Every Shampoo / Conditioner I try fries my hair and I've never dyed or bleached?

There are products you can use to put some of the oils back in that you have stripped out. You might start by trying one of those leave in conditioners.
There are also dry shampoos that deal with the oils and odor but don’t strip your hair of the natural oils.
Finally, you could go to a hair dresser and get a deep conditioning and consultation about what products will best tame your mane.

Make sure that even if your hair is long, the ends are cut every so often so there are no dead ends. If you have not had a cut in a while, it might take a few inches in order to take off all the dead ends.

Are you sure that medically, you’re ok? If you have a slow thyroid that could affect your hair texture.

Make sure you use conditioner.

@Hysterics As another long-haired male with short hair, I may have a solution for you. I also used to shampoo and condition every single day, and I started having the same problem when I hit my early twenties. You are on the right track when you ask what humans did before they had modern chemicals. The solution I found came from my yoga teacher (who grew up in rural India, far away from modern shampoos and conditioners).

What I do now, and have done for years, is rinse my hair with apple cider vinegar instead of using shampoo. I did it every day at first, but I’ve come to realize that’s unnecessary. Now I make it correspond to my gym schedule (the next shower I take after working out, I do the vinegar rinse; this turns out to be roughly every other day). The vinegar will clean your hair and remove odors. Moreover, the odor of the vinegar will not itself stay long and can be covered over with your conditioner (more on that below).

The process for the vinegar rinse is really easy. I buy a large jug of apple cider vinegar (which is pretty inexpensive), and I fill a smaller plastic bottle with some of it (if you ever buy water or juice in the small 12-ounce bottles, you can reuse them for this; I prefer bottles with thicker plastic, but go with whatever works for you). I then have a small plastic cup (about four inches tall) in the shower that I keep upside-down over the small bottle. When shower time comes, it goes like this:

• Get hair wet.
• Fill cup halfway.
• Tilt head back (important for keeping the vinegar out of your eyes).
• Pour vinegar over head.
• Work vinegar in to hair with hands (almost like you’re massaging your skull).
• Rinse with water.

I realize this is probably stuff you could figure out for yourself, but it’s worth mentioning. I pour the vinegar almost directly over the top of my head, moving it around a little to make sure I get as much of my hair as I can. You can also dip your ends in the cup before pouring it over your head to make sure they’re not missing out. This can be useful because vinegar will help release any knots you may have in your hair.

The other side of the story is your conditioner. Only use one that is silicon-free. There are plenty on the market, but you have to look at the ingredients carefully. Google “silicone-free conditioner” if you want help finding something. I use this because it also combats balding, but there are plenty of options. Since you’ve likely been using silicone-based conditioners for a long time, you may want to give your hair a silicone cleanse. You don’t have to do one. The vinegar will slowly do it on its own. A cleanse can speed up the process of getting your hair back to normal, though.

So how do you do a cleanse? It’s like the old baking soda volcano trick from school days. Get your hair wet, work some baking soda into it, and poor vinegar all over your head (probably a full cup for the cleanse, rather than a half cup). It will fizz and pop, stripping the layers of silicone from your head. Luckily, you only have to do this once. Your hair might feel a little weird the day after doing this, but it will go back to normal quickly.

Sorry for the really long answer, but doing these two things has helped my hair immensely. I haven’t used shampoo in years, and you’d never know it. Good luck!

@Savoifare, you probably saved people hundreds (maybe thousands) of dollars today.
I love it when solutions don’t involve big corporations.

@Judi The hair care industry is definitely a bit of a scam. Half of the products out there are designed to solve problems created by the other products being sold. The worst is anti-dandruff shampoo. Most people do not have a serious enough problem with dandruff to warrant buying such a product, but it is advertised as if everyone needs it. So people buy it, upset the balance of their hair, and then need to buy some other product to fix the problem caused by the anti-dandruff shampoo (which wasn’t needed in the first place).

I do the no-poo method sometimes, which involves two diluted solutions, one of baking soda, one of apple cider vinegar. My hair seems better, but my hair is always nice so it’s hard to tell.

You can also use fresh lemon juice instead of vinegar, which leaves you smelling less like a tossed salad.

There is Johnson’s baby shampoo and Shikai natural hair products. I use the henna shampoo and conditioner for the shire it leaves in my salt and pepper hair.

There is also the Aveeno product line. I have used their defrizz shampoo and conditioner and have been happy.

@gailcalled I’ve never tried lemon juice. I might check it out. When properly rinsed, however, my hair does not wind up smelling like a tossed salad. This is especially true given that I follow it up with conditioner. The Shikai is a good suggestion in the event that the vinegar doesn’t do enough. If @Hysterics has the same hair balance that I do, though, even that will be too much. I simply cannot use shampoo of any kind anymore.

I use beer as a conditioner.

Use beer, vinegar and lemon juice and you’ve practically got the whole meal.

The hair care industry is a total scam! If you read the ingredient lists, they are all essentially the same thing. Honestly, I’ve wondered the same thing OP for a long time. I’ve tried so many different brands, and I’m really not very satisfied with any. Even a lot of the products they sell in salons suck. My favorite is Shu Uemura, but very expensive. I would love to have a long conversation with a chemist about shampoos one day and get to the bottom of why the $60/bottle shampoo is so much better than the $2 ones you get at Wal Mart, because I wouldn’t expect the cost to make them to be wildly different. I’ve tried apple cider vinegar – it works I guess, but is kind of inconvenient plus you smell a little like vinegar. I’ve tried mayo – also kinda works, but stinks. I’ve tried awapuhi straight from the flower – and it really didnt seem to do anything.

If I put mayo in my hair it would probably take a week to be washed out properly, and mayo stinks!

Just to comment on the musky smell you mentioned- do you tie your hair back when it is wet or dry?

Thanks for all the comments, Especially Savoir. It’s funny I actually used to use Avalon products, can’t really remember why I stopped, although I’m starting to think it was because it was a bit more expensive, but that was before I had issues. I’m going to check out the apple cider concept, I’ve heard of it a few times now but was skeptical at first.

Also Abysmalbeauty, I do tie it back sometimes when it’s wet, a lot of the time I have a shower before work, and if I don’t tie my hair back it gets sorta messy. Actually I guess I tie it back quite a lot when it’s at least damp. It’s easier to deal with my hair when it’s still damp / wet.

A few possibilities:
1.) Regularly wearing hair clipped or tied back can cause damage to it over time.
2.) The body goes through physical changes as it ages. This includes hair texture.

@Hysterics I have thick curly hair and I am also guilty of tying it while wet but Ill tell you that will cause your hair to smell pretty yucky, almost moldy. If you can dry it first you should.