No-Poo for me!

comments 11
Health & Beauty

I’ve gone no-poo!

For the uninitiated, it’s not what you think. What is no-poo? Well, I’ve given up shamPOO. The last time I used shampoo was nearly three weeks ago and, so far, my hair is all the more grateful for it.

My hair is THICK. It’s thick, dry, a little bit wiry and hella frizzy. That frizziness has been increased exponentially since moving to Bahrain. Thanks to the ridiculous heat, humidity, awful hard water and constantly being in air-conditioned environments. My hair, and scalp, was not having a good time.

Back in England I did the whole sulfate free shampoo-ing and I think it was working for me. Though, in Bahrain, I’m a little bit limited when it comes the sort of shampoos I can buy off the shelf. I tried alleged frizz fighting shampoos. Found out I was allergic to a couple of them. What’s a girl to do?

For weeks now, OH has been telling me to try going no-poo. Well, probably not weeks. Just on every occasion where I complain about my hair. Which might be fairly often.

I took the plunge at the beginning of October. Didn’t wash my hair with shampoo for nearly a week. Sure, it got a bit greasy. BUT it didn’t look that bad. But after that week, as I ran my fingers through my hair, I knew I had to take the plunge and give it that wash I wasn’t all that looking forward to.

See I’d done my research on no-poo and the most popular no-poo washing method is with baking soda, followed by an apple cider vinegar rinse. (Which is the method that my OH took a few years back.) I gag at the smell of vinegar, so this was going to be interesting.

I got a bottle ready with 2 tablespoons of baking soda dissolved in a cup of water. Bottled water I might add – the water is just ridiculously hard here. Then got a bowl with 1 tablespoon and a touch of apple cider vinegar, in a cup of water.

After thoroughly wetting my hair, I let the baking soda loose on my hair. It was weird, let me tell you that. Felt… soapy. Slippery. A little bit slimy. But, as the entire Internet suggested, I made sure to concentrate on my scalp and really massage it in well. Then rinsed it all out thoroughly. Really, really thoroughly.

Now the bit I was dreading – the apple cider vinegar rinse. This rinse is meant to condition your hair. I held my breath and dunked the ends of my hair in the vinegar mix. You should try to avoid the vinegar solution on your scalp, as the acidity may make it a little bit more greasy. So I followed the Internet’s instructions. Followed by another good rinse in cool water. (Warm/hot water will “seal” in the smell of vinegar.)

While rinsing though my hair felt weird. A bit tangly, squeaky but a bit greasy feeling was it? I couldn’t tell. I was close to grabbing that bottle of shampoo. CLOSE. But I chose to go down this no-poo path and felt the resolve to stick with it.

Most blogs recommend air drying your hair after washing. Not an option for me for two reasons. One: it’s so thick, it just takes too long to air dry. Two: my naturally dried hair is.. erm… BIG. (My friends have nicknamed my air-dried version of me, Tina. As in Tina Turner.) So I used my hair dryer. No products though. I wanted to find out how clean my hair actually was.

Well HOLY HELL. After drying my hair it felt amazing. Soft and light. Not to mention so clean! Honestly! Okay, there was a little bit of the vinegar smell. If I literally buried my nose in my hair. But that’s probably because I hair dried my hair. The smell dissipated after a little while.

So my no-poo journey has begun. So far so good. Have a feeling my hair’s going to get a wee bit more bouncy/curly. But less frizzy! Which is what I am in desperate search for. Wish me luck!

11 Comments

    • I have been putting it off. And off. And off. Convinced that a decent shampoo would do me better. It’s the thought of it that’s worse than the actual doing of it. Weird thing to say, maybe. Hair is definitely in an “adjustment period”. It’s not that it’s overly greasy, it just feels different. Though, I’ve cut out all products, for the moment. I need to go back to putting the hair oil on pre-hair-drying. And maybe use less ACV, or dilute it more.

      I let my hair dry naturally the other day, and it’s got a bit more bounce! Did dry a lot quicker though as well vs. shampoo’d hair.

      Think to see a proper difference, this has got to be long term. 6 months – a year. See how my hair goes!

        • I actually tried that in the beginning. Didn’t really get my hair clean at all. Felt heavy and sticky and just weird. I think that might have been why I just thought, that’s it – it’s no-poo or back to looking for a decent shampoo.

          Tried a couple of conditioners – Dove actually worked best! But… Hair didn’t really feel clean.

  1. I’ve heard about using apple cider vinegar (quite a few uses for that stuff from what I’ve read) before but not the baking soda. I’d be up for not using shampoo. My hair gets so static and no matter what shampoo I use, it just seems to worsen it. The moment I go to brush it, I look like an electrified bride of frankenstein.

    Is baking soda the same as bicarbinate soda?

    • It is the same. I had to look that up! Same ingredient 🙂

      The idea behind the baking soda followed by the acv, is you’re balancing out the pH in your hair – going from the alkaline to acidic.

      The baking soda definitely cleans the hair really well!

    • Yep, hella cheaper because you’re not using shampoo and conditioner, washing hair a lot fewer times and using cheap ass baking soda and apple cider vinegar! It is one of those things that if you try, you’ve got to try it for at least 6 months. Not something you can, say, stop after a week or two. In it for the long haul 😉

  2. Ooo, sounds really cool! I’ve always used shampoo, but I can understand the need to try something different. My hair is insanely thick, so if I ever need a break from dealing with it getting frizzy, I might try this out. Glad it worked out well for you, Jaina! 🙂

    • It’s still early days, and I’m still trying to figure out the best proportions of baking soda to water and ACV to water, but touch wood, just over a month in and I think my hair’s already feeling better! However, if I let it dry, I get some pretty ridiculous looking hair lol! Though that’s not much different to before. But it feels like the frizzyness is a bit less.

      Still trying to figure out how many times to wash and etc, so far so good!

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