Are you supposed to be washing your hair, your scalp or both ? 
Really dumb this I know, but having always taken it for granted I’ve never really understood the underlying objectives of washing one’s hair !!
Obviously everyone’s different and products suitable for one person aren’t suitable for another, but are you basically supposed to be washing your hair, your scalp or both ? I sort of understand the acidity and ph side of things and the need to choose the right kind of shampoos etc., but and this is the really dumb part (!), it strikes me that if you have to use soap to wash the skin and not shampoo, why are we therefore using shampoo to “wash” the skin on the head ?
The reason I’m bringing all this up is years ago I occasionally had to use Nizoral to get rid of mild dandruff, which all used to work well. Then I tried something I’d read on a forum of diluting the shampoo and using lukewarm water instead, plus a final cold rinse. I never noticed but all I can remember is that I eventually stopped using Nizoral and the dandruff gradually disappeared.
Well about 3 or 4 months ago I wondered what would happen if I went back to using normal showering water temperature for shampooing. Almost immediately my hair started looking much healthier all round, though I still continued using diluted (Jojoba) shampoo. Lately unfortunately the dandruff has returned with a vengeance ! Very flaky scalp which is now - apologies I know this is very yukky (!) – drying in one or two small areas into a tiny hard crust which eventually flakes off as dandruff. Horrible and whilst I’m now back with the dreary chore of having to use Nizoral again, it has at least set me thinking about all the above and what the fundamental objectives are for washing one’s hair in the first place.
I’m now beginning to think that perhaps the skin on the scalp must out of necessity be that much more oily than the rest of one’s skin in order to maintain healthy hair. If only because a). you don't get dandruff on the skin and b). when you get chapped hands from constantly getting your hands wet or the skin becomes too dry in winter, the same though a much milder type of skin flakiness always seems to occur as well. So the need to daily rub in some sort of soothing oil into all of the affected skin areas.
On exactly the same principle as chapped hands etc., whilst I’ve still no idea whether using warmer water was the original culprit that removed my natural scalp oils, either way I’ve now gone back to using lukewarm water again. However it’ll be at least a good two or three months or so before I’ll know if it’s working or not, i.e. allowing the scalp oils to settle back into their natural balance etc.
All of which led to the above question !
Ideally though obviously impossible, from this I would have thought in principle only you should always aim to shampoo the hair and not the scalp as the scalp is simply normal skin. So is there such a thing as a scalp shampoo or do manufacturers try to include both basic requirements of the hair and scalp into each product ? And does the ph factor in shampoos refer to the scalp or the hair ?
Hmm…it might be fun to try a one-off Jojoba shampoo massage next time my hands are dry !
It would be very interesting to hear everyone else’s dual skin cleansing and hair shampooing approaches as well and any thoughts they might have on all this ?
Thanks
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