Giving Up Shampoo
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Early last week I was hanging out with my sisters in Kansas, visiting our dad and step-mom, and we managed to stop talking about our kids for a few minutes and got on the subject of hair. My sister Cara said that she'd been washing her hair for a while with baking soda.
Now, a few other people have tried to get me to try this, but I wasn't sure that they really understood how greasy my hair gets. Think, hobo greasy. Since Cara and I share some genetics, and she lives in St. Thomas where the humidity is about 99% all the freaking time, I thought maybe she understood what I was up against.
Her routine was simple: grab a handful or two of baking soda, mash it into her scalp, scrub with her fingers, and rinse out. She follows it up with a little conditioner on the ends. Her hair looked great, so I decided to give it a try!
I have no vendetta against shampoo. I don't think that it's going to give me cancer (yes, some people believe this). I don't think that I use enough of it to harm the environment. I don't necessarily think it's bad in any way if it's working for you. But I don't think it's working for me. In the summer I have to wash my hair every day if I don't want it to look greasy, and every other day in winter. I get terrible dandruff in winter too. What could it hurt to try this? I mean, it couldn't be much worse than the status quo.
I didn't wash my hair for four days. We'll pretend that I did that in preparation for this experiment.
Check out the grease. No, my hair is not wet or sweaty in this picture. Gross, I know.
Also, I didn't photoshop out the zits on my nose, to make the rest of you feel better about yourselves. I'm a giver.
So, armed with a container of baking soda, a spray bottle of white vinegar, and my hobo hair, I got in the shower.
About twice a year I douse my hair in vinegar and let it soak in, and then rinse it out and follow with shampoo. Supposedly it gets the built-up shampoo residue out of your hair. I thought maybe it would help with my extra-greasy hair. Plus, I was hoping it would foam up on my head like when you make a volcano in school. (Sadly that didn't happen.)
I got my hair nice and wet. I grabbed a handful of baking soda and mashed it into my hair, near my scalp. About half of it fell out onto the tub floor. For the next handful I made a paste in my hand. That worked better. I used way more baking soda for this first time than I imagine I'd need normally. Once I had scrubbed it into my scalp I sprayed the vinegar on, and rubbed some more. Then I rinsed well and put a little conditioner on the ends.
A few hours later my hair was mostly dry, and I was amazed: it looked great! It wasn't greasy at all!
And the rest looked normal. It wasn't dried out or frizzy.
This is promising.
I've read a lot of contradictory stuff about giving up shampoo. Some people claim that baking soda is too harsh for hair. Some also say that the main theory behind this movement - that shampoo strips natural oils from hair, so your scalp produces even more to make up for it - is BS. All I know is, if I try it and it works, I'm happy.
For a lot of people, the goal seems to be washing just with water. That seems a little extreme to me. My hair gets dirty - I have to clean it with something.
The other common advice I found is to condition with apple cider vinegar, mixed in equal parts with water. I'll try that eventually.
The biggest issue that my research turned up, however, is that this movement is called the "no poo" movement. Um, no. Don't call it that, not even once.
I've recently been trying to "train" my hair out of being washed so regularly following the advice of some of my work colleagues. The idea is you leave your hair an extra day between washes until you only wash it once a week. The 2 women at my work who do this have GORGEOUS, thick hair, and I have hair envy :o(
I'm trying to give this a go but not really successfully, as something always seems to come up that I need to have "nice", washed and straightened hair for, breaking my no-wash efforts.
Will definitely be giving the baking soda a go as an alternative! Thanks for the tip!
@EllaMagic: This past week when I needed my hair to look "clean" but only wanted to use the baking soda twice a week, I would wet my hair down and really scrub it with my fingers. It worked really well.
I gave up washing my hair about this time last year. I started using dry shampoo, as if that was any better than shampooing. Recently, I was at an event where the hairdresser told me that with my hair type (flat, lifeless) and what I wanted out of it (the higher the hair, the closer to God) I should shampoo not once but twice, and use very little conditioner, if any, and only lightweight products. So far, it's working for me, but she offered the exact opposite advice for my daughter with the super curly hair she wants straight.
@Ellen: I think that's the key - I've seen so much conflicting info on this online and I have to assume that it just works on some hair and doesn't work on other hair!
There's just no way I'd ever be able to skip a day washing my hair. It's not my hair -- it's my scalp, my neck, just *me* -- I don't feel clean. So if I did this, i'd be using it every day anyhow, so it seems moo for me.
But your hair does look nice in the "after" picture. Enjoy!
@Toni: I'm totally in the same boat. If I have to do this every day I'll just go back to shampoo. Some people swear that after a few weeks without shampoo your head ramps down the oil production. Other people say that's BS. So I'm going to find out if it works for me!
It did seem to work really nice for you! I thought you might like to read what Erica does: http://momprepares.com/my-natural-hair-regimen/ and she makes a curl booster too: http://momprepares.com/diy-curly-hair-spray/
I'm getting closer and closer to trying this. So far I just look for shampoos without sulfates.
@Jendi: Interesting about the tea tree oil, thanks!
It looks really shiny and the color is bright. How often do you plan on incorporating into your routine. I am going
Try it out
@Vicky: I'm not sure yet. My sister said that there were a few weeks where her hair was adjusting, where it was a still a little oily. I don't have anything to look good for for the next few weeks so I'm going to see how it works doing it twice a week or so.
My hair is a grease-fest if I don't wash it every day. So many people don't get that at all. Dry hair there are tons of solutions... Oily, greasy hair? Not so much! My hairdresser talks about Pantene like it's the devil but it's been the best solution I've found so far. Now I want to try this. Like Nancy said above, I wonder how it affects color. Keep us posted!!
@Corine: I will! I don't have anything I have to look good for in the next few weeks so I'm going to try to do this only twice a week or less and see what happens.
Wow, I never would have thought of trying it! I highlight my hair and I'm wondering how it would work my locks.
@Nancy Johnson Horn: My hair is dyed. I remember reading somewhere that baking soda is harsher on treated hair, but I only read it in one place. I'll let you know if it gets brittle or anything.
Are you a black girl in disguise? No-poo is huge in the African-American community. Many women with curly/kinky hair "wash" with conditioner only to avoid stripping the hair of oil. (Too much grease is not a black girl problem) Baking soda and vinegar rinses also used by many women (and men) with locked/dreadlocks/sisterlocks to remove buildup.
Apple cider vinegar is the holy grail for cleansing African American hair. I think you are on to something. Your hair looks great.
@Ann: Ha, I had no idea! And thank you!
@Ann: Also, that would be a REALLY good disguise.