Co-washing: Washing hair without shampoo for healthy hair

Find out what co-washing is, what it is for and how to do it properly. Discover the best products for washing your hair without shampoo.

With the good weather, days on the beach and at the pool, combined with more casual looks, the truth is that we want to spend less time drying and styling our hair, but at the same time we want to avoid frizz at all costs. That is so much the case that social media is flooded with the new haircare trend that has gone viral, the one known as co-washing.

Co-washing, what is it and the reason for this trend?

Co-washing is nothing more than just washing our hair with conditioner rather than shampoo. That's right, washing our hair with conditioner. So, why has it become so popular?

In the last couple of seasons, social media has been flooded with theories about haircare, some more traditional, whereas others, such as this one, are more transgressive. This trend arose through claims by a group of beauty instagrammers who are against using conventional shampoo full of sulphates, parabens and silicone. Therefore, by just using conditioner, they claim that their hair is much better nourished and there are no side effects on our hair. When we wash our hair like this, it is as if we had washed it a day or two earlier, it is straighter and a little matted.

Moreover, followers of this viral trend claim that it is perfect for curly hair. They say it defines curls better, and because our hair is heavier it has a perfect wavy look.

Co-washing, step-by-step to avoid common mistakes

The first thing we need to bear in mind for co-washing is the type of conditioner we use. We should make sure that the conditioner we are going to use is light, so as not to matte our hair. An overly nourishing conditioner can confer too much weight and make our hair look dirty. The steps we need to take for good co-washing are as follows:

Wet our hair well.

Apply the conditioner to all our hair and scalp, massage it in and leave it to work for a few minutes.

Using our fingers or a wide-tooth comb to help us, we should untangle our hair.

Finally, we rinse it off with plenty of water.

Then we brush and dry our hair as usual.