First…my apologies for a rather long silence – I seem to be running in too many directions these days! Pledging to make more regular posts – so hold me to it! Now on to the post…
My hair...in the time of "poo"
I’ve been annoyed with my hair for some time. The massive postpartum hair loss is never good for one’s hair self esteem! But I’ve also been in a hair rut for some time. You may have noticed that in almost every picture I’m sporting the same messy ponytail…and that’s been true since before I had kids 
Recently, I had my hair cut shorter again – and it’s super cute…when it behaves. I have hair that can’t decide if it wants to be straight or wavy so instead it goes for frizz. Couple that with my impatience with anything requiring styling products or a hair dryer and well…my cute do ends up a hot mess.
A while back I stumbled across the idea of going “no poo” – as in no shampoo. Usually this means “washing” one’s hair a few times a week with a baking soda mixture and vinegar rinse. I love using those products to clean around the house, but I admit to being a tad skeptical about their use as hair products. Still…the raves got me intrigued. After all, that pricey Wen stuff (you know the infomercials full of beautiful hair!) operates on the same principle – shampoo strips your hair of its natural oils…and its natural oils are what makes it behave. Hair overacts to this stripping by producing too much oil thus necessitating more shampoo… and then more product to try to get back to a good level of oil.
Given that baking soda and vinegar are way cheaper than Wen (although I imagine Wen still gives you that “shampoo smell” that some may miss!), what do I have to lose??
I’ve read that the first couple of weeks of “no poo-ing” can result in rather greasy hair as your hair adjusts and tries to find its natural oil equilibrium. But if one manages to find the right balance of baking soda and vinegar, one should come out with shiny, silky hair at the end of the greasy stage. Here’s hoping!
There are loads of sites discussing the “no poo” method and using baking soda as shampoo, so plenty of folks to help you troubleshoot should your “no poo” routine encounter problems. Too much baking soda can dry out your hair; too much vinegar can make it greasy. For now, I’ve decided to go with….
1 tablespoon of baking soda per 8 ounces of water followed by a rinse of 1 part apple cider vinegar to 7 parts water. Now I’m not sure how much of this mix I should use per “wash” so some experimenting will occur. I already only wash my hair every other day so I’m going to stick with that schedule for now (on off days, it does get a rinse with water). I’m most interested to see if the baking soda will do the job when my hair is sweaty….I’ll keep ya posted!
Interesting! I actually went “nearly no poo” a number of years ago, but had no idea other people do it. I wash my hair only once a week (with no rinsing or wetting in between) and it is not smelly, greasy or anything. If I worked out hard it might be different, but I’m a couch potato so…
I started doing this because it was such a pain to do my hair. It took forever to wash, section blow dry, flat iron, etc. and I’m pretty lazy. I started extending my hair washings a little at a time until I found the sweet spot. I’ve tried going as long as 2 weeks, but that turned out to be too long. When I first went to once a week my hair would look pretty flat and sort of greasy by the end of the week, but that only lasted for the first three weeks or so. After that your head or hair or whatever gets used to it I think. My hair doesn’t look super great at the end of the week but it’s still perfectly workable.
I still use shampoo but I don’t use much. I squirt a little into a peri bottle and fill it up with water. It makes it much easier to distribute it through my hair. I’m curious to know how your experiment goes!
The peri bottle is really great for hair washing – that’s what I’ve been using! So far so good
I’d love to get to once a week with rinses in between. My biggest concern is how things will hold up to sweaty hair – so far so good though!
I went “no poo” for a while. But when I had my baby, the post partum hair changes combined with our recent move to sweltering south Texas made me give up. I’d like to go back though.
I’ll keep ya posted on how things hold up to sweat…next summer will be a real test for sure
I have been doing no-poo for several months now… LOVE my hair on my routine. I only wash it 3x per week, and it looks like I spent actual time on it. I wash twice (.5 tsp twice, with just enough water to make a paste) then pour diluted apple cider vinegar over it. It took about two months for my hair to stop being greasy though.
So far my hair hasn’t been really greasy – unless I go three days – then it does look a bit bad on day 3
I think the fact that I was only washing every other day with shampoo helped with the transition. I’m hoping it will continue to improve!
Meredith, thanks! I’m definately going to try this, but I was wondering if you know of a similar process that works for skin. Or if the baking soda mixture does work for skin. I’d also like to ditch soap!
I don’t know of anything but…I used to use lots of acne fighting stuff for my face. I stopped all of that when I was pregnant with Callum and switched to using simple washes (I really like Alba’s Pineapple Scrub although it doesn’t get the best rating on EWG’s cosmetics database; I’ve also been using California Baby wash lately). The only other thing I use is California Baby Calendula Cream for nights and their Sunscreen Lotion for when I’ll be in the sun. My skin really has improved!!
My mother uses a hemp-based shampoo that works along the same principle of letting the hair reclaim its natural oils. I haven’t tried it out yet but I plan too. I wasn’t aware of the baking soda variant until now, but I’m looking forward to hearing/reading how it works out!
I haven’t used shampoo in years! As a curly girl, I simply used conditioner to clean. I act like it is shampoo and massage away, then rinse and use a leave in conditioner. Go to “NaturallyCurly.Com” and you will find tons of people who don’t use shampoo! Now, the postpartum hair loss – that sucks – going through it myself, but at least the curls hide it for the most part!
I tried the no poo route but gave up pretty quickly. My hair is really, really dry & I actually need something more conditioning. I started using Morrocan Oil & washing once to twice weekly, depending on whether I’ve been swimming or really active. My scalp & hair is soooooo much better now.