Less commonly, it is available in solid bar format. Shampoo is used by applying it to wet hair, massaging the product in the hair, roots and scalp, and then rinsing it out. Some users may follow a shampooing with the use of hair conditioner. Shampoo is typically used to remove the unwanted build-up of sebum natural oils in the hair without stripping out so much as to make hair unmanageable.
Shampoo is generally made by combining a surfactant , most often sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate , with a co-surfactant, most often cocamidopropyl betaine in water. The sulfate ingredient acts as a surfactant , trapping oils and other contaminants, similarly to soap. Shampoos are marketed to people with hair. There are also shampoos intended for animals that may contain insecticides or other medications to treat skin conditions or parasite infestations such as fleas.
Ancient Mesopotamian tablets from the Neo-Assyrian period document the use of medicated shampoo to treat scalp eruptions. Other products used for hair cleansing were shikakai Acacia concinna , hibiscus flowers, [ 4 ] [ 5 ] ritha Sapindus mukorossi and arappu Albizzia amara. Cleansing the hair and body massage champu during one's daily bath was an indulgence of early colonial traders in India.
When they returned to Europe, they introduced the newly learned habits, including the hair treatment they called shampoo. Sake Dean Mahomed , an Indian traveller, surgeon, and entrepreneur, is credited with introducing the practice of shampoo or "shampooing" to Britain.
In , Mahomed, with his Irish wife Jane Daly, opened the first commercial "shampooing" vapour masseur bath in England, in Brighton. He described the treatment in a local paper as "The Indian Medicated Vapour Bath type of Turkish bath , a cure to many diseases and giving full relief when everything fails; particularly Rheumatic and paralytic, gout, stiff joints, old sprains, lame legs, aches and pains in the joints".
