What actually prompted me to (finally) start a health and beauty blog is a decision I made at the end of 2013: to start "no poo", i.e. cease using shampoo in my hair. I thought about this for several months before finally making the decision, but now that I've made it, I'm convinced it's one of the best decisions I've ever made, body-wise.
I've actually gone no-poo before, somewhere around 2005 (I don’t remember the exact time period). I abandoned the idea because it didn't seem to be working for me, but I think now (having read a lot more on the subject) that I was doing it wrong. I was probably using too much baking soda. Here's the basic no-poo plan:
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 cup water
Mix (the baking soda will of course dissolve) and massage into hair no more than 2-3 times a week. Leave on for a minute, then rinse. Follow (not necessarily every time) with about 4 tablespoons vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar) mixed with another cup of water. Leave this on for a minute as well, then rinse (preferably your last rinse should be with cold water, at least in part).
That's it. Just do this a couple of times a week and you will very likely find that you have beautiful, strong, glossy hair. No need for product (although you can use it if you want).
There are caveats and so forth. First of all, if you are washing your hair every day with shampoo containing sulfates, you may panic at the idea of washing your hair only twice a week, with something that doesn't foam up. It was a lot easier for me to make this decision because I was already washing my hair only about 3-4 times a week. If you have hard water, you may have to modify the solution. If you have dandruff (I have really bad seborrhea myself), you may need to tweak things. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel on this; instead I'm going to point you HERE and HERE for really great write-ups. I'm just going to wax enthusiastic on what this has done for me in two short weeks.
First of all, as I said, I had already cut way back on washing my hair. I'm 50 now and I just find that my hair is dryer than it used to be, so washing it every day was making that problem worse, no matter how much I conditioned. I did mull this over for quite a while, because I was using a curl activator in my hair (I have long, fine, wavy hair), and I wanted to wash it out every day, or at the most every two days, because it irritated my scalp after a while (EVERYTHING irritates my scalp). But late in December, I took a deep breath, figuring that since I was teleworking nobody was going to see me anyway, and I broke out the baking soda and vinegar.
A week later (after not having used it at all in the meantime), I put away my curl activator and other hair products. I don't need them. I love the waves in my hair, and my usual method of drying my hair has always been to apply product and scrunch, then air dry. I have a blow dryer (and a flatiron, curling iron, curlers, all that stuff) but I don't tend to use them much because I love the natural waves, even though they seem to be out of style. Since going no-poo, all I do is wrap my wet hair up in a towel for about a minute or two, then shake it out, run my fingers through it, scrunch, and I'm done. The curl activator is superfluous, and that's why I put it away. The other product I was using every day was an argan oil leave-in conditioner, but I don't need that anymore either; I'm not stripping out my hair's natural oils anymore, so I don't need to put anything back in.
After the first day, obviously my hair is going be slept on and such. I'm still working out how I handle this. While I was working from home over the holidays, I just squished my hair into a scrunchie-bun sort of deal on top of my head to sleep and then took it down and brushed it in the morning, but I don't know how that's going to work out in terms of actually looking good. I could just rinse it (in plain water - again, cold is best, at least to finish), but especially in the winter I'm afraid of weakening it by getting it wet too often. I could spritz it with water and put it in foam rollers or a sock bun, both of which will preserve/encourage curl and also keep it off my face at night, so I'll think about those things. However, I'm happy to report that my hair itself doesn't feel dirty in between no-poos; what actually prompts me wash it is that my scalp starts to itch more than I can really stand. If it weren't for that, I think I'd be washing it once a week or less.
I don't have any pictures to go along with this entry because I really, really need to color my hair right now (more on coloring my hair in the next entry) and I don't want to take a picture with all the grey in there. However, I'll take some in the next week or so and post them. I'm really happy with my decision to go no-poo, and now that I know I'm doing it right (because my hair feels great), I have no intentions to go back to shampooing.
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