yeah, i'm just gonna get a nice brush, and try the bamboo detangler thing
last time i was doing this i was a "feral" living in northern NSW going to rave parties, i even started to dread them up but i don't like dreads actually.
but for sure, not using soap my skin feels a lot better. in actual fact i think my skin is now cleaner, but the thing that i think is more important is that the pH is normalising and yeah i get less itching and all that. industrial soap industry is actually just a part on the edge of the bomb making business. if the soap hasn't had its glycerine removed it works a lot better. i used to use Dr Bronners but trying it again a couple of years ago it was not the same soap i remember from my 20s. at all.
anyhow, like my body piercing trainer said, the most important thing is blood warm water and friction, soap is only really necessary to make skin clean enough to pierce if it's really gunked up with oil. of course generally you then use alcohol to swab the spot but as i've also heard from other people explaining, the whole thing with blood pressure and the natural physics of our skin, it's made to put up with lacerations from time to time, they can't really be avoided. the blood pushes most of the infectious material out of the wound as long as it's open and wide enough, all you have to do is wash it and then keep it a bit damp in the first few days and it does the rest.