CO experience thread

Yesterday, I washed my hair and did CO. No particular reason, just felt like it I was expecting my hair to go funny and greasy but...it hasn't! It's possibly a tad greasier then if I's shampooed it but mainly it just feels like silk and really shiny! (See sig pic for proof-taken after CO)

Does that mean my hair likes CO and wants to run and hide away from the big scary shampoo bottle or something! I know it's early days yet but it seems to agree with my hair! Well I suppose I barely used shampoo anyway-I'd use heavily diluted baby shampoo.

Intrigued...
LadyFrog38747.434837963

Lovely new sig pic! I might give it a go tommorow.

Sounds like you're a CO gal. Lovely signature pic

Thank you HFO and Anais 

I'm interested in keeping up with your experiment, LadyFrog.  How often have you been washing your hair with shampoo?  And ultimately, how often will you end up washing with CO?  I think this could help me too, but I'm not quite ready to gopher it.

Hi Ladyfrog. I've been posting elsewhere about my CO experiments. I've just done my third attempt, but am giving up (again) probably for good.  My hair just does not like CO AT ALL

Your hair, however, looks (and feels?) good....so I'd say that's very encouraging.  Even after the first try, that sounds good. My hair just went from bad to utter crap very quickly.

I'm sticking with CWC mixed in with some of the baking soda/ACV washes.    If it aint broke, don't fix it

Dave- I've been washing roughly once a week with the heavily diluted shampoo. I'm not sure how often I'll wash with CO but I'm hoping that I'll be able to do it once or twice a week

Go for it!

Your hair does look great, LadyFrog.  I read one time in Anais' hair journal that shampooed hair looks nicer, but she loves the feel of CO hair.  Jennifer and I tend to agree.  Shampooed hair looks great, but feels dry.  COed hair is just heavenly to touch and play with.  It's for that reason that we have stuck with CO.  Once in a while, we get the shampoo bottle out and just wash the top of Jennifer's hair.  I hold the ends out of the suds bath until most of it is rinsed away.  We still notice a difference in the way her hair feels after a day or two.  It just feels drier and more brittle to the touch.

[QUOTE=DaveDecker]I'm interested in keeping up with your experiment, LadyFrog.  How often have you been washing your hair with shampoo?  And ultimately, how often will you end up washing with CO?  I think this could help me too, but I'm not quite ready to gopher it.[/QUOTE]

Hi Dave, I was a weekly washer too when I switched first to COW-CC, then to CO. I hope you decide to give CO a try

It's funny how different hair likes different things.  My hair never feels dry or brittle with CWC....it looks and feels silky soft and shiny. My scalp just hates CO on it, so CWC is the perfect solution for me.

Good luck to all the COers out there

Ladyfrog, I just wanted to say that I noticed how SHINY your hair was (well is!) in  your new sig pic the other day (or was that yesterday? ... well, whenever you posted it). That's what REALLY stood out -- the SHINE! Pretty color too! 

Thank you Alayney I posted the new sig pic on wednesday evening. 

[QUOTE=LadyFrog]Yesterday, I washed my hair and did CO. No particular reason, just felt like it I was expecting my hair to go funny and greasy but...it hasn't! It's possibly a tad greasier then if I's shampooed it but mainly it just feels like silk and really shiny! (See sig pic for proof-taken after CO)

Does that mean my hair likes CO and wants to run and hide away from the big scary shampoo bottle or something! I know it's early days yet but it seems to agree with my hair! Well I suppose I barely used shampoo anyway-I'd use heavily diluted baby shampoo.

Intrigued...
[/QUOTE]

Hi LadyFrog.  I have been doing CO and heavy dilution for years.  In fact, about 3 years ago I was at a seminar with the woman who wrote the Curly Girl book (Lorraine) and she came up to me at the break and said...you must do conditioning only washing...right?  I asked how she knew and she said...the shine, the softness and how nice my natural waves formed in the back.

I have found that over time I can only do diluted shampoo about once or twice a month.  I tend to CO every 5 days and then maybe on every 2nd or 3rd rotation I do DSO.  Today I did a super heavy dilution with Phytojoba but it was the first time in 3 weeks that I used DSO. My last DSO was with Aveda Shampure and I cut back to 1/2 teaspoon to 1 quart.  Which seemed to be good. 

Most of the time my CO consists of Phytosesame or ARTec Smoothing.  Lately I have been playing with RF Karite and just slathering it on. 

Thanks so much for sharing your experiments.  When I advise people to do either DSO or CO washing, they are very skeptical.  It has been working for me for years and I know it is very good for super long hair.

Karen Shelton38738.5475115741

Hi Anais,

Can we list all the acronyms for anyone not familiar?

CO = Conditioning Only
DSO = Diluted Shampoo Only

Please add your acronmys.

Thanks.

Karen- if I'm doing CO, then would I still need to occasionally shampoo to 'clean' the hair?

WO-water only

[QUOTE=LadyFrog]Karen- if I'm doing CO, then would I still need to occasionally shampoo to 'clean' the hair?

WO-water only
[/QUOTE]

Hi LF,

It depends on your hair and how you feel. The first year I "freaked" that I was not shampooing full strenght every day.  Eventually my hair "adjusted" and I found that if I did use full strength shampoo my hair felt like total hell.  Now I NEVER use full strength shampoo but it took me some years to get to this point.

For your hair...experiment.  Try different things.  I also..in the early years...diluted the conditioners I used so that my hair did not get greasy.  Sometimes I would use diluted shampoo on the bangs but no where else and then use only water (OW) :-) or CO on the middle to the bottoms.

Also, seasons require different treatments. 

So just take your time and experiment with different options and get to know the rhythm and moods of your strands.  Your hair will LOVE you for it.  :-)

And keep letting us know what you discover.  Since it helps everyone figure out their own path.  Right AS?  :-)

Hi Folks

We have a lot of acronyms and abbreviations!

CO= Conditioner Only
CWC= Condition, Wash, Condition
COW-C = ConditionerOnly + Wash + Conditioner (which is actually diluted shampoo with conditioner mixed in it, looks like a milkshake)
WO= water only (I tend to call it WO for Water Only because OW tends to be associated with COW)

Other abbreviations I've personally used, a few of which I better explain ..*sheepish.
BSL= Bra strap length
MBL= Mid back length
TB= Tailbone
ACV= apple cider vinegar
BBB= boar bristle brush
SM&H / Suave M&H= Suave Milk&Honey
SCS / Suave CS = Suave Citrus Smoothie
KLG= Kirkland Lemon Gingerroot
SUE= socked-up end, referring to occasions where the end of a braid is sock-curled

Karen, maybe we can start an FAQ thread of some kind...

AnaisSatin38738.8856365741

[QUOTE=AnaisSatin]

Hi Folks

We have a lot of acronyms and abbreviations!

CO= Conditioner Only
CWC= Condition, Wash, Condition
COW-C = ConditionerOnly + Wash + Conditioner (which is actually diluted shampoo with conditioner mixed in it, looks like a milkshake)
WO= water only (I tend to call it WO for Water Only because OW tends to be associated with COW)

Other abbreviations I've personally used, a few of which I better explain ..*sheepish.
BSL= Bra strap length
MBL= Mid back length
TB= Tailbone
ACV= apple cider vinegar
BBB= boar bristle brush
SM&H / Suave M&H= Suave Milk&Honey
SCS / Suave CS = Suave Citrus Smoothie
KLG= Kirkland Lemon Gingerroot
SUE= socked-up end, referring to occasions where the end of a braid is sock-curled

Karen, maybe we can start an FAQ thread of some kind...

[/QUOTE]

Hi AS...yes, yes, yes.....would you like to start one that we can make a stickie?  Or even better, I can put it at the top in announcements for people to check out.

Any thoughts?

Thanks soooooooooooo much.

[QUOTE=Karen Shelton]The first year I "freaked" that I was not shampooing full strenght every day.  Eventually my hair "adjusted" and I found that if I did use full strength shampoo my hair felt like total hell.  Now I NEVER use full strength shampoo but it took me some years to get to this point.[/QUOTE]

That is interesting. I used to wash and blow dry my hair EVERY single day no matter what and now I do it at the most every other day. I always felt either I was not clean if I didn't bathe every day, or that I didn't look my best, but it's simply not true. Now I almost like my hair better the second day -- not always but there are times. I can actually go out in public and do things with "dirty" hair. Ha, ha. It's just so funny because I used to be so uptight!  And I seem to get the most compliments on dirty hair days too.

Oh, and I almost forgot -- I'm SO glad you added the acronyms. I was just about to ask what they were or if you all could direct me to the place on the boards that they were previously defined. You read my mind!

Hi, I thought I'd resurrect this thread - hope that's okay. Just wondering how the CO experimenting is going? I did CO this week and last (before that I did CO one day and diluted shampoo three or four days later). My hair feels a bit limp with the CO but seems very clean and shiny. No itchy scalp or dandruff either. The conditioners I'm using are alternating each CO with Aveda Curresence, Aveda Pure Abundance, Lush Veganese, with Giovanni Direct Leave-In at the end. Maybe the leave-in is causing the limpness? Hmmmm.

The CO is still kind of going. I washed my hair twice a week the first week and the next I left it five days. I was using somerfield own brand conditioner for fine/greasy hair as the cleaner and the own brand one for normal hair as the conditioner. My hair was clean enough at the roots and it wasn't greasy although it was kind of...coated. The thing is, the outer layer of my hair was all kind of separating and looking a little stringy. It looked fine when pulled back but nasty loose. So this morning I did a diluted shampoo. I think I'll stick to CO but maybe shampoo once in a while to get rid of residue. Wasn't there someone else who does that who said so on here?

I was thinking, like Anais's list of useful threads, maybe we should keep this thread up, posting about our own experiences of CO so that people wanting to try CO can read about it without starting a million threads on the same topic. What do you think?

I like your idea of having a sum total thread. If you like, you can edit the title of your first post as "CO experiences thread" or a similar title, and that will change the thread name.

Anais 

I finally broke down today and did an ACV rinse and DSO, then conditioned and used Giovanni Direct Leave-In as the final conditioner. The itchies finally came, and also much stringiness. I am going to try to go one week with only CO again and maybe just wear my hair up all the time. It sounds, from Karen's experience, that the more time and the longer the hair, the better CO works, so I'm going to stick with it for most washes. Thanks Anais and Karen for the abbreviations and making this a regular thread.

 

Ehhh, question about CO washing.

Once I heavily oiled my hair with olive oil, and I tried just rinsing it out with water, and then applied conditioner and rinsed it out (without shampooing) and the next day my hair was terribly oily.

So, do you use shampoo on days when you oil?