Hair

We were all soooo ill last week. Some stomach virus.
Yesterday I heard a report on npr morning edition about not washing your hair every day.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102062969
I have in fact been practicing that for a while.
Not washing my hair every day that is.
At some point I noticed that our visitors from Europe didn't shower every day. In fact, they didn't even shower every second day. However, I really couldn't claim they smelled bad or had greasy hair.
I remembered that when I lived in Europe, I didn't shower every day, except for maybe the worst times of puberty, when not washing my head meant to go to school with greasy strands.
When I came here, I worked for a jeweler in production and repair for a while. Tinkering with metal had been a hobby of mine and I couldn't get any higher paying job at the time. So I figured I might as well doing something I loved doing.
Anyway, as maybe a few people know, fabricating and repairing jewelry is a relatively dirty job. There is a lot of filing and polishing. The dust gets everywhere and I had to shower every evening. Somehow I just kept doing that, even when I stopped working there.
But at some point I gave it some thought. Mostly because I wanted to save water. I was wondering about the hygiene point, but like I said, I soon realized that the Europeans who visited didn't stink, and that I didn't use to shower every day either, so...
It is not easy. You scalp gets used to being washed at certain intervals. In the beginning my hair did get greasy the second day. But I persevered. Putting baby powder in my hair helped. It absorbed enough grease to make it look decent. I have since stopped doing that. Firstly, I wasn't sure how far it defeated the purpose and secondly, I wasn't sure whether the baby powder would serve as an extra snack for the dust mites in bed at night.
I now wash my hair every third day. I could get by even longer, I guess. Last week, when everybody was ill, I got by for six days without washing. It didn't look too great though.
My daughter has gotten ear tubes, because she constantly got ear infections. Washing her hair has turned into a nightmare. Whenever she gets water in her ears, her eardrums will get inflamed. The expensive earplugs from the doctor's don't work. Eventually I told my husband we just wouldn't wash her hair more than once a week. After his initial protests about the lack of hygiene, he went along, and it works great. Her hair doesn't get greasy or stinky at all!!! I guess that's because puberty hasn't hit yet.
So, it saves water, it saves shampoo and it is good for your scalp.