Who’s with me on this crazy little trip?
It’s been 3 weeks since I used shampoo – unless you count the egg shampoo – and I’m really wondering if there’s going to be a happy ending to this tale. I did try a shampoo bar, using just a touch of suds right at my scalp, but I didn’t like what it did to my hair.
I see more wave in my hair than ever, but also more oil. I can and do wear it up in a clip, so nobody knows but my own household. But when will the oil end? I certainly don’t want it to feel like this forever! Just for the sake of giving it a good try, I want to stick with it another couple of weeks, but I’m not sure what to expect or hope for. I’m afraid this works best for curly hair that tends to be so dry. My 2 curly tops now have softer, shinier hair than ever. Those of us with straight hair? Not so happy, but mostly me since my hair is far oilier than that of the children.
I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression. I haven’t been miserable. My hair is soft and wavy. It feels almost sticky when it’s damp from the shower, but once it’s thoroughly dried I can run my fingers through it. I can’t decide if it feels nicely moisturized like skin after applying lotion, or if it just feel like somebody dumped a cup of Wesson Oil on my head. Sometimes I think it looks healthy and shiny, but then I give it a swing and it separates into strands. Ugh. Back into the clip. Pictures? I don’t think so.
I have been using baking soda and vinegar every day. This week I think I’ll back the baking soda off to every other day, probably with just a vinegar rinse on the off days. Maybe I’ll just rinse with warm water. I might do the egg shampoo again too, just to give myself a break.
I’m so tempted to try this. Yes, even after your experience. My hair is naturally curly and always looks best a day or so after being washed. I think this may help with my frizz issues and give me more managable hair. Hmmm.
Blessings,
Kimberly
Dear Kim,
I have been following your “no shampoo experiment” and I have to say you are stronger than me!! I have seen you in pictures and in person, you have beautiful hair! From what I have seen of you, when your hair was down it flowed, softly around you. I am not sure as to why you are torturing yourself.
My entire household has oily hair to one degree or another. My husband must wash his hair daily, my sons and I can get away with every other day unless we have done strenuous work outdoors and well… We will continue to wash as needed.
Blessings on you and your precious family.
Susan
Susan,
Thank you. It’s nice to “see” you here!
My two biggest reasons for trying this were to get rid of my dandruff (mission accomplished!) and see if I could retrain my hair so that I could go longer than 22 hours between shampoos. It was just so unnaturally oily that I suspected daily shampoo was really abusing it.
Also, I have to admit that I just like to try thinking outside of the modern American box a bit. I think modern Americans are rather unique in washing their hair daily. Throughout history and even now most of the rest of world shampoos far less often. I think it’s good to remind ourselves regularly that our ways are not necessarily best or even normal.
That’s not to say I’ll never go back to daily shampooing…
Kim, I looked into this, and tried it myself, but not as long as you have. One thing I read is that the vinegar has a conditioning or moisturizing effect–I never understood why. But if your hair is oily you would want to back off on the vinegar, not the baking soda, according to what I read.
Here is a link that helped me. There appears to be some rough language on other parts of the blog (I don’t think this particular post), but this is a long Q and A with lots of details, advice, and trouble shooting, followed by literally hundreds of comments with more Q and A and helpful tips from others who tried it. http://babyslime.livejournal.com/174054.html
The vinegar is an acid so it works on the hair shaft, the lower ph of the vinegar makes the cuticle (the outter layer of hair) lie flat, making the hair shine and also helps with the tangles. (A cuticle that is “blown out” tend to catch on the other hairs making it more tangled). That is why it is a conditioner, it is not a moisturizer, unless you count that the natural oils already on the hair will soak in and the vinegar rinse will trap it (I hope I am making sense).
Baking soda is alcaline (sp!!) it will help with the the oil, but because of the ph it will blow the cuticle, I wouldn’t use the Baking Soda without the vinegar.
I am a hairdresser by trade, and this is what I was taugh in school. Ph is very important when it comes to the health and shine of your hair.
I have never gone cold turkey no shampoo, I am taking baby steps (thanks to you!) I went a week without shampooing and I think I could have harvested the oil off my head! I used the eggyolk thing and liked it, then I gave up and shampooed, I am going to try to go a little longer this time…babysteps for this gal!!!
Good luck, I like hearing how it is going for you!
We have been using the egg shampoo around here – a couple times per week. It’s not your natural oil to worry about, it’s using the chemicals on your hair. SLS is what messed around with the natural oil production of your scalp – using an egg [or 6
)] won’t disturb that! Use the egg! If you keep up ~this way~ you may become very disappointed and quit altogether. Eventually, even using the egg once per week ,your oil production will balance out and you won’t have to use the egg. It’s all-natural, not harmful, and only lifts the current oil from the hair – not from the folicle.
Hi Kim
I can’t bring myself to go no-shampoo, but I did want to try to get off of the chemical-laden stuff from the store. Partly because I have been using the expensive dandruff shampoos and I am cheap and want to quit buying it, partly because the dandruff shampoo doesn’t work all that well anyway, and partly just to get rid of the chemicals. Anyway, I made myself a liquid shampoo out of ivory soap, and it works really well. It’s still soap, but at least it’s soap without all the chemicals. So far my dandruff seems to be better and after a few days I like the feel of my hair. I’ve only been doing it for about a week, so I honestly can’t say how I will like it long-term.
Anyway, if you do decide to give up on the no-shampoo, maybe you can compromise and try a homemade one instead of going back to the store-bought chemical-y ones. Just a thought.
If you are interested in the “recipe”, let me know and I’ll type it up. (It’s really simple).
~Megan
You are right Kim. In, and before, the 1950′s women never washed their hair everyday. The phrase “I just shampooed my hair and can’t do a thing with it” is because the shampoos striped the natural oil, and moisture out and they had fuzzy, dry hair left…before products, before flattening irons. The natural oils made it possible to use rollers and have a “set” hairdo for a week at a time! Crazy to think about I know, but they weren’t producing all that oil like we do(because of the stripping).
You might need a full 3 weeks more, sorry. However, you will do yourself a favor by not using the baking soda all the time! It is stripping the oils at the scalp, which in turns tells your glands to make more. Everyone is different and needs a different method. Seems like the advise on the egg rinse would be very beneficial to you.
Thanks for posting your journey.:)
Megan,
I’ll bet lots of people would be interested in seeing your recipe for shampoo. How does your hair feel after you use it?
Crayl,
I think you’re right, and I think I’m going to get back in the shower right this very minute with an egg. Thanks!
Hey there! I recently found out about not using shampoo–I think from reading your blog!! I looked up more information about it, and decided to try it also. I’m right at two weeks now.
My hair isn’t really oily or dry–right in between. It is fairly thick, quite long, and not a hint of curl. Normally I would shampoo my hair every three or four days. The day after it was washed it would be very pretty, but “fly away.” I couldn’t style it at all. The next couple days would be nice, and the third/fourth day it would start feeling dirty.
I’ve pretty much kept to the same washing schedule since I quit using shampoo. I’ve used baking soda twice so far, and vinegar once (I’ll be doing both tomorrow or this afternoon). I’ve done a water only rinse 2-3 times.
My hair is manageable, though the texture is different. It feels more oily (except right after I use the baking soda, when it /almost/ has that “just shampooed” clean feel), but I’ve only been to the “put it in a bun and wear a hat” stage one day—and that was because I went too long between baking soda washings. It does feel very soft, and has a pretty shine. It is also less frizzy than it would be before (I guess that oil is good for something!)
The draw back is that it isn’t quite as manageable as normal. I think the oil stiffens the hair, or holds it together or something, so it tangles more easily (That wouldn’t be an issue with shorter hair, but mine is hip-length). The other drawback is the heaviness of the hair–it just doesn’t have that light, /just cleaned/ feel I love so much. I’m hoping that, as this is only my second week, the oil production will back off by and by. Another change is that it takes my hair longer to dry. I usually wash it at night and let it air-dry while I sleep. I’ve noticed that now it is still pretty damp the next morning, and takes a couple more additional hours to be completely dried.
Anyway, I just thought I’d drop in my two cents. This is such an interesting experiment! It never before occured to me that shampoo is a new innovation, and that God probably created our bodies to keep things balanced out on their own. Makes a lot of sense, though!! I don’t know if I will keep doing this or not, but I’ve certainly enjoyed trying something new out.
Sophie
Simple Homemade shampoo
Take one bar of ivory soap and grate it with your smallest grater. (You can also use a bar of castille soap, but I used Ivory because it’s cheap and it’s what I had). Put the grated soap into your blender and add 1/2 cup warm water. Whip this on high setting until it looks sorta like whipped cream. At this point, you can add some essential oils if you want. I added 1 teaspoon tea tree oil and 1 teaspoon peppermint oil. These are both supposed to be good for dandruff. If you don’t have dandruff, you will want to use something else. Lavendar oil is supposed to be good for the hair, but I didn’t have that. You can do a search for the different oils and what they are supposed to do for the hair. You don’t even need any essential oils. You can leave them out and add a couple of teaspoons olive or vegetable oil, or you could try leaving the oil out altogether if you have oily hair. Ok, so after you have the whipped cream consistency and you have added any oils you want to add, add some more water (with the blender running) until it gets to a consistency you like. I’m not sure how much water I added, but it ended up kinda thick and frothy. It’s not a regular shampoo consistency. Put it in an old shampoo bottle and use like shampoo. I follow this with an apple cider vinegar rinse, which is just a couple of Tablespoons apple cider vinegar and warm water. I just put the vinegar into an old cup and take that in the shower with me. When I’m ready to rinse, I fill the cup with water, and dump it over my head, work it in with my fingers and run my fingers all through my hair to get out any tangles, then leave on for a couple of minutes before rinsing out.
The first 3 days my hair felt not right…heavy and oily. Now it feels really nice. I am trying to go every other day now, so I didn’t wash this morning, just did the vinegar rinse, and it’s a little bit oily, but not too bad. Oh, and my hair is getting really wavy. I am hoping eventually to cut the washing to maybe 2x a week, but I’m taking it really slow, and we’ll see what happens.
I made a batch for my kids hair without the tea tree oil, and their hair is really nice, not dry or oily–just like normal hair. The vinegar makes my girls hair shiny and conditions it, but with the boys I didn’t use the vinegar rinse, just the shampoo.
Sorry so long…..
Have you seen the Curly Girl book?
It is more directed towards dry/frizzy hair types, but I have several friends who’s hair was just straight and even oily, who tried this version of the no-shampoo method, and they have all really liked it!
The main point of the book is achieving some kind of curl in your hair, but I think it has methods/info applicable for all hair types.
I have wanted to start this no-shampoo method for awhile now, seeing how nicely it’s worked for several of my friends.
I just checked the book out at the library, and I’m about to make the plunge!
I think most libraries would have it…you should check it out and see what you think, especially if you continue to be dissatisfied with your baking soda/vinegar method.
Here’s the Amazon link, so you can see what book I’m talking about!
http://www.amazon.com/Curly-Girl-Lorraine-Massey/dp/0761123008
Hope that is helpful!
“The Christian does not think that God will love us because we are good, but God will make us good because he loves us.”- C.S. Lewis
I just posted my latest NO Poo Update. Thought you might be interested. http://shipfullofpirates.com/2009/03/23/no-more-poo-at-all/
Oh, I can loan you the Curly Girl book. B)
It’s been interesting following your shampoo journey: ),I would like to say stay tough and it’l work itself out.We’ve been 3 years now on homemade shampoo/combo of vínegar,soda etc whixh we use once a week.This goes for me and 5 daughters,hubby has no hair: ))
Hair gets a bit greasy towards the end of the week but not terrible..or maybe you just get used to it and don’t worry anymore.Wouldn’t go back to regular washing anymo’,this is better and saves a ton of hair products.
Ooh, Mrs. Coghlan, I’m so excited!
I tried the egg shampoo this morning, and IT WORKED! My brother wants to try it now too. Thank you so much!
Does it take longer for the grease to build back up with eggs than with regular shampoo?
Hannah
Hannah,
Actually it seems to build up much more quickly, which I find strangely reassuring. It makes me feel sure that I am not stripping my hair the way a regular shampoo would do, so I’m not undoing all my time without shampoo.
A few quick tips:
1. Rinse thoroughly. You knew that, but keep rinsing after you think you’re done.
2. Use warm, not hot water. It doesn’t take much heat to cook an egg.
3. Don’t use the blow dryer – unless you want to check if you got every last bit out. I did, and found that I had bits of egg white all over my head the second time! Live and learn…
i am usually a lurker here, but your struggles with the no-poo regimen compelled me.
no poo was intended to help ppl dealing with dry, curly, hair. curly hair tends to be drier because scalp oil cannot run down a spiraling hair shaft as easily as it can with a straight hair shaft. if you shampoo curly hair too frequently, you can strip your hair of the litle oil that does manage to make it from your scalp, causing it to be frizzy, wispy or brittle. a no-poo regimen helps because it allows your scalp oil to make it down the hair shaft and moisturize your hair.
if you have straighter hair, you may be already distributing sufficient oil from your scalp to your hair through your regular brushing and styling routine.
i have curly hair, and my hair care provider recommended that I wash with shampoo and deep condition once a month but to wash with conditioner weekly. that keeps it from standing up all over the place like it does when it’s dry (and I shampooed every other day).
one last little thing,
i think having no-poo hair is like keeping a cast iron skillet seasoned. you need to keep it clean enough to cook in, but you avoid washing it frequently with harsh detergents because the pan will lose the oil on its iron surface that makes it non-stick.