Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 February 15

= February 15 =

Shampoo use
The typical reason o f using shampoo is to remove the unwanted build-up of sebum in the hair without stripping out so much as to make hair unmanageable. Do we need shampoo or not? It's hard to say as it can't always work for everyone but what is thus no poo moment what makes it different from using shampoo does it clean scalp the same way?

Shampoo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.220.94.221 (talk) 08:07, 15 February 2021 (UTC)


 * We don't "need" shampoo, or at least we managed perfectly well without it until 1814. The same could be said about millions of commercial products. If you find it useful, go ahead and buy it. More information at shampoo and no poo.--Shantavira|feed me 10:33, 15 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Coincidentally, we seem to have had rather a lot of shampoo related questions recently. Alansplodge (talk) 18:45, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, all of them from Australia. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:01, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
 * So oodways? Clarityfiend (talk) 02:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I haven't used shampoo for over 30 years. Can't say I've ever missed the experience. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:59, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Eek. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:16, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * A la Patrick Stewart? Clarityfiend (talk) 05:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Not a big deal. I hardly ever use soap per se. I use sorbolene, as my skin is sensitive to the wrong pH, and it's neutral. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I thought the movement against shampoo's idea was that we should use real poo on our hair. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 22:30, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Nah, they poo-pooed that idea. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:43, 18 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The deal is, when it comes to hygiene, there are really two types of hygiene: cosmetic hygiene and health hygiene. Health hygiene is the sort of things we do to improve our health outcomes: washing hands with soap and water frequently is a way to reduce transmissibility of infectious agents.  Brushing your teeth helps you keep them in your head longer and prevents things like gingivitis and tooth decay.  Cosmetic hygiene is stuff like wearing deodorant and bathing practices (in general) and things like that.  A person's culture may have certain general attitudes towards things like odors, hair and skin textures, and things like that, and those cultural attitudes will shape things like shampoo usage, deodorant and perfumes, bathing frequency, etc.  Saying all of that, however, and I want to make this very clear, merely because these behaviors are culturally necessary and not biologically necessary does not make them invalid.  A person's social and emotional health is just as important as their physical health, and a person who feels happier because of the interactions they get based on their cosmetics practices is not a bad thing.  In other words, there may not be a health reason to shampoo your hair, but if shampooing your hair makes you feel better about yourself, that's a perfectly valid reason to do it. -- Jayron 32 17:41, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I suspect there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who don't use shampoo and live a perfectly normal life within their own culture. Marketeers and hucksters got us onto this shampoo malarkey and now 'modern' civilisation can't live without it. a bit like shaving or eating with utensils. Richard Avery (talk) 00:09, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I think its important where a cultural practice is not harmful, that we don't put down people who participate in that practice. Shampooing and using forks to eat are certainly not necessary practices, but neither are they harmful, and there's no need to treat people who do them as being "duped" or taken in by "hucksters".  Merely because someone does things differently than you doesn't mean they should be denigrated for it.  -- Jayron 32 14:44, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I tried it once for several months last year. In the end I found the whole idea to be very much a load of, well, poo. It could be also said that it left me scratching my head... Elephas X. Maximus (talk) 01:16, 22 February 2021 (UTC)