Word up, dudes. To get technical, any anionic surfactant will work fine. Cationic and zwitterionic (I love that word) are ineffective and not very effective respectively. Soap just happens to be cheap and handy--and you can often do better on price than baby shampoo. When lazier, I tend to use Suave as the price per ounce is much cheaper and it goes on sale a lot more often (and I like the apple scent). When not lazy, I use 4 ounces of sodium laurel sulfate (available at good price from Bramble Berry) in 1 gallon of water as a concentrate, then apply 3 ounces of that concentrate per gallon to the lawn. Price per ounce is very low. At higher concentrations, it'll also remove oil from your garage floor very easily. Toxicity is very low, but if using the SLS powder, don't breathe the stuff while mixing. It's not toxic, but it's a major irritant. I wear a mask. The 3 oz per thousand measurement is extremely flexible; I've gone as high as 15 when I've had a "greasy soil" problem. Vast overuse can cause sodium buildup (all soaps are sodium or potassium salts), but I've never seen it become a problem (yet). Soap allows water to penetrate more easily into the soil the same way that soap allows water to coat your hair, beard, skin, and dishes. It also creates an environment in soils of more diverse ions, which causes the soil particles to flocculate (gather together) into nice, small peds that allow water and air to penetrate soils much more easily. Bacteria also like the peds as they make good homes with lots of cracks and caves for them to live in--and then the bacteria further flocculate the soil for you. Conversely, clay and silt tend to be deflocculated soil, arrayed in plates and sheets that don't allow water or air to soak in easily. These soils tend to be hard, either soaked or bone dry, crack when dry, and don't support a great deal of microbial life below the surface. Although any other soil type can become deflocculated, it's a little more rare in sandy soils.

My absolute favorite is Biolage shampoo and conditioner (white bottle with green leaves on it). You can find it at most drug and grocery stores, and many times salons will have a sale on it where you get one of each for about 40% off the total. Always stop at salons in the malls, they usually have something on sale. A little goes a LONG way with both products, I have hair to my waist and it is in perfect condition, I get it trimmed about twice a year. The regular formula works the best for me. And use the conditioner sparingly, like seriously a dime size flat drop will go all over my hair. I, like you, have thin, silky hair that is "virgin" but a whole lot of it, and every time it gets this long I donate it to the Locks of Love, a charity that makes wigs out of human hair for cancer patients.

Arosegirl, a bit late in answering, just logged on and your post...caught-my-eye...(No pun intended?)... I mentioned this...home remedy?...in a post on another forum some time ago. Several years ago, I woke up with my eyes hurting and lashes almost stuck together...rushed to the mirror and saw (Yuck!) white pus...so much of it I could literally push it out...gross...I was always healthy, so didn't know what was happening...No doctor to see on a Sunday...I called a drugstore and explained to a pharmacist about my eyes...He told me it was an infection...asked if I had any baby shampoo...I did, Johnson&Johnson...He said that it didn't really matter what brand...He said to mix one teaspoon of baby shampoo in a half a cup of barely warm water,hold eye open and gently splash the liquid in the eyes. He said that baby shampoo contained the same ingredients that a doctor uses to wash-out infected eyes. I had a glass with a small opening (similiar to a shot glass)...it "cupped" my eye...tilted my head back and poured it in...I've never been able to use eye drops because I could not stand the thought of anything touching my eyes...but, if you're in misery... There was some relief right away...a few hours later, I repeated the rinse. It released so much 'infection'...by the next day, it seemed cleared-up. I didn't see a doctor. Later, when my daughter got trash in her eyes from her job, and it irritated her eyes, I mixed up the baby shampoo and water...and she got relief right away. We have two outside cats...one got in a squabble with a stray cat and his eyes got infected...I poured the same mixture in/over his eyes and it cleared that up. Diluted, baby shampoo cannot hurt you, as far as I know. Nope, husbands don't ask the so-called-experts...they expect the wife to know everything..ha

The notion that baby shampoo puts an additive in it, that numbs the eyes is taken from one of those "send this to everybody" emails that circulate. This urban myth is addressed on the Johnson & Johnson website under the FAQ section. It says: "The assertion that chemicals are added that numb the baby's eyes is totally false. The reason JOHNSON´S® shampoo formulas do not irritate the eyes is the mildness of the formulation, which has undergone extensive clinical testing and has proven to be as gentle to the eyes as pure water." Amphoteric surfactants are how the shampoos keep tears away. It is Sodium Laureth Sulfate and Potasium Laureth Sulfate that are the irritants and they are not put in baby shampoo or in the expensive adult 'salon shampoo'. Sodium Laureth Sulfate and Potasium Laureth Sulfate are always in the El Cheapo shampoos. Here is an explanation I copied: The active part of shampoo comes from a family of chemicals known as "surfactants". Sodium Laureth Sulfate and Potasium Laureth Sulfate are two of the most common. These handy little molecules have one end which is hydrophilic and another which is hydrophobic. The result is that one end grabs oil from the hair and then hitches on to the water for a short ride into the drain. The problem with suractants is that, when they get into the eyes, the keep doing their job. The tear film on the eye is mostly water with a bit of oil and it acts as a protective barrier. Surfactants pretty much remove this protection. It gets worse though, they do a fine job of stimulating nerves in the eye. This hurts. No Tears shampoos also contain surfactants, but they piggyback a larger molecule on the surfactant to keep it from getting into the sensitive tissues in the eye. The substance is called and Amphoteric Surfactant. The molecule still holds the same oil/water binding properties, but it is too big to get through tissue etc. The result is... well... no more tears. Here is a link that might be useful: J&J FAQ