What I Learned Today

One of the challenges to be met and conquered during my upcoming mission to Mars is the limitation on showers. We have a very limited supply of water for our mission, just 39 gallons per day to support six crew members. We anticipate this supporting only one shower per day, so we’ll have to rotate through and wait six days between our individual showers. I don’t think I’ve gone more than three days between showers since reaching my teens, and those gaps have been few and far between (camping trips). The crew briefing documents recommend bringing baby wipes to facilitate sponge baths between showers. But now I’m stuck wondering: what about my hair?

It’s not the appearance that I’m particularly worried about, and my hair is actually rather short, which probably makes this easier than it would be otherwise. It’s just that I’ve observed that going even 1.5 days between showers leaves my hair greasy enough (to me) that I don’t want it touching me. I don’t like the hair oil smell. (Does this mean I’m over-civilized? Or is it true that daily showers make your hair produce more grease than “normal”?) I have no idea, but eventually I confessed my worries to my hairdresser and asked her advice.

“Take a dry shampoo with you,” she said.

A dry shampoo? What? I’d never heard of such a thing. It turns out that dry shampoos are powdered substances that perform the same function as the liquid shampoo you’re currently using: they bond to the sebum (oils) in your hair, and can then be brushed out, carrying the oil (and any dirt or other particles stuck to the oil) away. The efficacy is generally lower than that of a wet shampoo (probably due to easier distribution and bonding in liquid form), but apparently still can provide a good between-shower cleaning. Just the ticket for a restricted water environment!

The dry shampoos available commercially seem to be rather expensive ($20-25), but the web is teeming with advice about making your own from corn meal or cornstarch or salt or clay or what have you (plus baking powder, to absorb odors). I think it’s worth a test run prior to the mission. If it works, I’ll be set! Nothing like low tech solutions to save the high-tech day.