Anna vs. Shampoo

Quit playin' games with my hair.

(Yes, a Backstreet Boys throwback http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6W56HwPOQg)  I've been locked in psychological warfare with my Herbal Essences Long Term Relationship shampoo and conditioner, which have lasted me the entire semester thus far, for the past week or two. I have been asking the million dollar question: "Can I make you last until the end of the semester or not?" And they reply: "Try me, Gesch." For about three weeks in a row it seemed to be perpetually at the 1/3 full-mark and I was getting hopeful. Once on Seinfeld, Elaine said she used a bottle for a whole year! I was thinking maybe this could happen for me. But lately, unfortunately, I've nearly reached the point of no return. As any student abroad, I am pinching money everywhere I can, and spending extra on stupid things like shampoo is annoying. I figure that I have a few options:

1) Steal from my roommate's shampoo and conditioner. She's got this HUGE bottle and maybe I could swindle a few dollups here and there. The thing is, it's just not nice to steal. Plus, her shampoo is specifically formulated for blonde hair. I don't want my brunette strands having a case of identity crisis, do I?

2) Stop washing my hair. I still have plenty of exfoliating body wash left, so I would still be clean in general, just not my hair. That wouldn't be so bad. Actually, in other European places, it's probably normal to nearly never wash your hair. I smelled proof of this in Paris. But the feeling of skeezy hair grosses me out. I wish I had it in me to carry out this option, but I just can't.

3) Go the classic Gesch household route. When a product (dish soap, hand soap, body wash, shampoo, you name it) is running on its last legs, what do you do? You add water, that's what you do. Adding water ups the overall volume and helps that product last a little longer, right? Wrong. In actuality, all this method does for me is to accidentally squirt out 8 times the amount I intend each morning. And also the fact that I am essentially washing my hair with water, and then rinsing it out with more water isn't really doing much. Not to mention that in my semi-conscious state at 7:30 a.m. the thinned out watery shampoo runs into my eyes and wakes me up with a pleasant little chemical burn. Not ideal.

4) Cave and buy new shampoo and conditioner for my last month here. After all, it IS a whole month. Lame.

Looks like the shampoo has won. Option 4 it is. For those of you who enter into the bottle battle every two months or so, I bid you luck. They're valiant opponents.