no shampoo - day 1

[helenic]

Inspired by the success of roz_mcclure and the helpful resources she linked to, I decided a while ago to give this no_poo thing a try. (For all the usual reasons: expense, toxicity and general low green credentials of commercial shampoos; wanting to reduce dependency on commercial products; vague handwavy "returning to the earth" aesthetic principle, etc.) So off I trundled to the shops, denny in tow, with the following shopping list:

- baking soda / bicarb
- apple cider vinegar
- vanilla essence
- cinnamon sticks

I ended up going to Tesco, because it seemed the best place to get all of the above at once. "I find it deeply amusing that your hippy hair remedy involves things you can only buy from Tesco," quipped Denny. Yeah yeah. The local shops don't stock the first three items, and anyway, it's not like I ever buy shampoo from them, so it's not money I'm taking away from local businesses.

I came home with mulled wine spice, not being able to find cinnamon sticks, but I've since noticed them in the window of one of the local Caribbean groceries, so TAKE THAT, Evil Corporations.

Anyway, then they sat on the shelf for like six weeks because I am a chronic procrastinator, and also kind of a wuss, but yesterday my hair was really greasy, I had no plans for the evening, and I therefore decided that It Was Time. Cue me scrabbling around the flat for half an hour looking for two appropriate squeezy bottles to mix stuff in, because I'd totally forgotten to buy those. I ended up using one old shower gel bottle (well rinsed) and one non-squeezy water bottle, which was non-ideal as far as application went, but that can be fixed later.

So the method I used was: mix 1 part bicarbonate of soda to 3 parts water in the empty water bottle, then stand in front of the sink, pour some into my cupped hand and scrub it onto my dry scalp. I ended up using several handfuls to get full coverage, which I suspect was too much, but the dry scrubbing doesn't feel right when you're used to sudsy washing. Leave the bicarb on your hair for 3 minutes; I used this time to mix the next solution, which was 1 part apple cider vinegar (any white vinegar also works) to 4 parts water. I added some mulled wine spice (mm, gritty) and cloves for spicy fragrant goodness.

Then I hopped in the shower and rinsed the bicarb out (mmmm, scalp massage). My hair felt silky and pretty awesome even at this point. Then I did another scrub with the vinegar solution, which smelt strongly enough of vinegar that I realised I'd forgotten to add the vanilla essence. Rinsed out the vinegar, finished my shower, added some vanilla essence to the bottle and popped it back in the bathroom.

My hair took longer than usual to dry for some reason, but when it did it was LOVELY. Soft, clean-feeling, floaty, and it smelled of CLEAN HAIR, which is a very specific smell that is normally masked by all the shampoo and conditioner perfumes, and which is really pleasant. So that was good. Towards the end of the day it felt slightly static-y. My hair is extremely fine, straight and prone to oiliness. My routine for the last year has involved moisturising shampoo and no conditioner, because all the conditioners I've tried make it very silky for about two hours, and then massively static-y, and then limp and greasy the next day. So I don't know if the static-y thing is a natural feature of fine hair, or associated with the soft conditioned feeling, or what.

This morning my hair felt utterly, utterly awesome, as if I'd just washed it. I cannot remember the last time my hair has felt that good the day after washing. I was full of joy at my fantastic new hair-washing method, but after I got to work my scalp started feeling kind of itchy and flaky.

Which made me remember that I had massive problems with flaky scalp/dandruff/maybe-eczema when I was a teenager, and maybe although commercial shampoo is not great for my hair, it was good for my scalp because I've not had problems with that for years? But then I read about a bit, and the no-shampoo method is highly recommended for people with this sort of problem, so I'm hoping it's a transition thing. My best guess from reading around is that it's either bicarb that didn't get rinsed out properly, or I used too much bicarb and dried my scalp out. So I'll try less bicarb next time, and hopefully that will fix it.

If not, I have a nice list of conditioning/moisturising treatments for my scalp to try next, including:

- tea tree oil
- rosemary oil
- jojoba oil
- honey (this sounds particularly intriguing)

If none of those work I may have to investigate alternatives to the bicarb stage, which might just be too drying for my sensitive scalp (even though my hair is prone to oil. Whut? HAIR IS WEIRD)

But apart from that, so far it all augurs well! My hair is lush and happymaking, with more body and no greasiness, and anything that means I no longer have to wash it every other day is good in my book. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out.

Comments

[sevenhelz]

how's this going then?

...being as i have little hair these days, i use 2-in-1 shower gel/shampoo :) but i'm still intrigued! x