Here’s What Happened When I Skipped Shampoo & Conditioner For A Month

How often should you wash your hair? Beauty experts constantly field the question, but the answer isn’t so cut and dried. Everyone has a different wash schedule based on their hair and scalp type, environment, and lifestyle habits. Ultimately, you just have to commit to a personal experiment (or many) and see what works best for your tresses. 

Which brings me to my own little investigation: I skipped shampoo and conditioner for a month (yep, you read that right!) to see how my strands would react—here are the top lessons I learned. 

Again, there is no easy answer to how often you should wash your hair; it may take a bit of guess-and-test, as some of the surefire signs can confuse even the most seasoned beauty pros.

For example, oily roots may signal you need to wash less frequently. See, washing too often strips the scalp and tricks it into thinking it's dry. This, in turn, spurs the sebaceous glands into overdrive, which then makes your hair produce more oil faster. And the vicious cycle continues from there. So, to counteract oily roots, you might try to taper off your wash schedule, effectively “training” your scalp to produce less sebum. 

I personally don’t struggle too much with greasy roots (in fact, my hair falls on the drier side of the spectrum and tends to drink up all the oil it can cling to). However, I decided to take the plunge after meeting with Los Angeles–based creative Lauren Perez, who, hands down, has the softest, most enviable waves I’ve ever seen. She tells me she hasn’t shampooed or conditioned her hair since launching her own brand, Anablue—and I was immediately influenced to try her three-step regimen. 

So in the name of beauty journalism, I bid my beloved buttery hair masks adieu and committed to a “no ‘poo, no condish” regimen for four weeks. Here’s how it went. 

To be clear, I still cleansed my scalp once a week. While Perez doesn’t use a traditional shampoo, she swears by a scalp scrub that lifts dirt and buildup.

Even if you eschew shampoo altogether, some sort of cleanse is crucial to avoid clogging the hair follicles and creating scalp inflammation. (For those who don’t wish to forgo shampoo forever, the brand suggests swapping your usual rinse with the Scalp Cleanser one to two times per week, then following up with your regular conditioner.) 

So to my friends and family members who scoffed when I told them about my little experiment: I still cleansed my scalp—I just wasn’t cleansing my actual strands (which experts say you shouldn’t do regardless). 

Anyways! My Perez-inspired routine went as follows: 

Honestly, the lack of shampoo wasn’t too difficult to get used to. I only wash my hair once or twice a week, anyway, so it wasn’t too much of a routine overhaul. The hardest part, for me, was skipping conditioner: I’m used to applying a very generous amount of product until my hair feels silky (and low-key, a little slimy).

It felt unnatural to step out of the shower with tangled hair, but my strands felt smooth again as soon as I applied the moisturizing hair serum. 

It’s crucial to feed nutrients back into the strand post-wash, but hairstylist Adam Reed, founder of Arkive Headcare, tells me you don’t have to use conditioner. You can totally rely on hair oil or serum (like I did) and have your hair turn out just fine. 

“Conditioners are designed to make your hair feel great,” he shares. Your strands might feel a bit matted without it at first, but “as soon as you put the oil in and use that as your lubrication to get that smoothness, it will actually get that shine,” he adds. For some finer-haired clients, Reed will actually skip conditioner, using oil, hair primer, and styling products to achieve a bouncier, fluffier ‘do. 

After that first wash, I grew accustomed to how my strands felt without conditioner—lighter, bouncier, and way less frizzy. Believe it or not, my hair actually looked thicker, too. “This could be because your hair is not being weighed down by the constant buildup of using both shampoo and conditioner on a regular basis,” celebrity hairstylist Glenn Ellis tells me when I asked him about my fuller locks.