I have the worst dandruff that has ever existed in the history of hair and scalps. It started when I was a little kid, and I believe I inherited it from my father. For awhile there was no shampoo that worked. There was one shampoo by the Selsun company called “Selsun Gold,” made for women, that seemed to work wonders, but they discontinued it! And I could never find it again. So I started to use Selsun Blue, which worked fairly well.
There was some discussion over Neutrogena T-Gel, but nothing NOTHING compared to what I would eventually find. My father brought home this bottle called “Nizoral” that he kept claiming “better work miracles,” because it was so expensive. It smelled like chemicals, which I didn’t like. I’m a girl, I want my hair to smell like flowers and sunshine, not zinc or “ketoconazole” (Nizoral’s “active ingredient”). But the second I lathered my hair up with this stuff, I felt a burn. A very GOOD burn.
I massaged my scalp so thoroughly because I had to; I didn’t have the option of a lenient scalp shampoo. With my scalp, I had to scrub like a maniac so I was used to the stinging of dandruff shampoos, but this was something else. It was great. I could literally feel the medicinal aspects seep into the sores that grow underneath my hair. Nizoral is thick; so it stays where you put it and doesn’t leak down into your eyes which I hate. It’s got a great lather and really gets all the worst scalp conditions to disappear.
The best part is that that dandruff stays away far longer than any other dandruff shampoo has – even ones that require a prescription from a dermatologist. When I would use Selsun Blue, the dandruff would clear up somewhat but only for a few days and then it would come back. I have a bad habit of picking at my scalp almost compulsively, which makes the dandruff worse, and this shampoo even fixed that problem. It was the best shampoo I’d ever used that didn’t require a prescription.
Nizoral isn’t perfect. It works wonders for the scalp but doesn’t do too much of anything for the hair itself. It isn’t, in my opinion, made to make hair luscious or healthy, but rather to make the scalp healthy and rid the head of that nasty dandruff that infects so many heads on a daily basis. If you are like me, and you have long and thick hair, you may want to use Nizoral with a conditioner so that the two can work together to act as a scalp-and-hair treatment. My advice is to always use the shampoo first, otherwise it will wind up smelling like Nizoral, which smells like chemicals.
Another benefit of Nizoral is that if you, like me, have sensitive skin, Nizoral won’t damage your skin or cause a bad reaction. That is what happened to me when I used to use Selsun Blue. Occasionally, it would leak down onto my skin – a normal occurrence when you’re washing your hair – but wherever Selsun Blue would touch my skin I would get red bumps. I think my skin had a bad reaction to it. I doubt this would happen to everyone but it was definitely part of the reason I switched to Nizoral.
The smell of Nizoral is the thing that bothers me most. It is not a sweet smelling girlie shampoo by any stretch of the imagination, but to solve that problem I simply use Nizoral for my shampoo and then condition with something that smells like vanilla and sunflowers. The price of Nizoral may bother some people. It can cost over $12, which is expensive, as far as shampoos go, but if you have the kind of problem that I have, and you need something heavy duty, you might need Nizoral because nothing else works as well!
