Sounds like you haven’t been on the same corners of the internet as I have, because reading about co-washing is not strange to me. Have you been to hair care communities?
I always had straight and flat hair and kept it really short for the last 20 years. The girlfriend tried curly girl for awhile and while her hair isn't really curly, it really made the waves much more dramatic and it looked amazing.
We're not big on regimented routines though, so while she stopped it after a while, we still get most of the same products, and even just with that selective purchasing, her hair is still nicer and softer than before, and it made me want to grow my hair out, and now I have very handsome looking waves I never thought would have been possible for me.
The Curly Girls speak the truth, even if cowashing and plopping sound like silly things!
You mean conditioner? I wash my hair when I get into the shower and leave the conditioner in while I wash the rest of my body, then once I'm done I rinse my hair out. So it stays in for however long it takes to clean the rest of my body.
Apparently that means no shampoo, only conditioner...? On the rare occasion that I use conditioner, it goes in after the shampoo is out and stays in for however long it takes me to soap the rest of my body.
For curly hair types, shampoo shouldn't really be used. Conditioner is used to "wash" the scalp and hair (thus, "co-wash"), rinse it out, and then condition again, leaving it in while you wash the rest of you with soap, and then rinse it all off at the end.
Sit time doesn’t make a difference for my hair so it’s solely down to how much warm water I want and how tired I am (I’m an afternoon-evening showerer).