Not long ago, I gave up on shampoo and conditioner and adopted the No Poo movement. Now three months later, I’ve had to go back to shampoo. Back with a heavy heart I might add.
The initial foray into No Poo was kind of exciting. Washing my hair with baking soda, followed by a rinse of diluted apple cider vinegar and having gorgeously clean hair was just a little bit thrilling. My hair was feeling clean, definitely got a lot more bounce, drying quicker and I was only having to wash my hair once a week. All around, it was going well.
Until a few weeks ago. My scalp was getting incredibly dry. Horribly dry. Disgustingly dry. That’s all the detail I really want to go into.
I’m fairly certain this is because my scalp just wasn’t producing enough oils. (I’ve suffered from dry skin in the past and do have eczema occasionally.)
My hair, dried naturally, about 2 months into no poo. Bloody big!
In my stubbornness to stick with no poo I tried to remedy the situation with a few treatments.
Warm olive oil left in the scalp was the first. Worked great. Until I realised my diluted baking soda solution wasn’t strong enough to get the very moisturising oil out of my hair. Thereby needing me to wash twice with baking soda and getting me back to square one. Same with coconut oil. Sadly.
Apparently natural aloe vera gel is GREAT for dry skin, especially on your scalp. So I gave that a go too. Certainly felt soothing, but as soon as it was washed out, I was left with the same flakey scalp.
Tried using less baking soda to water. Sadly this just did nothing to alleviate my terrible scalp.
New Years Eve rolled around and I know my hair needed a wash before the night out. The last thing you want when you’re all nicely dressed is having a dry, itchy, flakey scalp. I folded. In the shower I grabbed a bottle of shampoo and lathered up. Guess what? I’m almost cured. Honestly, one wash was all it took. My dry scalp is a lot less dry.
Which makes me sad. Really, really sad. I was so desperate for no poo to work for me! Growing tired of experimenting with shampoo after shampoo and spending silly amounts of money on the experimentation too. I don’t want to give up on no poo. Not yet. I was definitely seeing the benefits of not using shampoo. As I said up top, my hair was feeling so much better. Frizz decreasing, but volume still there. In fact, there might be a bit more volume.
The night that I washed my hair with shampoo. Like to think it was the no poo’ing that helped it look better that night.
Are there any other no poo washes?
I have a couple of options. Switch to a raw honey wash. Which actually sounds great. But the availability and price of raw honey in Bahrain is putting me off this option. One of the reasons to go no-poo was cutting back on costs.
Another option is to go water only. I admit, this is tempting actually. Once you read a bit more about the whole water only washing, there’s a good argument behind it. However, we have incredibly hard water here. I’m not sure water only is a good method to choose with such hard water as all the minerals will just get all claggy in my hair.
Then there’s the off the shelf no-poo options out there. Of which I haven’t yet done much research into, but know there are some available. Again, living in Bahrain makes this a bit of a tricky option because of the expense of shipping!
What am I going to do? Until I can find some raw honey and try that method, I’m going try and find a decent SLS/paraben free shampoo. Both are going to be as tricky as the other here! Well, if there’s one thing I have managed to do out of this short period of being no-poo is that I’ve trained my hair to only need washing once a week. Don’t worry, I get it smell checked every other day – not gone totally batty here.
So no-poo for me has gone on pause. For now. I definitely want to return to it one day, when I find something that my head will be happy with.
If you can get the Tresemme naturals shampoo, I recommend that. Not sure if it’s something you can grab in Bahrain or not, but it saved my scalp and made my hair lovely.
I’m currently using Charles Worthington as it’s bunny friendly, but I think that’s a Boots only thing.
What brands do you have out there?
Also – NEW SITE!
I tried the Tresemme Naturals back in England and it dried my hair and scalp 🙁
We don’t have much in the way of brands – the obvious things like Pantene, L’Oreal, H&S (Bleugh!) and some random stuff. I grabbed the one and only Sulfate/Paraben free shampoo I could find on the weekend – Palmers Olive Oil Shampoo.
There’s a gas station on the corner which has a drug store full of more American/UK brands. I need to investigate it again. Though I remember everything being hella expensive there. They sell my Carmex there! Pretty much only place on the island. The little pot costs just over £3! I swear it’s not that much in England.
Toni and Guy would be a good bet, but a bit pricey
https://www.facebook.com/Mumsinbahrain/posts/560338220645347
I go to Toni & Guy here to get my hair cut! Though they’re always pushy and sale-sy in there. Makes me not want to buy stuff from them.
Sometimes the best tool for the job is the one that’s specifically designed for the job… though as someone who does have trouble with a lot of shampoos myself, I understand the desire to look for something different. I have eczema and am allergic to a lot of things, so it’s usually Head & Shoulders or Nutregena for me. Did have quite a bit of success with a horse shampoo once, though.
I’ve also found that just rinsing with water daily and only using the shampoo every couple of days works best for me as far as not irritating my scalp goes.
I’m gonna go down the water rinse only thing. See what it does. Well, in between washes.
So sad that the no-poo method didn’t work in the end, but maybe if you move again then perhaps you can try the natural method.
I hope so. Raw honey is just so expensive here. Talking £20+ for a small pot! Shame. I still desperately want to keep on plugging at no-poo somehow though!
I’ve been doing co-washing for the last month or so (conditioner only washing) and that is going pretty well. There are some cleansing agents in most conditioners which clean without stripping the hair of oils, I’ve even go-washed after getting a hot sweaty scalp after a ride and come out squeaky clean! Water is a great cleanser but you need something to break the water/oil barrier to actually wash them out (always reminds me of Johnny Ball’s tv show!). I’ve used john Frieda for years – shampoo & conditioner – and am still using them, just less shampoo as my skin & hair are becoming more dry with being on thyroxine. Good luck finding something that works!
I tried co-washing but it just didn’t get my hair clean :/ Perhaps using the wrong conditioner. Though it’s definitely something I’m willing to try again. Once I get my scalp back on track.
I’m sorry to hear that, Jaina. I was so close to trying it after your initial post about no-poo, but I freaked out when I came across someone online whose experiment with it turned out not so great after a couple of years. From what I gather, it may be due to the baking powder not being the right ph balance for the scalp and hair.
Personally, I use Superdrug or Co-op brands (limited by choice for vegan reasons). I love Australian Organics though. It’s a bit expensive depending on where I get it (H&B, John Lewis). I don’t know if that’s available in Bahrain but I do recommend it for it’s more plant-based ingredients.
I think the thing about natural hair care is that everyone is so different, what works for one person won’t work for everyone. So you’ve got to just keep trying.
Going to check out the organic store soon over here. Though I don’t have high hopes – they might have some nice things, but I know they’re going to be ridiculously pricey! 🙁
Sorry it didn’t work for you but your hair looked great for going out :). What a cute couple!!! Would no-poo work better by “washing” it even less frequently than you did? I have an opposite problem where my scalp is really oily.
Sometimes oily hair can be a result of washing hair too much – did you know that? Your hair/scalp gets used to be washed a lot and so will just produce more oils to compensate for getting washed so much. It’s one of the biggest hurdles in going no-poo – allowing your hair to get “back to normal”, so to speak.
I only wash my hair once a week, well try to. Water only after gym sessions, and then washing it ever 5-6 days. Some days I’m glad I work from home!
Aww, that kind of sucks. I totally use shampoo, just because it works well enough for me. One thing I didn’t know is that aloe vera is good for your skin (particularly your scalp). I get such HORRIBLY dry skin (especially on my face) in the winter, so I’m constantly moisturizing. Eeeek. Looking forward to the cold winter passing . . .
Aloe vera is one of those magical things that’s good for almost every part of you. Did you know people even drink its juice? I don’t know how they can stand it! It’s meant to be great for you… but nope. I’ll stick to just slathering it on my hair, thank you very much!