Why does my hair feel waxy after washing Reddit

I have recently been experiencing issues with my hair. I was previously using OGX but with their lawsuit i ended up switching to Garnier WholeBlends but noticed that even after washing my hair, it still felt stringy/greasy and feels like it’s coated in wax but ONLY on the crown/back side of my head. I decided it must be my shampoo and conditioner so ended up switching to Paul Mitchell’s invisiblewear shampoo& conditioner as my hair has been flat from the greasy/waxyness. Even after switching and doing a clarifying wash in between, it still left my hair feeling the same. I have now bought a water filter thinking i might have hard water, and after washing my hair and carefully ensuring i have washed everything out it’s still feeling the same. I am at a loss of what to do next, as it seems everything i’ve tried has not worked.

For reference i have medium length/medium thickness hair.

TIA

My hair is super “waxy” always, even right after showering. I’ve tried ACV and it seems to help just a little. Was thinking of buying a product for seb derm but I don’t even know if I have it. Also, if I scratch my scalp I have a lot of build up under my nails. Please help, I can’t even wear my hair down anymore because it looks so gross and “waxy.” I use Loma moisturizing shampoo and conditioner. This has been going on for a few years, I’ve moved around periodically and I’ve recently moved into a new apartment and it just seems the same/maybe getting even worse.

HELP! My hair is all of a sudden rebelling- it's greasy and waxy right out of the shower- more details in comments please help! from Hair

I have very thick and dense type 2a hair (I’m middle eastern living in the US). Hair salons always make sure I have double time slots booked because of how long it takes to get through a normal appointment. I do get it majorly thinned out and have balayage.

For years, I have struggled with hair that never feels clean. Even on my best days, there is always a waxy, greasy coating at the crown of my head. That dirty/waxiness is worse if you lift my hair and look at the roots - it was truly never clean unless I just left the hair salon. I started really trying to fix the problem once this dirty, heavy feeling resulted in my scalp constantly throbbing in pain.

To keep this post short, I’ll post everything I tried to fix the problem in the comments section. Just trust me when I say I was an obsessed woman trying absolutely everything, but my hair barely improved.

I always suspected I was using too much shampoo and it wasn’t rinsing out properly (hence the waxy coating), and all the bottle instructions said to use the size of a quarter, possibility twice. But one day after experimenting with Kerastase for over a month, I said fuck it and used twice the amount of shampoo I usually used, filling my palm. I rinsed it out and shampooed that double amount again (so now I’ve used 4x the amount of shampoo I’d normally use). The second round, it lathered like I’d never seen before. I thought it’d be a waxy, coated disaster once I got out. But y’all, my HAIR WAS THE CLEANEST IT’S EVER BEEN. I HAVE BEEN UNDER SHAMPOOING MY HAIR MY ENTIRE LIFE. I can use almost every shampoo I’ve previously abandoned now and have amazing, soft, truly clean hair. I’m being dramatic but it almost brings tears to my eyes. And the craziest thing is, dozens of hair stylists, friends with similar texture, hours reading online...nobody has EVER suggested to me that maybe I was using too LITTLE shampoo.

As the saying goes: when you hear hooves - think horses, not zebras. Sometimes the most simple solution is the answer. I’m embarrassed by how simple a solution this was for me, but using that much shampoo seemed counter to any advice I’d ever gotten. If this can help one person with a similar problem, my years of wasted time and money will have been worth it. Good luck!

hello. i have straight fine asian hair.

i wash my hair whenever i go out. basically from monday thru friday and sunday. i've been doing this since november. my hair wasn't dry or anything. matter in fact, it felt amazing. no oily hair, no dull hair from the oil, volume, overall great. 1-2 weeks ago i started noticing that the top back of my head feels greasy even after shampooing. right now my hair is about 60% wet and the spot feels greasy. when i use my fingers and i rub my scalp then smell it , it smells like dirty hair! the scalp itself doesn't feel greasy, it feels clean but when i just slide my hand over the back of my head it feels waxy and greasy. not a great feeling. i don't have any dandruff or any itchy feeling. my hair just doesn't feel like itself anymore... in november i used opalex shampoo and conditioner but i ran out and decided to go with shea moisture since opalex made my hair fall out more than shea moisture. shea moisture only made me lose a few strands. tbh i regret doing that because i think the hair fallout is from puberty and stress. it hasn't decreased. it's not even that much hair fall. i think it's pretty average.

should i buy a different shampoo? what should i do to get rid of this waxy/oil and smelly hair? is it because of the drugstore shampoo i use? should i just use a professional shampoo like opalex?

don't bother telling me to wash my hair less!! thank you :)

after i wash it feels waxy from Hair

Every time after I wash my hair it feels waxy. When I touch it, it feels like it is coated in product. It gives it kind of an oily/gross/clumpy appearance. Does anyone know what causes this? It happens no matter what shampoo I use. I've also tried using a shower filter because I've heard hard water can cause this. It didn't help at all. I've also tried using clarifying shampoo which also didn't do anything. I'm desperate to find a solution to this problem so if anyone could help that would be great.

This is a bit of a last resort coming to ask Reddit, but oh well. My hair is quite thick and has a ringlet type curl pattern. I have always had issues with it (itchy/dry/dandruff) but also scalp that gets oily extremely quickly. For the past few weeks I’ve been noticing that when I wash my hair it is getting extremely difficult to wash out any product, and my hair is taking forever to dry afterwards (and still looks and feels a bit wet in the morning). It has begun feeling very waxy and like I haven’t washed it at all. I have tried t-gel, head and shoulders, ogx clarifying acv shampoo and actual acv rinses but nothing is working. I can’t really hide the state of my hair and I’m dreading going to work at the moment. Can anyone help with this? I am UK based btw.

For a good while now, every time I wash my hair, it ends up looking and feeling like I hadn't rinsed it properly. Up until nearly two months ago, I haven't had this issue. I don't do anything with my hair except shampoo and condition (with the exception of some other hair care products only a handful of time-if even that.) Normally, at worst-it tends to just look limp/flat, but at least this new problem wasn't an issue before. At this point, I'm so fed up with my hair looking/feeling gross and dirty after a wash. What can I do to remedy this?

EDIT 1: I forgot to add that I'm currently using the Tresemme Volumizing Shampoo/Conditioner set. I've also used the Moisturizing set before switching back to the first one.

EDIT 2: Thank you for all your suggestions so far guys! I'm going to look into clarifying shampoos.

UPDATE: I got On The Rocks's Clarifying Charcoal Shampoo and Living Proof's Perfect Hair Day S/C and just used two of them recently. After washing with the charcoal shampoo twice and using LP's conditioner, my hair already feels so much better! I haven't decided yet whether I'll use the charcoal shampoo next week (will most likely wait longer), so will just wait and use LP's S/C going forward.

Thanks again for all your advice, guys!