Shampoo

[banjo]

How frequent is 'frequent use' intended to be? Daily/every other day/weekly? Are there actually any shampoos in existence that aren't for 'frequent use'? It seems to be a fairly generic term used by most manufacturers! 

[jake-the-peg]

As I recall there is/was a shampoo called Lenium that you could get from chemists that contains selenium sulphide - clears dandruff a treat but says not for regular use.

I don't know if it's still available it was good so it  was probably found to cause deafness in mice who drank too much grapefruit juice on Tuesdays or something 

[CarolG]

Well, it depends on your hair type. Some people need to wash their hair every day and others once a week. The reason it is says �frequent� is because it will not damage your hair if you use it every day. You can get shampoos for dandruff from chemists but these won�t say frequent as they are so strong.

[5029]

I think Frequent Use is just a standard label put on bottles that dont fall into the other categories (dry/greasy/coloured etc)

[DeadTed]

Yeah, Lenium was a truly great heavy-artillery shampoo - a life-saver for me personally - but it was axed three years back due to 'insurmountable production difficulties' . (Apparently selenium disulphide is a tricky chemical, carcinogenic in its concentrated form, and various rules and regulations made life very difficult for the makers.)  I spent the next 6 months floundering about in a dandruff blizzard, experimenting unsuccessfully with crap like Nizoral, Oilatum, Polytar, T-Gel, Selsun etc. until I discovered Ducray Selegel.

This was the real deal - just like Lenium - and I stuck with it until now. But, you guessed it: they reinvented it as New Formula Selegel and now it doesn't work on me any more. Why does this always happen?

After digging around on the Web I've come up with a few other shampoos that might be worth trying out. The new Vichy Dercos Anti-Dandruff Shampoo (for dry or oily hair) is a selenium disulphide shampoo; so apparently is Head & Shoulders Intensive Treatment. Might be worth a go, but they might be ineffectual like Selsun. The problem seems to be that whereas prescription shampoos of this nature have 2.5% selenium disulphide content, over-the-counter brands only have 1%.

Then there's another line of approach in the form of shampoos containing Salicylic Acid. US brands are Ionil Plus, P&S Shampoo, Sebex, Sebulex and Sal-Clens. Salicylic Acid is meant to loosen and strip away flakes of skin and reduce itching. Annoyingly I can't find any info on UK brands.

Hope all this is of some help.

[jno]

all a matter of individual heads - Selsun works fine for me.... sorry banjo, this is getting away from your original post. I think CarolG gave the right answer: you don't have to use it frequently but it won't damage your hair if you do. Frequency depends on what your own hair needs, but daily should be ok.