I Tried Hair Training

I never knew how much of my identity and sanity went into my hair until I turned 25 and had another lesson in how to handle hairy situations with it actually being involved with the word hair.

I think we can agree hair is the most confusing part of our body.

The evolution of hair has had ups and downs from extreme regimes of styles to mane-taining a separation from hair products. The definition of the perfect hair has different answers for all women (and men too), but the bottom line is healthy hair. You see the same ads about healthy hair, to be just like the woman in the ad. I'll admit, I could do without the hair model n those bright pastel commercials and look at the stats, but I will always debate the gamble, and I have done the gamble and used the products to see if it actually works. Well, some of those products didn't work, I wasn't too disappointed because I got my answer. Then the gamble and experimentation of that product could be the best addition to the routine or the waste of money. The search never ends to find that formula, it's not a one size fits all for women depending on their hair type and the endurability. Now the message being sent from gurus are losing the products. Losing the shampoo, go longer days, basically not doing anything to the hair.

I'll be honest about this, Hair training has been one of the most strategic and stressful things I have ever done. Despite that it's supposed to be stress-free and help your hair. I've seen videos about the *ahem* "No Poo Movement" To go weeks or a month to any or all of the following:

1. Just use dry shampoo

2. No use of Shampoo, Conditioner, or ANY product at all

3. Just wash the hair once a month

Looking at those options, that will not work for me, I know that for a fact even though I haven’t done a whole month so I don’t wanna sound like a hypocrite but I also value my sanity. And I have seen women that have expressed their discomfort as well as their health from headaches. And also I’m gonna say it’s a lot, not all hair regimes are one size fits all.

But hair training only required a stretch of the washes and to be very strategic with how you put on product without putting so much in your hair so that way the natural oils can do its work.I looked at the options from my research and intrigued viewing and thought, I'll never know unless I don't try and I did.

Those options do sound reasonable when the reasons are explained to let the natural part of the hair provide what Shampoo or conditioner would do. Except, if there are women (like me) that find it unbearably uncomfortable to have oily hair. The regime won't be that easy to jump into. Hair training is not a one size fits all and like my most products, it takes time to adjust to it. If hair training was a commercial, woman would wonder if the regime makes the hair gorgeous in an instant.

Before I get into what the process was like for me to change my hair habits. Let me tell you why this hair of mine was in for a messy mane-tane. (Never going to get tired of that joke)

My hair history

I lost my hair from chemo in my infancy from leukemia. I spent most of my infancy without hair (not that I cared, I didn't even know what was going on half the time). When I beat leukemia, and my hair grew back, my hair was styled for me it was styled everyday for three years in the style of the American girl doll that had my name, Samantha. In the last two years of elementary, there was a change in my style, I didn't want my hair in a perfect half up-do ponytail anymore. I wanted to be Sami, not the one pictured on the American Girl doll books. My mother told my grandmother that the morning routine wouldn't have the hair styling in the morning of the signature half ponytail. For a year, I didn't get the scrunchies and the perfect parted ponytail, I had my long locks. But I wasn't entirely in charge of the haircuts, I never asked what I wanted for my hair. I just knew that my mother or grandmother would tell the hairstylist what should happen with my hair. The thought process I had when it came to my hair for haircuts as a child was the same mindset I had when I went through chemo, I didn't care. But then in the the summer before fifth grade, I went from long hair with feathered tapering to short, newsboy, almost Mick Jaggar-like hair. It's like that saying, "you don't know how good you have it till it's gone"? Even though hair can grow back, I felt I lost my identity, I never really knew how much I loved my long hair and never thought it would have been cut short. It's those thoughts we never have as a child that we worry about something like that until it happens. Then for the next fifteen years I learned how to grow my hair out, eat certain food to mane-tain the hair. I burned and fried my hair many times to learn how to style my hair without over-hairspraying and hair burns.

For fifteen years I learned about different products to style my hair that can be oily in less then 24 hours, can become tangled right after brushing it, I learned how to my stylings last longer and actually enjoy my hair.

Then somehow someway, my hair decided to throw stringy texture into the mix ontop of the oil problem.

Then at 26 years old my hair changed completely. I've always had oily hair that produces oil faster then a commercial change. I have so much oil in my hair that I could literally use it for my car. I didn't understand how it happened to my hair when I didn't do anything different to my diet and I go a little easy on the heat tools. In the research I did to see what happened to my hair, one of the reasons was stress. I have been going through stress since my middle school days, if that was the case, then my hair would have been like this in a straggly way a long time ago and not a year ago.

It was back to the drawing board, now I had another hair regime to learn.

Starting The Hair Training

In August of 2020 I had already been accustomed to going every other day for hair washing to accommodate my hair curling routine. I just had to apply that stretch a little wider to accommodate the hair training.

What I Had To Do

First and foremost: withhold from the wash

Second: Learn to Use Different Products (That'll be elaborated on, I don't want to spoil it here)

Third: Avoid the scalp when I washed my hair

For someone like me who can't stand having dirty hair for the discomfort of how it felt and how it looked it was tough. My oily hair was always pointed out,

New Shampoo

To fix a hair problem, or any problem to maintain the health of the body, products have to be bought that say they are a remedy to what needs to be fixed. I'm here to say that doesn't entirely work.

When shampooing the hair, avoid the scalp. This was a tough one, all the bottles I have ever read have said to start at the scalp and work the way down. My routine is two shampoos, two different ones. I did a little experimentation with that. I found some loopholes that achieved both unexpected and expected results. Lemme tell you reader, if you do this, you'll be going through a lot of shampoo cycle experiments. Don't listen to the bottle, do what I did, and do what you need to do for your hair, it's not a one size fits all. What I did was use a product remover shampoo to get my hair clean, I didn't use it on my scalp since I knew I was training the oils in my hair to be self rejuvenating, so there shouldn't be any product used there, just water. It's sort of like taking the training wheels off of the hair, if your hair was a bike. What I did was avoid shampooing the scalp on the first shampoo, conditioned my poor split ends with a repairing conditioner. THEN for the second shampoo, I used a minimal amount of shampoo on the scalp and then worked it only on my head, avoiding to work the shampoo past my ears. I rinsed it all out, did that routine for a month, and it has shown some steady signs that it's balancing my Ph in my hair.

After that process is the second half of the hair training that utilizes those oils being prepped and trained to help the hair self-rejuvenate on those 3 to 4 day stretches. The hair brushing

Don't Rush The Brush

I'm not a cosmetologist, it's very evident, I try out anything to be the Guinea pig to see how it works. Like I said when I started this, I wouldn't have known it would work unless I didn't try. After getting the shampoo acclimated to meet the criteria of hair training as well as using what I want to do for my hair.

Around the third or fourth day my hair has accumulated an amount of oil that I have controlled but has to be evenly distributed to be used on my now I don’t want to say I look exactly like this because your hair type will be different than my type, this is what oily hair looks like after four days but accumulated enough oil to dispersed to the hair doctors a self rejuvenate remedy to utilize the natural oils in my hair, but oil is still oil. I saw in my research that a bristle brush will do the job of disbursing the oil and adding some sheen on those stretches for the wash. Surprisingly and realistically. My bristle brush and some dry shampoo did the trick, this is my picture process for the proof.

Here's my strategic way of using as minimal dry shampoo.

After getting all that oil dispersed through your hair, there’s still gonna be some oil, and I'm a lean mean oil making machine . I gotta use my trusty dry shampoo and I go a little easy now that I got some oil rejuvenating my hair. I only had too use it on my scalp, and the sides of my hairline.

and TA DAAA

Sanity

Let me tell you, if you despise your oily hair, this is a test on your sanity. I had to stretch out those days from 3 days to 4 days and I felt terrible. I looked and felt gross seeing my oily hair take over my head. It can change your psyche and personality because of seeing the oily hair. It has been said in those hair training reviewers how it is worth it, but they never mention how it tests your sanity.

It took me a month to get it trained, but leading up to it it was three months of absolute insanity. I wore headbands, I wore bandannas, I did not want to look at my hair, it was like out of sight out of mind. The best way I got through it was just to not look at it while it was doing its magic and trying to train in my mane.

Products that worked for me and maybe they'll work for you

I'm not here to tell you to buy the things I mentioned because your hair will be different then my hair. But, there is a product I HIGHLY reccomend on your journey to hair training with oily hair.

Neutrogena's oil control product remover shampoo has been the tamest shampoo that still works with my hair training.

Purezero clean beauty apple cider vinegar detoxifying shampoo.

These two are very tame shampoos that I have found to be very helpful amidst the many shampoos I tried.

I've covered my thoughts and process for the mental and physical process to go without shaving and the test run of going a week without a bra. Now I've officially covered the process to share what it's like to do hair training.