Does shampooing stimulate even MORE sebum??

[Bryan]

Some of you may remember a few months ago when I went around and around with Socks over whether or not washing the skin/scalp actually stimulates the sebaceous glands to INCREASE their production of sebum. I had explained to him that Kligman et al had demolished the so-called "feedback theory" long ago with careful testing and proved that sebum is produced continuously with no regard to what's sitting on the surface of the skin/scalp, but Socks wouldn't hear of it.

Below is a posting from another site on that same issue, and my response:


>Two friends of mine had a very active sebum production. They
>washed their hair on a daily basis, because of that active
>sebum production. But one of them got tired of washing his
>hair daily and stopped doing that. Of course he had filthy
>oily hair for some weeks, but after that his scalp began to
>normalize. Now he only washes his hair once a week. I mean,
>this is just the truth.
>
>I'm a member of a Dutch hairloss forum and some members also
>have quit washing their hair on a daily basis with the same
>success.

I hope you'll forgive me if I find all that difficult to believe!

If you have access to a medical library, take a look at the book "Hair Research", edited by Orfanos, Montagna, and Stuttgen (copyright Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg 1981). It has a fascinating chapter titled: "Studies on the Effect of Shampoos on Scalp Lipids and Bacteria" by A. M. Kligman, K. J. McGinley, and J. J. Leydon. One of the tests they did was to have a group of volunteers completely discontinue shampooing for a full month, and then carefully measured sebum build-up on their scalps. Their sebum levels INCREASED, just as you would expect, they didn't DECREASE! Furthermore, all the subjects complained of "dirty, oily" hair. In a separate test, the same subjects shampooed their hair intensively every day for 21 days, and sebum levels on the scalp went DOWN, also just as you would expect.

BTW, if you want to read the actual study by Kligman and Shelley where they did the careful and exhaustive testing that conclusively demolished the "feedback theory", here's the full citation: "An Investigation of the Biology of the Human Sebaceous Gland", J Invest Dermatol, 30: 99-124, 1958.

Bryan

 

[jikslee]

Hi bryan, i just thought i'd add my experience;
I personally went for about 3 years without using any shampoo on my hair. I didn't test sebum levels or anything like that, but i can tell you that my hair was healthier.
For me (I've done this a few times) it can take 6 weeks to 2 months for my hair to get past the greasy stage; as long as you wash it through with water your hair will be clean.
The reason i started shampooing was that male pattern baldness itch, which could have been related to sebum - i guess my experience is a personal verification that sebum production doesn't go down, there's a lot of dht in sebum yeah?
While not using shampoo, my hair looked and felt good, and was healthy and clean; apart from male pattern baldness of course!
I would love to go back to this, its so much easier than all this nizoral, t/sal, conditioner bullshit, but male pattern baldness drove me to shampoos. you could try this yourself if you wanted, but i thought you may be interested to hear a personal tale about it :lol:

 

[misterium]

I would personally feel dirty if I did not wash my hair daily.

 

[jikslee]

I would personally feel dirty if I did not wash my hair daily.

]

IMO don't do it if you've got male pattern baldness. otherwise do this and i reckon your hair would feel clean in a few weeks.

 

[Bryan]

The reason i started shampooing was that male pattern baldness itch, which could have been related to sebum - i guess my experience is a personal verification that sebum production doesn't go down, there's a lot of dht in sebum yeah?
While not using shampoo, my hair looked and felt good, and was healthy and clean; apart from male pattern baldness of course!

Here are some additional tidbits from that part of the study for you to mull over (the part where the subjects gave up all shampooing for a month):

There were two groups of subjects: one group with dandruff, the other with normal scalps. Both groups experienced an average increase in scalp sebum, but it was MUCH more significant in the group with dandruff. The dandruff group went from 699 mg of scalp lipids to 1,517 mg (they more than DOUBLED, in other words), which was highly statistically significant (p=0.001). The normal subjects only increased from 599 mg to 666 mg, which was not statistically significant.

The amount of dandruff scales in the dandruff group also increased, from 186 mg to 566 mg, which was highly significant (p=0.001); furthermore, even the NORMAL subjects experienced an increase in scales from 134 mg to 207 mg, which was also significant (p=0.05).

The clinical grade of the dandruff in the dandruff group worsened from 5.30 to 6.60 (p=0.001), and even the clinical grade of the NON-dandruff group worsened, too, from 2.70 to 3.70 (p=0.001). However, that worsening wasn't enough to put them into the category of overt dandruff.

Nevertheless, the researchers concluded that other than the worsening of dandruff in the dandruff group and the general dirtiness and oiliness in both groups, abstaining from shampooing for long periods of time didn't lead to unhealthy scalps.

Bryan