Saturday, March 6, 2010

All about no 'pooing

I'm sitting here trying to think of just one topic to write about. It's kind of hard to pick just one, so maybe this will just be a little update about everything:). On second thought, I may just dive more deeply into explaining "no 'poo."

No 'poo is going wonderfully. Being a stay at home mom, I never really got too dirty or sweaty, so I didn't shower daily, or even every other day. I would shower about every three days or so. Well now with going no 'poo I've found that if I just jump in the shower every morning to rinse my hair out and do a quick scrub down, I feel great! My hair looks great, and I feel refreshed and ready for the start of the day. After my hair is done going through the detox phase, I may go back to showering every other day, but for now, I'm enjoying this routine.

If I don't shower daily, my hair does get quite greasy, because of the awful detox period, and my hair getting rid of the years of buildup from my old shampoos and conditioners. If I shower everyday though, you can't even tell that I'm not using shampoo or conditioner! Right now I'm trying to keep my washing routine to twice a week, Sunday and Thursday.

In case you haven't read earlier blogs, the actual wash routine is as follows.
  • I put 1 tbsp of baking soda into a cup. In the shower I fill my small cup with water and scrub that into my hair. I let it sit for at least a minute, usually while I'm washing my body, then rinse.
  • Then I take my other cup that is half filled with apple cider vinegar and fill it the rest of the way in the shower. (Note: I used to pre-mix my ACV and water, before my shower, but it was just way too cold, haha!)I pour this all over my hair and let that soak for at least a minute, usually a bit longer, like you would with conditioner. This is usually while I'm washing my face and doing any shaving that I might need to do.
  • After I've let it sit I rinse my hair VERY thoroughly. I let the water run over my hair for almost as long as I let the vinegar sit in my hair. I use my hands to press the water through my hair, and press my hands along my scalp as well. I do this to prevent any of the vinegar from remaining in my hair, and I never have a vinegar smell after my hair has dried.
  • Also, in each step I massage my scalp very thoroughly, like enough that I can feel my scalp move a bit with my fingers. When I don't do my wash routine I also massage thoroughly in the shower and help the natural oils move from the scalp down through to the rest of my hair.
There are a lot of good sites out there to help in learning about no 'pooing and why you should do it. Today I found an amazing site that I'm going to start using as a reference guide. Here's a link in case you're interested.

Honestly my hair looks better than it has EVER looked before. And this is without even using styling products. My hair is softer, silkier, and has more body. I've never been happy with my hair. Even on past "good hair days" it still was never all that great to me. Now I LOVE my hair, and I think it looks fabulous:).

No 'pooing might be "green" and "crunchy" but that's really not even why I decided to try it. I tried it out because I wasn't happy with my hair and I wanted a change. The green/crunchy part is just a plus.

3 comments:

Nicole said...

I tried the shampoo bars, but I went right back to normal shampoos as I haven't gotten rid of the build up.

I think I'm going to try what you've done. How long did it take before your hair got used to it?

My hair got really frizzy and dry when I used the shampoo bars. What did you do about conditioner? That's the only thing keeping me from using the shampoo bars more.

If you don't need conditioner, then I'm going to love this. :)

Tara @ --Insert Clever Title Here-- said...

My hair actually always looked great right after washing, as long as my ratios were right. If you use too much or too little of either the baking soda or vinegar it can do weird things, lol, but it's not too hard to troubleshoot.
The vinegar acts as conditioner and makes your hair so silky soft:). If the hair is really dry you can use honey too.

Tara @ --Insert Clever Title Here-- said...

Oh and the detox is really just between washes, usually after a day or two, but sometimes your hair can look weird at first while you're getting ratios right and getting rid of buildup. It should only take a wash or two for buildup to be gone. Sometimes it can take a few weeks for your hair to get used to not being totally stripped of the sebum, but that's like 6 weeks max and is normally only notices a day or two after washing.