Free at last!

From shampoo, that is. I have been going no-poo for over a month now. For those totally unfamiliar with it, no-poo is the idea of leaving your shampoo and your conditioner behind and using only baking soda and apple cider vinegar for hair washing. Using natural oils for conditioning is okay too. Shampoos are VERY harsh on our hair. Shampoo has either Sodium lauryl sulfate or sodium laureth sulfate detergents that strip hair of the oils it needs to stay healthy. So, to replenish that, we put conditioner in our hair which has oils (not natural oils either) that usually can only be stripped by using shampoo which is basically a never ending vicious cycle.

The issues I have had with my hair personally finally led me to find something different to do. I have what I thought was dry hair. I was constantly getting shampoos for dry hair, usually something for dry and damaged hair or something for frizzy hair (since my hair is naturally curly and usually frizzes badly). I wanted hair from the Pantene commercials, so healthy it shines. My hair did NOT shine. Not to mention, I also ran into issues with what I thought was dandruff. My scalp would itch, BAD, within just a couple of days of washing (sometimes even right AFTER washing my hair). So, to combat that, I was using Head and Shoulders which REALLY dried out my hair. It would dry it out SO much, I didn't have to wash it for five days (it also didn't itch that whole time either).

So, this summer, in one of my groups on Cafe Mom (a site for moms I frequent) that's kind of different in that it is not your typical mainstream group, moms on there are looking into the more natural way of living and one of the topics that came up quite a bit was going no-poo. I read the posts with quite a bit of skepticism at first because to me, it sounded like a lot more trouble than it was worth. Then some moms started posting journal entries and pictures of their hair and it started to get my curiosity going. But, it still sounded like more work. I started to read more and more on this including blog entries online. While I wasn't quite ready to give the baking soda bit a go, I decide to stop using shampoo. I can't remember exactly the date I did this but I do believe that it was after one of the times I used my head and shoulders. It was early August and I used the shampoo and then instead of using it again after 2-5 days, I just rinsed my hair out with water. Something VERY curious happened when I let my hair go without using shampoo, it got greasy, REALLY greasy. I thought I had dry hair. My hair was NEVER oily, not that I can ever recall, it has always been dry and I was always putting in massive amounts of conditioner including hair cholesterol! So, to have greasy hair was a bit of a shock. And it was REALLY greasy and I wasn't too comfortable with this so I finally figured out how I could use some of the baking soda and give this a go. I didn't like the idea of just rubbing some into my scalp but someone has mentioned using a bottle, putting some baking soda in with some water and using that. Okay, I think I can handle that. I had my peri bottle from when I had Natalie (no, I don't throw things away very easily) and thought that this would be GREAT to use. It wasn't perfect, the hole on top was a little small but it was enough to be able to get a decent amount of baking soda on the bottom. Then I started my shower, put the water in the bottle and shook it. I didn't use the apple cider vinegar that time because while we had a very large bottle of the stuff in the pantry, it had floaties and I was just not big on putting that into my hair. Ick.

So, August 13th, I gave baking soda a try and using it on very oily hair, it really cut the grease. When you use it (especially when you are using enough), there will be a little bit of fizzing, almost a small lather but more like fizzing as you work the mixture into the hair. I would just hold the bottle and squeeze the stuff all over, making sure to get the back where most of the grease was and not getting as much in the front, where my hair is dryer. Once the bottle was empty, I just worked it into my hair and scrubbed my scalp, then rinsed it all off. That day, I just finished my shower and got out. I let my hair air dry and while the back felt GREAT, the front of my hair looked a little fried. Some olive oil took care of that though. That was the first time.

The second time was just over a week later. This time, I did get some apple cider vinegar. I got a bottle of the Heinz from Wal-Mart. It was a little more expensive and it came in a glass bottle but there were no floaties that I could see in it. I also picked up a pack of condiment holders for $1.50. They were squeeze bottles and were perfect for what I would need them for. I still used the peri bottle for the baking soda but this time, I used the smaller condiment bottle for the apple cider vinegar. I put in about 1/2 tablespoon of baking soda in the bottom of the peri bottle and I think around a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. I washed my hair with the baking soda as before, then rinsed. I put in the apple cider vinegar mixture and left it in while I washed the rest of my body. Rinsed everything off at the same time and got out. Hair again, felt great in the back, a little dry in front so this time, I tried out my Burt's Bees body butter (Cocoa butter and macadamia nut as well as other oils) and that seemed to work out really well, it didn't come out as greasy and it soaked nicely into the hair. I had learned the whole using lotion in hair trick when Natalie was a baby. The Johnson and Johnson lavender lotion worked really well in her hair when she was younger. Doing this was working out pretty well and even though my hair was getting greasy, it made my hair look healthier. It had that SHINE! Unfortunately, it felt like I had used Crisco in my hair too, it was very heavy and it did eventually feel greasy to the point I had to wash it again and that was usually before the week was out. Now, I'm not sure if this is the detox period that is talked about or not, we'll have to see.

During that week, I got my hair cut. It had been over a year since I had gotten it cut and last year I had gotten it cut pretty short and it was layered. All of those layers were not below my chin and kind of yucky especially since I had dyed my hair about a year ago as well. So, I got all of that cut off. It was only about two inches but it left my hair feeling pretty nice but the time the person was all done. I did not get my hair shampooed. She just sprayed it with water and combed it and cut. And her doing that was pretty nice since that kind of gave it a washing and it combed all the oils through the hair. But a couple of days later, I needed to wash it. This time, thinking that with less hair, I would need less baking soda, I cut the baking soda down to 1 teaspoon when I usually used 1 1/2 teaspoons. This was not a good thing to do. One, I didn't get fizz when I washed my hair. And two, my hair did not feel washed, it felt greasy and it stayed that way until I washed it again less than a week later. That was kind of rough and icky too. I washed it on the 3rd with the 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda in water and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. My hair would come out a little dry in front but not too bad and then I would just use the Burt's Bees. After two or three days, I would do a water wash and that would give me very nice, hydrated, wavy/curly hair. A day or so after that, I would start brushing it, constantly with a stiff brush and even a shampoo massager I got from Walgreen's for about sixty cents. It worked GREAT for getting through the thick back of my hair where it was VERY greasy. I would brush and brush each day and put it in pony tails and ride out the greasiness since I was home anyway and it did look very healthy and shiny, it just felt heavy and greasy. And this is what I have been doing since then, changing the day of hair washing around depending. I'm still trying to find the perfect number of days to go before doing the full wash. So far, it is between 6 and 8 days though I'll probably wash my hair on Tuesday this week since I'll be going out. I also want to give the coconut butter I have in my cabinet a try. I bought it to use for my hair but I haven't tried it yet since the Burt's Bees was working so well. This last time, I washed it on Thursday, used the Burt's Bees and it was curly/wavy. I brushed through it today and it looks pretty good. It's shiny but not really greasy. I'll rinse with water tomorrow and use my very wide toothed comb to comb through the wet hair and it will be curly/wavy again.

It's been quite a process so far but one thing I have to say is that I am SO much happier with my hair than I have ever been (except when it was really short and then I hated it because I looked like a guy). I'm actually thinking that I may be able to let my hair grow out a bit this time. I would at least like to grow it out enough so that it's not flipping up in the back. That I'm finding to be a little annoying. But it feels soft, it feels silky, and I just LOVE IT! The stuff I use for it is SO cheap too! A box of baking soda costs less than $2 same for the bottle of apple cider vinegar and yet, since I use so little for my hair, it lasts awhile! I used to pay $4 or more for ONE bottle of hair product! I easily spent around $10 just to get shampoo and conditioner and if I got anything for the frizziness, I sometimes spent even more! I have gotten hair products that have cost me $10-$15 for ONE product! And I still had hair I was not that happy with.

I've been so impressed, I stopped using shampoo on Natalie's hair too. And, because her hair doesn't even get greasy, I haven't been using the baking soda (though the stuff I put into her bath has baking soda in it so she may be getting some in her hair through that), just the apple cider vinegar to give her hair a nice shine. So this will save me money on her too and I'm now trying to talk John into giving up HIS shampoo and using baking soda. It's been an eye opening experience for me and I'm so glad I tried this out. It's going to make my life SO much easier over in South Korea not having to worry about finding a shampoo for my hair. All I need is baking soda and apple cider vinegar! Less than $4 total and I'm probably set for a good six months. That cannot be said AT ALL for most hair products.

Now, all that is needed are pictures. This is the hard part because I'm a chicken in front of the camera. What I need to do is have John take some pictures of me. Taking pictures of myself is not working too well. So, the next time I do my baking soda wash, I'll have him get some pictures of me and you can see how it looks yourself! And then I'll take a couple two or three days later after I do my water rinse, and a couple closer to the next time so that you can also see what it tends to look like when it is in a more greasy stage.

Here is another blogger though who is farther along in her no-poo journey than I am:
http://www.goingbananasblog.com/search/label/no-poo
These posts are all related to her going no-poo but she has a full blog as well.