People who know me - I have a confession to make... I've been "No 'Poo" for THREE weeks.
No 'Poo = No Shampoo.
I am crazy. Yup. Crazy.
I LOVE shampoo.
I love how it smells.
I love how it makes my hair feel.
I love how I feel so... so clean afterwards.
So WHY in the world would I go No 'Poo?
WEEeEEeeelllllllllll..... it's similar to the cloth diaper story.
Shampoo isn't good for you. It also costs a lot. I never realized that eliminating shampoo is "green".
Just like how I went into the whole cloth diaper thing thinking, "If this doesn't work out for me, I'M OK WITH IT. At least I tried...". Well, I went into the whole No 'Poo thing thinking the same way. I'll give it a try and if it doesn't work out, I can always go back to using shampoo.
Phew. Ok, so I made the commitment to try.
In a nutshell, this is what I learned:
- The chemicals in shampoo = BAD NEWS. You can look it up yourself. Do I REALLY need that on my scalp?? no... I can try to go without it.
- The more we use shampoo, the more our body needs it. It's like a supply-and-demand sort of thing. 1) Our scalp produces a natural, normal amount of oil. 2) We use shampoo to strip that oil off (pretty aggressively). 3) Our scalp says, "oh no~ I have absolutely no oil! I need to make a ton more~!!!" and makes more oil. 4) We use shampoo to get rid of that access oil. And this cycle repeats over and over. So, in theory, if we don't use shampoo to aggressively strip the natural amount of oil, our scalp wouldn't really get super oily... which would eliminate our need for shampoo.
So what do people that go "No 'Poo" do? They use baking soda and apple cider vinegar instead. Other people use other stuff, but from what I read, this is the most common. I decided to start off with what was most common. Baking soda and apple cider vinegar it is!
I kept reading about this scary "transition period" that people go through when they switch over to baking soda and apple cider vinegar. Anywhere from a week to MONTHS of your scalp trying to get used to not having shampoo to strip the oil... which meant that their scalp was an oily mess during this transition period.
EW.
I was one of those people that NEEDED to wash my hair every single day. Otherwise, my hair/scalp would be an oily mess. So, this "transition period" sounded super scary. I was nervous.
Then, I came across this site. If you scroll down, the author tells you how to deal with hard water (which is what most of my state has). Bingo. I followed these directions for the first week and adjusted it a bit for the week after (I used a little less baking soda). Boil the water for 10+ minutes first, add baking soda, cool, DONE.
Everything was fine. I've been doing this for 3 weeks now. NO "TRANSITION PERIOD". WOOT! No oiliness. No problems. I LOVE IT.
Oh, conditioner. Yes. That too. Instead of conditioner, I now use apple cider vinegar. Grossssss~ right? I thought so too. BUT, it totally detangles my hair and leaves it soft soft soft. The smell?? COMPLETELY disappears after my hair is dry. In fact, it smells really really clean like I used soap. AMAZING!
H. (who I introduced in the last post as my hubby who is super super supportive of me going 'green') has been using this method for 3 weeks now, too. He doesn't use the apple cider vinegar, though, because his hair is really really short (um, like 2 mm long). He told me a few days ago that his hair is actually already a lot less oily. He said that usually by the afternoon, his scalp seems a little oily (not super oily or anything, but just... a little oily). But now that he's been using baking soda as his shampoo, he's not oily at all! How awesome is that.
And I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but since I've been No 'Poo, my face has been a LOT more clear!!! whaaaaaat??? I have no idea if it's related, but... whatever!
Super super super super super cheap and so much better FOR US. :)
I want to update everyone on how the No 'Poo experiment is going every Tuesday, so stay tuned!!! So far, so good! :D
<3 Yuri
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