse shampooing, also known as pre-wash conditioning, is a novel method of hair washing that recommends using conditioner first.
Another recent development is co-washing, which completely omits shampoo.
So, which approach is ideal? Depending on your hair type and preferences, you could find it useful to attempt a different approach occasionally even though the conventional shampoo-first process is still required most of the time.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
✅ To make sure that adequate oil and grime are removed from the hair, shampoos are typically used before conditioners.
✅ Reverse hair washing is a recommendation from some stylists for persons with extremely dry or fine hair who still want the moisturizing effects of conditioners without the added weight and excess moisture.
✅ Even so, it’s generally a good idea to limit your use of these techniques to once or twice per week and shampoo your hair frequently the rest of the time.
✅ Shampoo is still required for thorough filth, perspiration, and product buildup removal.
✅ You must wash your hair with shampoo first more frequently the dirtier it becomes and the more oil you produce. Use a conditioner after using a light or clarifying shampoo.
How to apply conditioner and shampoo
It is often advised to use shampoo before conditioner to clean the hair. For optimum outcomes, adhere to the following steps:
- Use warm, not hot, water to thoroughly wet your hair.
- Squirt a tiny bit of shampoo into your hand’s palm.
- Massage it onto your scalp until it foams up.
- Distribute the shampoo evenly throughout your hair, concentrating on the scalp.
- Thoroughly rinse your hair and scalp.
- Squirt some conditioner into your hand in a little amount.
- Avoid applying it to your scalp and work it into the length of your hair.
- Continue using the conditioner for around three minutes.
- Give your hair a thorough rinse.
- After getting out of the shower, lightly blot your hair with a towel to eliminate moisture.
You decide how frequently you should shampoo and condition your hair. People who tend to have dry hair may want to wash their hair less regularly than those who tend to have greasy hair. The hair won’t be damaged by routine washing with a gentle shampoo. A light shampoo includes additional conditioning chemicals in addition to softer cleaning agents.
You should still use a stronger clarifying shampoo once a week even if your hair is oily or unclean.
What separates shampoo from conditioner
Shampoos and conditioners differ primarily in that shampoos have washing agents (detergents and surfactants), whereas conditioners do not.
While conditioners lack cleansing chemicals, some varieties of shampoo (mild shampoos) also contain conditioning ingredients that are comparable to those found in conditioners. These could take the shape of silicones, proteins, or natural oils.
Conditioner first, then shampoo
The effectiveness and safety of the co-washing or reverse hair-washing methods, as well as the recommended frequency of use, are not supported by scientific evidence.
Apply conditioner before shampooing if you notice that your hair feels flat, oily, or heavy after conditioning. Pre-wash conditioning or reverse hair washing are both terms for this technique. It doesn’t seem harmful to attempt either approach if you believe it would be effective for you.
When washing your hair in reverse, you don’t rinse off the conditioner before shampooing. You:
- Work conditioner into your hair, then wait a few minutes before brushing.
- After that, use shampoo on your hair and lather it up without rinsing off the conditioner.
- Rinse away both the shampoo and the conditioner simultaneously.
Following reverse hair washing, your hair won’t feel greasy or heavy, according to proponents, and the conditioner:
- serves as pre-wash priming.
- makes it possible to uniformly distribute the shampoo
- and safeguards the hair strand to prevent the shampoo from robbing it of its inherent oils.
Most hairstylists concur that ordinary shampooing (shampoo first) should be utilized the bulk of the time and that reverse washing should only be performed once per week.
Whose hair should be conditioned before being shampooed?
Reverse hair washing is advised only infrequently for those with hair that is:
- dry
- damaged
- fine
People with: are advised to co-wash (wash their hair just with conditioner, skipping the shampoo)
- Extremely dry hair
- brittle hair, such as that that has undergone chemical treatment
- those with wavy or curly hair
Since co-washing doesn’t thoroughly remove product buildup and grime from the scalp, particularly silicone-containing products, it will leave a lot of extra product on the hair.
Avoid using silicone-containing hair products if you simply wash them with conditioner since they could make your hair feel weighed down, lifeless, and dull.
As some of the most widely used silicones, products containing chemicals like Cyclomethicone, dimethicone, and amodimethicone should be avoided. In order to remove buildup, you might need to use a clarifying shampoo every two weeks if you do use conditioners that include these components.
As coarse hair tends to lose moisture fast, you can also attempt a condition-shampoo-condition regimen if you have particularly coarse or curly hair.