Ditching shampoo..maybe

"What are you going to deprive yourself of next?!" my sister's boyfriend asked me at the beginning of this year. Hm. Good question. If you have been following along, or if you simply scroll down the first page of my blog since I don't write that often, I went on a clothing diet for a year, which ended last November. The reason he asked the question above is because I had just told my sis and her sig fig that I was now cutting shampoo out of my life.

It has been about half a year since I started and I can't say that I'm 100% convinced that this is the best route to go. The reasons are great: no shampoo = no packaging or bad chemicals = saving the environment and money. But let's face it, for an Asian, my hair sucks. I think I've said it before and I'll say it again, a professional hairstylist once deemed my hair "nightmare hair" and this hasn't cured it. It already sucked before cutting out shampoo and I think it might suck slightly more now.. BUT it could possibly be because of what I did when I first began this new regimen. Let me tell you what happened...

So any green news type website has probably had an article or blog post that deals with cutting shampoo out of your life. I have come across this same topic several times over the years, each time thinking, I can't NOT shampoo! My hair needs it! So I would go on trying a gazillion different types of eco-friendly shampoos. There was only one I liked but I was a little iffy about the ingredients so the search went on to no avail. I considered making my own but after trying and failing at making laundry detergent I was a little afraid of my DIY skills. Finally I thought, Why do I think my hair needs shampoo/conditioner? I decided to give in to those articles. I read through a bunch more of them as well as the comments from people who have tried it to figure out how I wanted to approach this. One story by Sean Bonner (I haven't used soap or shampoo in a year, and it's awesome: personal experiment update) stood out. He went an entire year without soap or shampoo and he loved it and is sticking to it! If you think about it, long ago, people didn't use products on their body or hair. They would simply rinse and maybe put on essential oils. They also only bathed like once a month and probably had a higher stench tolerance, but that is besides the point.

I wasn't quite ready to give up soap but I attempted Sean's approach of simply rinsing my hair and doing nothing else. I lasted five days. It felt terrible. I'd never known such nappy hair before and I was so self-conscious about it. It's so different for girls. Most of us have more hair! I kept wondering if anyone noticed or if it smelled funny. Connie said it looked extra messy, her boyfriend said my hair looked like it was rebelling against me, and Tom called me a dirty hippy on more than one occasion. Wah. I had to try something else. I began sprinkling my hair with baking soda and then rinsing it out when I showered. I felt so clean! But upon touching it, it felt almost just as terrible. And split-ends were developing like crazy. This lasted maybe a week. I dissolved it in water thinking maybe it was too strong alone. Another week. It was now semi-nappy, semi-clean.

What was I doing wrong?? Oops. I didn't read the comments thoroughly enough. I was supposed to use apple cider vinegar to counteract the baking soda. I bought a small bottle right away to salvage my nightmare hair. I read that unfiltered ACV works best but Ralphs only carried the filtered kind at the time. Unfiltered definitely makes a difference.

So this is what I have been doing since then. I went a few months following the formula strictly: one tablespoon to one cup of water for each ingredient and used the two solutions like I would use shampoo and conditioner. My hair still felt pretty dry but not as much as before the ACV so I stuck with it. I kept reading that it could take up to a few months for a person's scalp to get find its new balance and after that it's supposed to be smooth sailing. That would be ideal.. but even after a few months I still wasn't happy with the results. I would be all dandruffy after some washes, sometimes less so because I used extra ACV. Then I began playing with the baking soda solution, hoping cutting back would make my scalp less dry. One tablespoon to two cups was too little but 1.5 to two cups seemed to be the right amount and this is the formula I have stuck with.

So why am I not totally convinced? Maybe I am being nitpicky. My hair does feel clean for a few days between washes so I still wash every three days or so as I did in my shampooing days and it looks decent. The problem is, on the day that I wash, it gets extra frizzy and when it dries I feel like my head is a giant ball of fluff. My co-worker once asked me why that was. I just said that I didn't know and that was that. Also, it is a bit 'druffy. BUT the good thing is no one has noticed at all that I am not shampooing or the dandruff (at least no one has said anything..) so I don't really feel self-conscious like I did in the beginning. I have saved a lot of money by not buying shampoo and conditioner. I went through what I already had left over of one box of baking soda and maybe 20 ounces of ACV, neither of which are very costly. I am also not absorbing or washing harmful chemicals down the drain so that is another plus. AND I got Tom off shampoo too. It's easier for him since he has short hair. He uses our (eco-friendly!) body wash sometimes instead but it's a start.

I am going to wait and see how my hair feels after a trim and if it turns out the split-ends are not continuing with my current routine and my hair is less fluffy, then I will probably stick with it for the rest of the year and reassess the situation then. If it is causing more splits then I am reconsidering the option of homemade shampoo. Wish me luck.

If anyone has any tips, please feel free to comment. Or if you feel it necessary to call me a dirty hippy, go ahead. But let it be known that I am not dirty, I just found safer way of cleaning!

Here's a drawing of what happens on hair wash days. I'd put up a real pic but the camera malfunctions every time I try to take one on those days. It's the weirdest thing.