Hair Washing On Space Station Demonstrated By NASA Astronaut

NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers demonstrates how to wash your hair aboard the International Space Station.   Credit: NASA

Transcript

00:00All right we're gonna talk how to wash your hair in space today. So I've got a

00:05bag of water here we just use some warm water and I've got my shampoo and some

00:10conditioner ready to go so it's not unlike you do on earth but you know you

00:14don't have the advantage of gravity pulling the water or letting the water

00:18flow so I just take some water we have a one-way valve for a valve that you can

00:23close here to cut the water off but just start with putting water on my scalp.

00:29It's nice warm water here and then my hair is so long that I kind of just put a

00:35little bit of water into the rest of my hair to get it wetted down as well.

00:49And then I've got a shampoo bar here so I just take that rub a little bit you don't

00:55need a ton and I like to just like on earth scrub your scalp.

01:04For the rinses I'll usually just do my scalp that way and work it through to the

01:10rest of my hair. As you can see without gravity water doesn't really fall away so

01:15it just hangs on to your scalp and then you can work it all in.

01:19Just rub out the... that's a smart here.

01:21I'm going to do this a couple times trying to rinse out the shampoo.

01:23That's just some leave-in conditioner that I'll use.

01:30I like to work in the conditioner right into the tips here.

01:35So we'll just grab that.

01:37My hair's been so long it's hard to keep it in the frame.

01:42I give everybody else haircuts up here but I don't necessarily need a haircut.

01:45Just letting it go.

01:47All right.

01:48Give it a little brush and then I'll let it air dry.

01:55The extra water will dry, get into the air and then we'll reclaim it and it probably becomes

02:02somebody's coffee tomorrow.

02:03Just let it air dry.

02:04I like to give it one last little whoop.

02:06Try to get the good hair going.

02:09And that's how you wash your hair in space.