I frequently ride in the morning, and occasionally I need to go to a real meeting later in the day. A full shower isn’t an option, but I do a pretty good wipe down of the horse-ness.
My hair however, looks like a teenage boy who hasn’t washed his hair in a week. To give you an idea, I have to wash my hair every single evening. Even 1 day of no shampoo leaves my hair too gross to be seen anywhere but the supermarket (or barn).
I have long, thin, fine, oily hair and it’s dark in color so I can struggle with dry shampoo looking like dandruff.
Also try going shampoo free for a week when you can. Your scalp will learn to not overproduce oil after an initial learning curve. I rinse in very hot water which helps distribute hair old, then cold rinse to close hair shaft.
Fancy hat? or baseball cap, if your work allows that. Fashionable headband or headscarf?
Liner in your riding helmet?
Tying up your hair? and/or deliberately slicking it back?
I know you said you don’t have time for a full shower, but is it feasible to quickly wash your hair under a faucet?
I’ve tried dry shampoo specifically for dark hair, which didn’t have the dandruff effect.
I’ve also tried going shampoo free, non-detergent shampoo soap bars, baking soda instead of shampoo (not all these things at the same time) for weeks and my hair never adjusted. I think my water is too hard or I needed longer adjustment period but I couldn’t stand how gross my hair felt/looked. What has worked best for me is super moisturizing shampoo/conditioner (I guess so my scalp doesn’t feel like it needs to over-produce oil to compensate for dryness), no SLS/sulfates or fragrance (but my skin is sensitive to a lot of things), washing with lukewarm/cold water only, and heavily-diluted ACV rinse once a week (makes it shiny, without getting oily, and tangle-free. too much ACV makes it too oily/heavy feeling.
If it’s infrequent, there’s a chance people won’t notice or care. Or can you plan on those days to ride after your meeting? Or extra early/short ride so you do have time to shower?
I have fine hair that tends to be quite oily, different shampoos and conditioners can make a huge difference in my hair. I’ve recently been using Living Proof’s Perfect Hair Day shampoo and conditioner, and I can now easily go two days without washing my hair without it getting oily, and the third day I think the greasiness is only really noticeable to me, and is easily fixed with a bit of dry shampoo.
Batiste does make a dry shampoo that is brown instead of white, and I also often apply dry shampoo then spritz my hair with water or brush it with a wet brush to get the white residue to disappear where I’ve over-applied.
I am going to start trying diluted apple cider vinegar rinses as well, I’ve read about those only in the context of doing no-shampoo, and I have been really unwilling to go through the “learning curve” of increased oil production, so it’s good to know people have luck adding those to a routine that still contains shampoo.
One of the few times that I can combine my cosmetology license and my passion for riding! There’s been some great advice here already. I totally agree with the Amika dry shampoo. I recently bought some for a friend with fine, dark hair and she adores it. It doesn’t hurt that it smells amazing also!
One thing I haven’t seen suggested so far–try giving your hair a quick blow dry. I know, it’s already dry, but that heat and warm air can definitely help fluff your hair back up. With dry shampoo to absorb the oil, you could be back in business.
Washing your hair the same morning before your ride could also definitely be helpful. You won’t have any oil that might build up overnight while you’re sleeping.
Coincidentally I used some dry shampoo this morning for the first time. I picked some up a while back on a whim. I’m not sure what it really is but it did give my hair some sproing that survived two hours in a helmet. Not really cleaner but definitely volumized. Worth trying. It didn’t get gummy under the helmet like hairspray would have.
There’s a learning curve to ACV as well! Or at least there was for me. The first time I tried it, I did 1:1 dilution, and it was not great (had a weird clumpy feeling, plus very strong smelling). At least if it doesn’t work, you can rinse/wash it out and try a different dilution in a few days. (The no-shampoo was endless waxy-feeling hair. I’m envious of people it works for!)
Then I read this article, specifically these bits: “Mix 1/2 to 4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (ACV) with 8 ounces of water” and “Remember–dry hair likes less vinegar and oily hair likes more.” And realized I’d been using way too much. For a very long time, I thought I had oily hair, but when I started treating it like I had dry hair, it got so much better.
So now I use 1 ACV:8 water, roughly. And I discovered my hair gets that clumpy feeling if I use it 2 days in a row, though it still looks shiny and healthy, so I just use it once a week (made a big difference with tangles). Regular conditioner is fine for me in between ACV rinses. And I tend to aim for the middle/ends of my hair, rather than my scalp (it’s fine if it gets on there, but it did cause a little itching – my skin is super sensitive to everything though, like definitely can’t use anything with fragrance or tea tree oil or dryer sheets, etc).
Sound advice from other posters. I will add - if you are using a shampoo for oily hair, stop. It’s drying your hair and scalp out and thus making it produce more oil - which makes you buy more shampoo, etc etc. Use a shampoo for normal hair, get a good shampoo, too. Do you have a stylist who could recommend something for you? It might cost more but it’s worth it. Also, the more alcohol a product has in it - the more drying it is. Anything heavily fragranced is loaded with alcohol, as it is a fixative for perfume.
I had a friend who was using a very drying shampoo on her hair and an acne/problem complexion product on her face, Plus she kept wiping her face and the part in her hair with alcohol wipes and could not understand why both her face and hair were even MORE oily. I told her to stop what she was doing and see what happened. She didn’t believe me but gave it a week and was surprised at the huge improvement.
“Dry shampoo”. :yes: You just spray it on and brush your hair. Takes no time at all. It’s very convenient, you can spray it on and brush in the parking lot if need be.
I’ve tried two kinds. One was awful, made hair feel sticky, and the other worked well. Of course I can’t remember the name of the good one. The bad one had an Australian name… I’ll try Amika the next time I need some.
Great suggestions. Do try the living proof shampoo line - there is a travel pack at Sephora’s for $30. Comes with a mini dry shampoo and is an absolute miracle/game changer. I have fine hair that frizzes up into a puff ball. I now no longer need to flat iron it, ever - the styler gives it awesome body with no frizz.
Is your helmet too hot? UVEX helmets have great ventilation. Option 2 is too apply dry shampoo before you ride. Place panty liners in helmet to help absorb sweat, then shake your hair and maybe add a bit more dry shampoo after. A blast of hair drier will help. Remember dry shampoo should be put on to absorb and then brushed out.
Baking soda has a pH of 9 – very alkaline. Add it to hard water which usually has an alkaline ph and you’re totally upsetting the balance of hair/scalp which has an acid pH of about 4.5. No wonder your hair felt gross.
At the other end of the spectrum too much acid like a water rinse with a high concentrate of ACV (pH about 3) can have have the same damaging effect. So you are correct to dilute it but it depends on the pH of the water you’re using.
The perfect pH balanced rinse for hair is one cap full ACV in a gallon of distilled water or any water with a neutral pH. Or just plain rain water which is already slightly acid.
OP: I totally agree with @shiloh that over washing hair – like every day and with a sulphate shampoo or one for oily hair for example – will increase sebum production. Short of a medical condition/hormone or other issue, the more you taketh away sebum the more it wants to produce in an effort to balance the scalp. And pH plays a huge role in hair care. Make sure you’re using pH balanced shampoos/conditioners. But they are only as good as the water you rinse with (weak acid) to maintain that pH. If indeed you’re dealing with a pH problem, by correcting it you should see a difference quite quickly – but in the meantime maybe the Amika will work.
Yeah, baking soda was the worst of the no-shampoo trial. Everything I’d read said hair will feel gross for a while, then readjust to less sebum production. Mine never got there. Non-detergent soap bars also did not work that well for me, never got past at least half the hair feeling waxy (weirdly some parts felt really nice and clean and soft and shiny, and other parts did not, even after 2-3 weeks, so I gave up). Probably because soap is also alkaline? Did not feel like it was rinsing out well, even with ACV rinse. Maybe if i’d figured out how to pH-balance my water, soap and rinse it would’ve worked, but I just buy better and more moisturizing shampoo/conditioner now.
I too have fine hair (which can tend to look oily) but I make it a point to only wash it every other day at the most. Now, I am usually going to do some sort of pony tail or half-up when I’m on Day #2 hair but I don’t mind.
But what if you try to cut back on the washing? Your hair may be producing so much oil b/c of how much you wash it. If you quit washing it so much, you might have less of a problem. Something to think about anyway!
I don’t ride in the morning (not enough time to get two children ready in the morning and myself and get to work by 7:30 ) but I will ride after work on most days. I’ll shower off my body if I need to (and usually do in the summer because I got sweaty) but I will alternate days that I wash my hair.
I’ve also noticed it makes a big difference on what shampoo/conditioner I use. Currently, I use It’s A 10. It’s more expensive but it works and leaves my hair looking really nice.
For me, if I use Redken, that REALLY makes my hair look oily, even right after a shower and blow dry.
Tresseme does okay with my hair, but not as good as Its A 10.
So you might also want to play around with your shampoo brand and see if there’s something out there that works better.
I too have never been successful with dry shampoo. I feel like it makes my hair look worse.
I have very dark hair and I use some high impact dry shampoo (the Evo Water Killer dry shampoo). LOTS of white in that one. My trick is to spray it on my hair before I need it, like the night before I sleep in it or before I got to the barn. Then, I can just fluff it really quickly and it bounces back to life without all the white. If you can’t handle the white cast, the living proof stuff really is awesome too.
Changing my shampoo also made a massive difference. I use the rehab shampoo by lush. It is balancing, without stripping, which has let my hair go from an every day wash to being hair I can wash every 3 - 4 days (with dry shampoo).
Thank you everyone! I’ll look into the dry shampoo recommendations.
I can definitely do the hair dryer! Does anyone know if they make battery operated ones? I could plug one in at the wash rack or when I get to work, but I have a whole dressing area set up in my tack locker, so it’s easiest if I can just do start to finish there.
I’ll also try different shampoos. Currently I just alternate between Head & Shoulders and Herbal Essences and use a TINY bit of L’Oreal sulfate free conditioner on the lower part of my hair.
Sadly, the no-shamoo thing doesn’t work for me. I tried so hard! When I was living in Costa Rica (and no one cared), my roommate and I (with thicker but also oily hair) gave it a really good almost 2 month trial, trying every recommendation we could. My hair never adjusted and just got :disgust:. For the entire year I only washed my hair every 2-3 days, and that didn’t do anything either. (We were also in the mountains, so not a particularly tropical/sweaty area.)
Washing my hair in the morning definitely helps, but then I would have to wash my hair 2x per day (am and pm, because I really do need to wash my hair before getting in my clean bed, after a full day, it’s gross), and I worry that’ll only increase the problem. Is it ok to do that?
I use the Not Your Mother’s dry shampoo. I have fine, thin hair, which looks horrible if it gets oily, and I’m a pretty heavy sweater. I’ve never had issues with it leaving residue in my hair.
Before applying the dry shampoo, I’ll have a small hand towel, get one side wet from the sink and use it to sort of wet out sweat, then use the other side to dry my hair as much as possible. Once my hair is mostly dry, THEN I apply the dry shampoo.
My new haircut has made things harder for me in the mornings. I’ve actually started bringing a hair dryer with me and have gotten pretty good with giving a quick style (5 minutes or less - yay fine, thin hair!) before hitting the road.
Btw - one of the coolest things ever was learning that I never need to use conditioner. Like pretty much ever. You might find your hair feels less oily if you just cut the conditioner out all or most of the way (maybe once a week if you really need it).
There’s been some great advice here already. I totally agree with the Amika dry shampoo. I recently bought some for a friend with fine, dark hair and she adores it. It doesn’t hurt that it smells amazing also!