The problem: greasy hair

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with greasy hair. As a teenager those problems started, and they were annoying but still manageable - a quick wash and I was ready to go. Back then, looks weren’t as important.

But once I started working, the stakes got higher. You’re expected to look presentable - even if you’re not customer-facing. So I did what seemed logical: I started washing my hair every morning. On the rare days that I worked from home, I’d skip washing my hair - only for it to turn into a greasy mess by noon.

But the problems didn’t stop with just greasy hair, it came with a lot of other inconvenient issues as well:

• Dandruff so bad that it looked like I’d been caught in a snowstorm - but the flakes were all mine. You can imagine
  that my dark clothes didn’t help.
• Acne and pimples as my greasy scalp clogged my pores, and of course, I’d scratch or squeeze them - spreading the oil everywhere like a self-sabotaging machine.
• Wounds and scabs all over my scalp and my neck because of the scratching and squeezing. I’d scratch them open again. And again. You get the picture.

So I had a scalp that was always itchy, greasy, or a combination of both. I was basically a walking, scratching paradox and my girlfriend constantly told me that I had to stop scratching my scalp. But, I couldn’t.

I tried everything: switching shampoos, washing less, washing more. My doctor prescribed ointments and specialty shampoos, but the relief was always temporary. A few days of improvement and then - bam! - the grease and itch would return with
vengeance.

Then came dry-shampoo - my supposed savior. It masked the grease, sure, but it turned my scalp into an even itchier nightmare. More scratching, more oil, more grease. It was a trap.

The debugging process

Nothing I tried so far had worked. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of scratching and greasy hair, and I needed to break it. So what was I to do?

Gathering data

I had to figure out what was actually wrong. From my observations, these things were definitely part of the problem:

• My scalp was producing too much oil, which caused my hair to become greasy quickly.
• Because of the surplus of oil, my pores clogged, which led to acne and pimples that were painful and itchy. Naturally, I’d scratch them, which spread the oil and made everything worse.
• The scratching led to scabs and wounds on my scalp and neck, which flaked off and caused even more dandruff.
• The dandruff itself did not disappear when using anti-dandruff shampoos.

Possible solutions

I had to find a solution that would break this cycle. I’d already tried a lot:

• Anti-dandruff shampoo:, I had used several brands, but none really worked. Turns out that anti-dandruff shampoos are often harsh on the scalp, which can make things worse. As a spoiler, I also reacted very badly to a specific anti-dandruff shampoo from the pharmacy.
• Shampoo for greasy hair: I always used shampoo that was specifically for greasy hair, but that didn’t do anything to help. I used very little shampoo as well, but that didn’t seem to help.
• Doctor-prescribed products: none of these helped at all.
• *Trying to stop scratching was also not working, as the pimples were begging me to deal with them. Brushing my hair became quite painful because of the pimples and scabs.
• Dry-shampoo was making it even worse, I hated the smell and the feeling of it, and it made my scalp extremely itchy. That being said, I did eventually find a dry-shampoo that worked for me.

The dry shampoo that did work

There are a few things about dry shampoos that I absolutely hate. It’s not only the smell that does it, but it tends to catch in my throat, which feels awful. They also make my scalp feel extremely itchy and uncomfortable, leading me to scratch so much that I might as well have washed my hair instead. The itch was so bad I’d usually wash my hair as soon as I could, just to get rid of it.

One exception to that was the K18 dry shampoo (K18 Airwash Dry Shampoo). They’re not sponsoring me, so feel free to search for it online. It doesn’t have the smell that other dry shampoos have and it doesn’t have the air shampoo feeling that other dry shampoos have - those all feel like a powder on your hair (because, that’s what it is, after all). K18 is different and doesn’t feel like that at all. It’s honestly the ONLY dry shampoo I would ever suggest to someone.

The biggest drawback is that this is extremely expensive: a regular bottle is 118 ml (or 4 fl oz) and it costs € 48.00 for that tiny bottle. That comes to about € 432 per liter! That being said, it is the only dry shampoo that worked for me, and I’m only half-way through my first bottle - though my usage of it has plummeted (since I was able to fix the core issue).

So, if you need a dry shampoo, I would absolutely and honestly suggest this one - but try and find a deal on it, as it is very pricey.

Suggestions

Once people know that you struggle with something, they will often have suggestions for you. All of these were given with the best intentions, but mostly they echoed things that I tried before.

However, one piece of advice was given to me that I never heard before: solferbloem (that’s the name in Dutch for it), or precipitated sulfur. It’s a powder that you can mix with water and apply to your hair, and it’s an old remedy. I never tried it myself, though, but I wanted to mention it here.

In the end, I collected enough information and data points and started researching into what I could actually do to fix this.

The diagnosis: what was actually wrong?

After gathering all this data, it helped to see the bigger picture. My greasy hair wasn’t a standalone issue, but it was a symptom of a larger and broken system. This is what I realized:

• Overwashing made things so much worse: washing my hair daily stripped it of natural oils, which led to my scalp overcompensating by producing even more oil to compensate. It was a vicious cycle: wash → dry out → overproduce oil → wash again → wash again
• Product buildup was sabotaging me: years of shampoos, conditioners, and dry shampoos had left a mark on my scalp and had clogged my pores and irritated my skin. My scalp was basically suffocating.
• My scalp had become very sensitive: thanks to my history of eczema, my scalp reacted poorly to some harsher ingredients in shampoos - especially those in “anti-dandruff” shampoos. It’s like pouring oil on a fire.
• My ADHD didn’t help: inconsistent routines, impulsive product switches, forgetting to follow through combined with a habit of scratching everything that I could meant that my scalp was constantly irritated and inflamed.

The hard truth and essence of it was that I wasn’t treating my scalp correctly and it was fighting back.

The turning point: asking for help

With all the information that I had gathered, I knew I needed a fresh perspective. Searching on search engines just gave me really generic information about washing your hair less and didn’t offer me any answers that I really needed.

However, we live in interesting times, where we can ask for advice from AI assistants, and I decided to give it a try. While I usually prefer to use Claude and ChatGPT for technical questions, I usually use Mistral for more personal questions - it’s the biggest European AI assistant, and I have a Pro-subscription for it. I don’t like relying on a single option and for more personal questions, I’ll usually use Mistral.

So, I decided to ask Mistral for advice, and we went over all the information that I had gathered and the conclusions that I had come to. It went through a lot of things and offered the usual advice first:

• Use less shampoo
• Wash with lukewarm water
• Double rinse
• Apple cider vinegar rinse once per week
• Aloe vera gel
• Salicylic acid
• Tea tree oil
• Avoid touching your scalp
• Hydration and diet tips
• Manage and reduce stress
• Pillowcases
• Avoid heavy products like gels and waxes
• Brush your hair
• Wear a hat

It threw up a lot of things that I had already tried, but it also mentioned something that I never had heard about yet: tea tree oil. That sounded promising, so we went into more detail about it.

The fix: tea tree oil

I have to be honest - I had never heard of tea tree oil. It’s an essential oil derived from the leaves of

• you’re never going to believe this - the tea tree. There are claims that tea tree oil could be useful for treating dandruff and acne, as well as some other conditions, and there is some evidence that it indeed helps with these issues. However, you should always remain skeptical about these claims, you shouldn’t just believe everything you find online.

I had nothing to lose, and after discussing further with Mistral, it suggested that I try a tea tree shampoo. I first looked up what kind of products were available and where I could find them. Since a bottle of shampoo was less than € 5, I decided to give it a try - I didn’t have anything to lose.

Mistral even gave me a full weekly routine, including the tea tree shampoo and other products to try. It even included a skincare routine!

The essence of it, however, was to wash my hair every other day with the Tea Tree Shampoo. I also got some other products, like a Tea Tree Scalp Treatment, but I haven’t even opened that bottle yet. I did get some face wash with Tea Tree Oil, which I have used a few times. It stings a bit, and I should probably use it more, but my acne has already decreased significantly.

Inflamed reaction to anti-dandruff shampoo

This is something that my girlfriend noticed recently - while my dandruff is way less than it used to be, I still had quite a lot of struggles with the remains of those wounds. Those have now almost all healed, but the wounds and scabs were terrible, and they had left marks on my scalp and they started to flake off. That led to a lot of dandruff, so we decided to use an anti-dandruff shampoo again.

My girlfriend had washed my hair (she wanted to) with that shampoo, and she saw that my scalp was in a great state when she washed it: there were no pimples/acne and my scalp looked healthy.

A few hours later, after she had washed my hair with that shampoo, she noticed that my scalp had become very inflamed and red and that I suddenly had a lot of acne/pimples that weren’t there before she washed my hair.

That made it very clear that I had a terrible reaction to this shampoo, which is unfortunate, as I had been using it for years. I don’t know how big of a role it played in my hair issues, but it certainly didn’t help.

The results

I got the tea tree shampoo on the 17th of March, and I started using it the next day. I was quite skeptical and I didn’t really notice any difference in the next few days; however, I kept on using it. After a few weeks, I did start noticing that my hair felt much more “dry” and that it started feeling less greasy. The amount of pimples and acne that I have has dropped significantly, with the itchiness decreasing as well.

I can’t say that all of my pimples and acne are gone. However, the number of them has dropped significantly, and the ones that I do get are all in very specific locations, where my glasses touch my face. This is likely because my glasses are blocking my pores in pretty much the same way, and my pores still clog in those places. Pimples/acne in other locations has become very rare.

So, where do I stand now?

• My scalp feels much better, it no longer feels “sticky” or greasy. I can’t really explain it, but before I was really aware of how my scalp felt and this is no longer the case.
• My scalp doesn’t feel itchy anymore, which means I no longer feel the need to really scratch my scalp.
• My hair is no longer greasy, and it doesn’t feel sticky anymore. Before it became greasy everywhere, now it just becomes greasy in specific spots (where I have to adjust my hair).
• I rarely have pimples or acne anymore, and those that I do have are almost always where my glasses touch my face.
• My scalp, my face, and my hands feel less greasy compared to before. This is one of those things that you don’t really realize until you notice that it’s not there anymore. My phone is definitely less greasy as before, as are my glasses.
• I no longer have wounds or scabs on my scalp anymore, which leads to me barely touching my scalp anymore. Before, I was always trying to find something to scratch.

Having to learn that my hair isn’t greasy.

This is something that I really had to learn again and where my girlfriend played a big role in realizing this. My hair is no longer as greasy and doesn’t turn as greasy anymore and when it does, it is only in specific spots. I can’t remember the last time when I really felt that my hair was greasy again where previously it just became greasy everywhere and incredibly quickly.

However, my brain didn’t really pick up on this change until recently. I still had the mental image of myself with greasy hair and the idea that if I didn’t wash my hair in the morning, that it absolutely was greasy everywhere. My girlfriend had to tell me multiple times that my hair wasn’t greasy at all, but that I just thought it was. Your brain can be really stubborn and if my girlfriend didn’t tell me, I would absolutely still think that my hair was greasy all the time.

The brain is a strange thing.

The solution

So, to summarize, the only change I had to make is to switch to a tea tree oil shampoo. Once I did that, it took a few weeks before the real change became clear (though, likely, I didn’t realize it at first).

The difference is night and day. My hair is now much healthier, and I don’t have to worry about it being greasy anymore.

Last weekend was an extremely hot weekend with temperatures of up to 30 degrees Celcius. In temperatures like that, my hair would have been a mess before. I was helping as a volunteer at the Nerdland Festival and I hadn’t washed my hair that day. Previously, I would NEVER have dared to go out without washing my hair in the morning. However, this time, I did, and my hair wasn’t greasy at all, it didn’t clog together even though it was really hot weather and I just felt fine.

I am certain that only a few months ago, in the same weather conditions, my hair would have been greasy and clogged and it would have been sticky on my face, making the heat even harder to deal with.

The aftermath

The difference is enormous, and I didn’t realize how much of an impact this had on my life. It’s one of those things that you don’t realize until it is gone.

All of those scabs and pimples/acne gave me a constant level of pain and discomfort, which cost me a lot of energy. I was always trying to find something to scratch and was scratching my face constantly, which made me look like a mess.

I constantly felt very self-conscious and it was a constant source of stress and discomfort. I never could leave the house without fixing my hair first. I was always trying to find ways to hide the grease and the dandruff, which made me feel like I had to be careful everywhere. It was always getting worse and it always became a bigger and bigger problem.

My hair also became a lot easier to manage and work with, in ways that I didn’t even realize I was a thing. My hair gets wet almost instantly now and it dries way faster, I barely need to use any shampoo anymore and I just feel so much better.

So all in all? I regret that I wasn’t able to fix this sooner, but I am so glad that I finally did. I hope that I at least can help someone else who is going through the same thing with this post.

Kevin