There can be situations in life when you might need to wash your hair without using a shower or even a sink!
For example, if you are very sick and you have to stay in bed all the time. Or if you are on the road, traveling, and there is no sink near you, and your hair already needs a good wash badly!
No matter the reason, being aware of how to wash hair without showering can be very helpful for everyone. And in this article, we will explain how to wash hair when you can’t shower and what methods you can use for that.
How to Wash Your Hair Without Showering With Just a Washcloth?
Are you wondering how to wash hair without a shower or sink? Well, you can opt for one of the following alternative methods instead:
- Wash your hair in your bathtub
- If you don’t have one, use a bucket of water to wash the hair
- Or go to your gym and wash your hair there
- You can also try a shampoo cap in this situation
- Or maybe wash the hair in a portable shampoo bowl
But even with so many alternative options available, sometimes you might need something different. For example, if a person is severely sick and can’t get up from bed, going to the gym or even walking to the bathroom to wash the hair over the sink might be impossible!
But what should be done then, you may wonder?
In such extreme situations, washing hair with the help of a washcloth will be exactly what you need. This method is particularly useful for those who have to stay in bed for any reason but are still in need of having their hair clean.
So how do you wash one’s hair with the help of a washcloth when you can’t shower? It is very easy to do! For washing your hair this way, just follow a few simple steps:
- take a clean washcloth (preferably new)
- wet the washcloth fully
- then put it on your hair and scalp to make them wet as well
- you have to repeat doing it several times to make all the hair thoroughly wet!
- once you are satisfied with the result, take a dry towel and wipe your hair dry
When using this method, you can also use a bit of shampoo if the hair is very oily and dirty. When using a shampoo, you need to wet the hair with the washcloth first (as described in the guide above), then apply the shampoo and massage it into the scalp, and then wipe the foamy residue with the same washcloth.
Only this time you can keep it dripping wet to better remove the suds from the strands.
As you can see, using a washcloth to wash your hair is very easy. But as we have mentioned above, this is not the only alternative way to keep your hair clean if you can’t take a proper shower. There are a few more options and below you can check out which ones exactly.
How to Wash Your Hair Without Taking a Shower? More Alternative Ways to Do That
Except for using a washcloth, you can opt for a few more methods of washing hair when you can’t use a shower, a bathtub, or other traditional options.
Below, we suggest you read in more detail about each of such substitute methods to have a general impression of them. And also, it will help you be able to choose which one you might need for yourself.
Wash Your Hair In The Bathtub
You might not be able to use a shower or sink to wash your mane. But you can use the bathtub if you have one.
How to wash hair in the bathtub?
- To begin with, lie in the tub and let your hair get wet!
- Then sit and shampoo the hair
- After that, take a mug, a glass, or any other vessel that you can comfortably hold (it’s better if it has a handler to not slip out of your wet hands) and pour water from the tub onto your head
- When the shampoo foam is gone completely, drain the water and refill the tub
Wash your hair with just water again to rinse it thoroughly. At this point, you might want to keep on rinsing until you see that the water is running from your strands with no signs of foam. After that, your hair should finally be clean.
Try Using A Bucket
This approach is more suitable when a person is bedridden. That means he or she can’t go to the shower to wash the hair. So instead you can use a regular bucket.
- Take a bucket
- Place it on the floor
- Make sure that the height of the bucket reaches up to the edge of the bed
- Take the plastic and place it on the edge
- The person needs to lie down and put the hair on the plastic
- The other end of the plastic should be on the bucket
Most likely, using this method will require someone else to help the person who is washing hair. The helping person should pour water on the hair of the bedridden one from the bucket.
When using this method, you can wash your hair with water or use shampoo as well. But take into consideration that, if you want to shampoo, you will have to change the water in the bucket! Like this, you will get rid of any shampoo residue.
Use A Shampoo Cap
If you often go camping or outside to spend quite a long period of time outdoors, the chances of taking a shower can be minimal.
However, the chances that your hair gets dirty will always be the highest! Especially if you are camping in the summer. In that case, if you need to wash your hair, you can use shampoo caps.
Usually, the shampoo caps come with a packet. Each packet will have several caps inside. The shampoo cap looks like a shower cap. Using it is also pretty simple.
- You just have to warm up the packet for 20 seconds at most. If you are camping, you can do this by placing it near a campfire. If you are using it at home, place it near the stove for 20 seconds
- After the packet with caps is warmed up, open it and take one cap out
- Then put the shampoo cap on just like you would do with a shower cap.
- Make sure that all of your hair is inside of the cap
- Then, while having the cap on, start massaging your head
After you are done with massaging, you can throw out the cap and dry your hair with a towel. Drying is needed because the formula will make your hair wet, however, you won’t have to add any water yourself!
Use a Portable Shampoo Bowl
As an alternative option for a shower, you can always carry a portable shampoo bowl with you. The shampoo bowl consists of a bowl, a stand, and a hose. It means that you can dump the water anywhere with the hose. The stand will anyway help to stabilize it.
The setup manual is given with the bowl, so you don’t have to bother about being unaware of how to set the thing. Once you set it up, you can start with washing the hair.
- Sit on a chair
- Put your hair in the bowl
- Someone else can wash your hair for you
If you want to use this method, here is a tip for you to remember. When you set up the portable bowl, make sure you have access to water so that you can fill the bowl with it whenever you need it.
Also, you will need to have a place to dump the used water. Once you’re done shampooing, dry your hair and portable bowl as well. Keep it until you need to use it again.
Wash Outside If It’s Winter
Well, this option will perhaps be useful for those who have good health since washing hair outdoors in winter is quite a challenge!
Anyway, if you have issues with the shower or sink, for instance, and you can’t use your shower or bath to wash your hair, you can always go out to wash your hair if it’s winter.
You can just sit on the porch and do so. Because in winter, you don’t have to worry about cleaning the water. The water would most likely freeze. What shall you do to wash your hair in this case? Just follow a few simple steps:
- Take a pipe connected to the nearest tap on the porch
- Then sit on the edge of the porch facing inside. This way, your hair will be outside of the porch
Now wrap your neck, shoulder, and back with plastic. You can use any plastic cover for that. To help the cover hold better, you can clip the plastic around your neck as well - Now take the pipe and hold it above your head, watering your mane
- Once the hair is all wet, you can shampoo it
- Wash your mane out with the pipe water once again after you are sure that you have removed all the dirt and oily residue
Now some of you may ask why you would have to put on the plastic cover before washing your hair this way. See, in fact, the reason behind this step is pretty obvious and simple.
By using a cover, you let the water pass to the ground freely. It will help you not to bother with water messing up your porch, as well as protect you from getting wet while sitting in the cold.
Use Gym Washroom
Now any public gym has shower options. So if you can’t take a shower at home for any reason, you can wash your hair in your gym. Gym showers provide shower equipment as well, which means that it shouldn’t be a problem for you to wash your hair there.
And even if you don’t feel like using the gym shampoo (or if the gym shampoo doesn’t suit your hair), you can always bring your own product! So that you can wash your hair without damaging your hair.
Use a Pool Shower
Should your shower or sink be out of work, don’t forget that it may have a pool shower system! By that, we mean the shower near the pool area. With its help, you can use that shower to wash your hair.
However, note that you should never try to wash your hair in the pool! That’s because pool water contains chlorine which has many side effects and is very harsh on our hair! Water with chlorine makes the hair super dry and sticky, turning it into a straw-like pile. So it’s better to avoid that.
Like this, now you know a few more options that can help you keep your hair clean even though you suddenly found out that you don’t have water at home or your shower is broken.
What Are The Alternatives to Washing Hair?
Sometimes, you might need to refresh your hair quickly without even making it damp! In this case, none of the options suggested above will fit you. What shall you do then? In that case, we have two options for you. Check out which one sounds more preferred to you.
Use Dry Shampoo
Dry shampoo is widely used today since it is a quick way to keep your hair clean. It only takes 2-3 minutes to clean your mane with it.
If you have oily and greasy hair, it can volumize it as well. Just spray the dry shampoo on the hair, wait for a minute, and comb and style the hair as you like. However, it’s better not to stick to this method as a regular way of washing hair!
Opt For a No-Rinse Shampoo
A no-rinse shampoo is another type of shampoo that people often mistake for regular shampoos. But the difference is that you don’t need to wash it off. However, this product still manages to give you the exact effect as any regular shampoo.
No-rinse shampoos come in shampoo-like bottles. This is why you will have no complications with using them.
- Put some shampoo in your palm
- Then apply it to the scalp and hair
- Finally, massage the hair with it
- Keep massaging for 3-5 minutes
- Then dry the hair with a towel
That’s it! Now our hair is clean again! And as you could notice, the way of using this shampoo is pretty much the same as the way you use regular shampoos.
So, we have told you how you could wash your hair without taking a shower and even without making your hair wet!
Some of the methods we shared with you require certain help from other people whilst some of them can be easily performed by yourself. Also, you are now aware of the two ways of keeping your hair clean without even a drop of water!
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