Shampoo, or not

In an effort to cut out some of the chemicals in my life, I decided to try going shampoo-less. Other ulterior motives include: wanting the natural oils in my hair to stay put, and being sick of paying people to strip my hair down to nothing and then add back in "moisturizers"(And by this I mean, buying shampoo and conditioner). This reminds me of how it was such a good idea to start processing whole wheat to get white flour by taking out all the good stuff, and then putting back a few vitamins and minerals to make up for it. But we don't have to take it!

Some background info on my hair specifically...when it's shorter, as it is now, I don't usually wash it everyday. This is part laziness, and partly because it's easier to style when it's not squeaky clean (or squeaky shampoo clean anyway). From what I've read, once you get off the shampoo routine (and you do replace it with a "wash and rinse" which I'll get to in a moment), then your natural oils come back and are there all the time. Reports include volume/texture/shine you never knew you had, without greasiness or feeling gross.

So basically you just use baking soda, as the wash, and vinegar as the rinse. I know, you're thinking, "Hey, that's how I made a miniature volcano in elementary school" ...or perhaps if your family was like mine, you used those two substances to clear a clogged drain...Don't worry as long as you use them separately there should be no bubbly volcano head that happens.

I looked at this blog a bunch to make sure I understood what to do (click here ) and then I was off! It's pretty simple, you just add 1Tbl of baking soda to a cup of warm water for the wash. And 1 Tbls of Apple Cider Vinegar to a cup of warm water for the rinse. I also added a few drops of essential oils to the vinegar mix because I was slightly concerned about the smell, which I definitely couldn't smell after I rinsed it off with water, and the added benefit of the essential oils was that any time my hair got wet, I could smell them again (it rained that day).

First day: I went swimming in a chlorinated pool, so my hair was feeling pretty icky, kind of dry and stringy. So I had my doubts about this actually working well the first day, but I was pleasantly surprised. I probably did less than a tablespoon of baking soda and vinegar in each of my jars, so they looked like water, but I could tell when I was pouring them on my hair that they each felt a little more slippery than water. As my hair dried it felt light and clean and had a bit of volume to it too.

Second day: I went to Kennywood, and went on the raging rapids, and got soaked. Again chlorinated water, but this stuff felt much dirtier than pool water. As it dried from the raging rapid water, my hair felt like a thick tangly mess. It mentioned on that blog that you probably don't have to use the vinegar rinse every time, so this time I just did the baking soda. This was NOT a good idea. Maybe it's just my hair, or maybe it's because I have leftover shampoo head, or maybe the raging rapid water was too gross, but my hair felt relatively clean, but not silky or soft at all. I went to bed with it wet and I woke up looking like I stuck my finger in a socket. I should have taken a picture, it was ridiculous. I was forced to hairpin it down and wrap some ribbons around its unrulyness so I could go to work without scaring little children. Another thing I noticed was that normally hair pins fall right out of my hair unless I put a ton in. Not this day, I could just twist a whole bunch of hair and stick one pin in, with no danger of it even moving, that's how texturous my hair had become...in a bad way.

Day three: After the no rinse debacle, I did both the "wash' and the "rinse" and my hair felt good again. Clean and kind of silky/soft feeling. I went to bed with it wet again, but woke up with it much more "ruly" (opposite of unruly?) and manageable.

So, I think I'm hooked. Price-wise it's a steal. Baking soda is cheap and even though I'm using the Eden Organic ACV (Apple cider vinegar) it's still much less than even a bottle of just shampoo. Chemical free is good for me, and I'm even happy with the actual hair results. I encourage everyone to try it out, I'd be interested in hearing what works for whom!