Putting Conditioner Before Shampoo... WHAT?!

Be prepared for gushing because this post is about how reverse washing has transformed my hair! I'm sure a lot of you have heard about reverse washing because it got a lot of hype the other month but it basically means you condition your hair before shampooing. For me this means I slap on that condition to the length of my hair, then wash my body and shave then rise it out before shampooing my scalp. 

This method of reverse washing has really helped my hair because it is extremelyyyyy thick! I've noticed that when conditioning first my hair is more manageable and dries quicker. This is important as even when using a hair dryer it can take hours for my hair to fully dry. 

One worry I've heard when suggesting reverse washing to friends is that their hair wont be as smooth and detangled as it is when conditioning last. I've actually experienced the opposite of this and to explain here comes the sciencey bit!

~ Science Time! ~
So the theory behind reverse washing is that hair absorbs the first liquid it comes in contact with. So by conditioning first the hair absorbs more of the conditioner leaving your hair silky soft where as when shampooing first the hair absorbs more of the shampoo. This is similar to why when going swimming its helpful to spray a mixture of water and leaving conditioner on your hair beforehand; the hair absorbs the mixture instead of the damaging sea or chlorine water.

Of course remember to not put conditioner on the scalp and do remember to shampoo last because I forgot this the other week resulting in weird hair and greasy scalp! I've also found it help to shampoo just the scalp and top of the hair rather than the lengths where the conditioner has been although when rising your hair the shampoo running down the hair won't effect the results, I promise!

For reference I use the Herbal Essences Ignite My Colour shampoo and conditioner.

Have you tried reverse washing? What did you think of it?
Harriet x