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I used to get really annoyed when people would talk about ditching shampoo. (Mostly girl people, because half the dudes I know never seemed to use it in the first place.) They were usually extremely beautiful women with naturally clear skin and knowing looks and, of course, long, shiny, perfect hair. They made shampoolessness seem like a moral choice, a life free from the shackles of Big Shampoo and its accompanying vicious cycle. A life that I, with my lack of discipline and abundance of scalp oil, could never have.
I will probably never reach apple-cider-vinegar nirvana, nor that mythical point at which all grease is transmuted into nature’s styling product, but I have managed to cut way down on shampooing with the help of R + Co’s Analog Cleansing Foam Conditioner ($29, but it lasts forever).
My beloved hair stylist, whom I have followed to four different New York-area salons, recommended it to me after I complained about having both oily roots and dry ends, with no real luck in combatting both at the same time.
Unlike other cleansing conditioners that sit too heavily on my fine hair, this one is a light, airy foam. On days when I’m feeling too gross to skate by on dry shampoo or hats but don’t quite need a full shampoo-and-conditioner job, I wash my hair with a small amount of this stuff instead. It smells great and creates a deeply satisfying lather, and it leaves my hair clean without that stripped, squeaky feeling. It balances the whole moisture situation on my scalp even on days when I haven’t used it, and has allowed me to bust out the shampoo just once or twice a week.