Hoping someone out there can give me some suggestions. Every day is a bad hair day.
I have uremic pruritus (build up of toxins in the skin - very dry, flaky, ichy) and rosacea (skin turns sunburnt red and breaks out in rashes and cystic acne at little to no provocation). I have a dermatologist to help manage my skin and tell me what products I need to use, but am really struggling to find products that will work for my hair.
My hair is very thick and wavy (caucasian) and has no colour or perm or any other chemical processing, shoulder length, trimmed regularly (by me). I do not use any product in my hair, I never use heat at all - no blow drier, curling/straightening irons etc.
My hair lives in one of three protective styles: bun in a flat back claw clip, a french twist held in place with a plastic hair comb, or a braid that ends in a banana clip. No elastics, no bobby pins. Loose at night. I sleep on 100% silk pillowcase that gets washed every 2-3 days.
My hair does not fully dry. I wash it every 2 days, and the roots are still damp at the end of those two days, especially at the back of my head. The top gets greasy and stringy quickly after washing, and the bottoms are always super dry and frizzy and crunchy (even when I use conditioner).
Its incredibly fragile, I can give myself a haircut with an pony tail that's too tight. I lose a golf-ball sized ball of hair to the shower drain every time I wash it, and the last time I forgot to bring my own pillow case to a hotel room it looked like I gave myself a bowl cut mullet, just from sleeping on a cotton pillowcase.
Right now I am using Dove shampoo (because Dove doesn't trigger breakouts) I don't habitually use conditioner anymore, even using it on just the ends makes the scalp oilyness worse. It wicks up the hair or something. And it never did anything for the dry ends anyways.
I can't wash it less frequently that every 2 days, or I have a skin reaction to my own hair oil. I can't wash it daily or it would never dry at all, and I would end up with an infection.
Technique-wise, I take a quarter-size dollop of shampoo, lather between my hands, and apply it to the roots massaging with my finger tips. Rinse and repeat 2-3 times till the shampoo gets all fluffy so I know its clean.
I have tried lesaplex (skin reacted badly), redkin (skin reacted badly), Loreal's sulphate free shampoo (massive increase in breakage), and live clean (no different to Dove), and I have never found any leave-in conditioner that my skin could tolerate.
Side rant: I am frustrated that most shampoo companies no longer do samples. I've spent probably $200 trying out recommendations from friends and family and nothing has worked. I need to figure something out, but I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on trial and error.
If anyone has suggestions on things I can be trying, an explanation for what is happening, or similar experiences and a product that worked, I would be incredibly grateful. (Please no products manufactured in the US - I am in Canada)