Tuesday, July 06, 2010

The No 'Poo Hair-Do Challenge

I decided this past weekend to ditch the regular shampoo and give the 'no poo' method a try.

It's life on the wild side!

I was really nervous about trying this since if I don't wash my hair every day it gets really greasy gross and my ponytail holder will continually slide out. What finally motivated me to just dive in and try it was that a friend of mine started doing it and I thought, "Why not?"

This method uses baking soda and apple cider vinegar to cleanse and condition your hair instead of shampoo and conditioner.

So far, so good! My hair feels very clean, doesn't itch and certainly doesn't feel greasy gross like when I go a day without washing my hair. I mixed 1 tablespoon baking soda with 1 cup of water in a squirt bottle to use. This amount should last about 1 week for my thick, medium-length hair. I haven't tried the apple cider vinegar yet, since I don't have any on hand right now and I don't normally use conditioner anyways.

Supposedly, hair goes through a transition period when starting with this method so I'll see what happens and how my hair reacts long term.

Maybe I'll love it. Maybe I'll hate it. But no matter what the outcome, this certainly makes for some good blog fodder!

It's frugal, it's healthier for your hair and skin. Certainly worth a try!

Have any of my readers gone 'no poo'? Please share your experience! And would anyone care to join me in this challenge?

Some good resources (which include more good resources!):

How To Clean Your Hair Without Shampoo @ Simple Mom.

How To Make Your Own Shampoo and Conditioner Video @ Keeper Of The Home.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mary Ann, I'll be very interested to hear the results of your "no poo" experiment. I have very long, very thick hair and, even though I don't wash it every day, I spend a fortune on shampoo and conditioner! Just curious if you color your hair or not---let us know if the baking soda concoction affects your color.

Mary Ann said...

I don't color or highlight my hair, but my friend who's doing it with me does. So I'll have to see how it does for her color-wise.

I will update after I do it for a while.

Debbie J said...

I've heard of this before. It'll be very interesting to see how you like it!

Nikki said...

I did this for a few weeks when I was pregnant with the twins. I LOVED it. Then I got hospitalized-- and I don't remember what happened after that. hmmm.. Anyways, I need to research more. Because I too was under the impression you could use the baking soda and vinegar every time you wash-- but somewhere I read it was only for every once in a while.

I look forward to your updates. And I'll let you know if I try it too.

Mary Ann said...

Nikki,

Thanks for sharing. When I first heard about this, I thought too that you'd only use the baking soda concoction every 4 days or so. I don't remember where I read that because now all I've found is using it every day or every other day. I need to look into it more as well and do feel free to share your research with us here!

Rhonda said...

this is very interesting, I've never heard of this before.
looking forward to hearing your update