When one has gone a time without shampooing one's hair it will accumulate natural oils and take on a greasy sheen. I believe this only happens to people who wash their hair frequently. Someone whos hair has never known shampoo will find its own equilibrium.

Can't be bothered to take showers? Trying to fit in with the counterculture? Fear not, my oily companion! There are many ways to win back your mother's heart by masking that revolting, shameful, and most of all buttery mop-head of yours.

  1. Starting with the obvious: wear hats. But not if it is too warm outside, or else you may exacerbate oil production.
  2. Brush talcum powder through your hair. If you don't have talcum powder, use baby powder as a substitute - it's all the same stuff. Talcum absorbs oil, but it might leave your hair looking dry and electric. You must brush it through adequately, or rinse it out; otherwise, folks will think you've greyed tragically and rapidly. Also: talcum will straighten your hair in a very peculiar way, be prepared.
  3. Alternatively, brush potato flour, corn starch, or gravy thickener through your hair. These, too, absorb oil. Right? Maybe.
  4. Repeatedly explain to people that you've just had a shower, or were flushing water over your face in the bathroom. It can be difficult to distinguish the subdued sheen of greasy hair from the saturated glow of wet hair. You may come off as a water-hogging anti-environmentist, but maybe you're cool with that.
  5. Wear essential oils. The smell of greasy hair can become a dull and heavy odor. A bit like lard or molasses - it's distinctive and unequivicollaly organic. If you combine this with the smell of natural essential oils, such as lavender or eucalyptus, people may associate the two smells and shrug it off as some earthy, hippy musk. And not the bad kind, either. Not a funk.
  6. Become a goth, punk, or Serverus Snape. We live in postmodern world, where counterculture mocks fashion, which in turn mocks the discrepancy between the social and the biological. What does this mean? You wouldn't get it. Let's just say that greasy hair is trending.
  7. Wear a severe part, just like in the 50s. You'll look real formal, real sharp. People don't realize that the perfectly-sculted hair in old black-and-white films was made possible only by the pliant, remembering quality of greasy hair. "Pomade," you'll lie, "works forgotten magics."
  8. Say that you may have lice, and that lice hate dirty hair. Say that you're trying to ward off the lice. Unfortunately, this strategy might turn your friends away, even more effectively than greasy hair to begin with.
  9. Make up lab studies which have demonstrated physiological benefits of naturally lubricated hair. Because you believe that anyway, right. Hydralizing shampoo? That's bullshit, that's a Baudrillardian simulacra, make like a duck and cast away thy critics.
  10. Shave your head. A naked man can't don ugly clothes, a bald man can't don olive-oil ringlets. But another complication may arise: pehaps you're the type with a scalp that shines like a polished bowling ball. In that case, you may need to make a compromise. Or, you know, learn to love your body. That sort of thing.

Finally, as archan suggested above (ten years ago), give up! Unwashed hair eventually comes to regulate its grease output. Be warned, though: if you don't comb or brush you hair through, it may get very slimy at the roots and very dry at the ends. If you're like me, or my ex-girlfriend, or both of us, you could end up with lumpy dreadlocks. Yeah.

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