How to Marie Kondo Your Hair Products (The KonMari Way)

Last updated on July 15th, 2020 at 03:11 pm

In a previous post I shared some tips on how to use up hair products you hate so that you don’t lose money. Today it’s about how to Marie Kondo your hair products.

In a stark change of thinking, what if you don’t even care about losing the money you spent on those hair products?

What if you just don’t want the bother?

What if you want to jump straight into discovering those hair products you only find 100% value in?

That’s where Marie Kondo’s KonMari method of tidying (and subsequently purging) can help.

The basic premise of the KonMari method of tidying up is to go through all of your belongings one category at a time in a certain order, touching each and every item and determining if it sparks joy in your life. If it does, keep it. If it doesn’t, thank the item for its service and let it go. (Read more about the method here).

What I don’t agree with

In the interest of clarity: I am NOT with all that thanking an inanimate object for its service. God is the one I should be thanking for blessing me with the item to begin with. The item itself? Ridiculous and bordering on making some “thing” like a god in your life.

This is a case of what my grandma calls, “eat the meat and throw away the bones.”

While I do not align with Marie Kondo’s belief system, I do find that her tactical method of decluttering and tidying items can be helpful.

As it applies to hair products, it can be a bit difficult to determine if you should keep a product based on just touching the bottle to determine if it sparks joy.

It’s possible to do so with stylers that you may have used a number of times with superb results. Think, that excellent wash and go that was achieved with that gel. You went to a wedding, danced all night long and not one curl out of place. That would spark joy. Wouldn’t it?

But, for most people it’s not that deep. Especially if in your mind, your hair care products’ sole purpose is to simply do a job (i.e. cleanse your hair).

You can however, decide on a products usefulness in your life based on how well it performs in your hair in the past as well as what its made of.

Use the following recommendations as a guide to Marie Kondo your hair products – when making a decision to keep or chuck a hair care product.

Marie Kondo Your Hair Products: The KonMari Process

Using the traditional KonMari method, you would discard items before you tidy what remains. In Marie’s book, she mentioned that she hesitated to give things away for not wanting to clutter another’s home. However, many do choose to donate items they don’t want. The choice is yours to decide what you will do with the item that will be exiting your home.

I do not think that donation should be the case with hair products you’ve used (especially those you put your fingers into). There’s the potential of spreading germs (which as of the writing of this post, we are all trying not to do….COVID19 and all; but I digress).

Purge by category

So, here’s the process to follow for purging through your hair products and discovering the keepers.

I. Sub-divide your hair products into categories in one place. A table (or the floor if you’re a product junky) will do.

Pre-poo products
Shampoos
Co-wash products
Clays
Leave in Conditioners
Deep Conditioners
Specialty hair masks (ex: volumizing masks for fine hair)
Instant conditioners (also known as rinsing conditioners)
Protein treatments
Herbs for hair care
Hair oils/sealants

Note: It’s important to be hyper specific with your categories in order to determine what to keep based on very specific features and capabilities.

If there’s a particular product category listed above that you don’t own, then move on to the next. That’s less work for you to do!

II. Starting with the first category, pick up one of the products and ask your self the following questions:

Does this product contain clean ingredients?
If no, do you care?
Has this product helped your hair in any way?
Is there anything about this product you don’t like?

If you answered yes to the second and last question, chuck it.

Life is too short and hair products too plentiful to hold on to ones that don’t add complete value to your life. Free up your space for those hair products that serve you and your hair well 100% of the time by doing what I like to call “Marie Kondo your hair products.”

Repeat the keep/toss decision making process for each and every product in every category until you’ve isolated the winners. You’ll reclaim your space and will have effectively KonMari’d your hair products.

What Marie Kondo’s Method is Not

As you may know, Marie Kondo’s KonMari method is popular amongst those who want to get their space organized.

What it’s not about is getting you to have less stuff – per say. It’s about only keeping what you love, or in the case of our hair products, keeping what’s 100% useful in your life for your hair’s needs. That may mean lots of items for one person but much less for another.

You may be left with one entire line of products from the same brand or a number of products from different brands. It’s uniquely personal and not necessarily what some would consider being a minimalist.