Week 6: Still here!

Lately I've hardly had any time at all to update my blog, but the good news is it's now been almost 6 full weeks of the no-shampoo thing and it's mainly positive results!


I've had people comment on how much more natural and bouncy my hair looks, like beach waves or windswept. I also finally got the nerve to visit a hairdresser.... thinking she would freak out. Not the case though! She didn't say anything till I mentioned it. She's not a fan of this method, but she said that my hair's clean and healthy so keep doing what I'm doing :)


There's been the odd urge to wash my hair just once with shampoo and conditioner fully, but I've resisted based on the fact that I've made it 6 weeks, with the only cheating being conditioner on the ends of my hair. 


I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I'm busy, but this is a word for those considering the idea. Do it, stick with it because if you can make it to 6 weeks like I have, you'll reap the benefits and enjoy it. Trust me :)

Week 4: Goodbye hairdryer...

I've been so busy that the last thing I could think about was reporting on the state of my hair... but I'm approaching the one month mark and today happens to be a great one for an update!

I'm realising that not only is a change of product really helping my hair, but so is reducing the amount of blowdrying and straightening.

Last night, only due to a lack of time, I let it air dry. It must be the combination of this and the natural products I'm using because today I have nice, wavy hair! It's something to get used to, having straightened it for almost 7 years... I've always felt that shiny, straight hair always looks the nicest, neatest etc. But I'm told otherwise, especially by men. The more natural, the better it seems.

I'm not doing this to please anyone's tastes, this whole experiment/change of lifestyle was originally motivated by a need to fix my badly damaged hair. Obviously, it's nice to know that eventually I might be able to spend less time maintaining it, apparently resulting in an improved appearance.


ROUTINE UPDATE

- Using a very minimal amount (pinch) of baking soda in a small bottle of water and poured over the trouble areas: front hairline and crown
- Diluted ACV on the bottom half of my hair only
- Diluted lemon juice poured over my entire head concentrating on reaching the scalp
- Thoroughly rinsed
- On occasion I'm indulging in a small amount of Herbal Essences conditioner on the ends, purely for how amazing it smells and just moisturises the ends a little.

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I figure that conditioning the ends is not going to affect the roots. My scalp and the new hair follicles are what need to get used to the all-natural products, and anyway, I'm getting a hair cut so the current ends will be gone soon anyway! :)

Day Eighteen: Back and forth

I'm almost three weeks into this all-natural hair routine now, and I've still got little to complain about really. My hair is of course still adjusting, and it doesn't have the silky smooth feeling I used to get after conditioning. But that also presented problems which I now don't have to worry about. I can actually pin my hair up without it just sliding straight back out because its too smooth. It's got some nice body to it and definitely looks more natural. I like that it doesn't have to be perfectly straight to look nice anymore.

I went back to ACV last night for the rinse, as I wondered whether the lemon juice in water was doing much different. I think either are fine really, and even though they haven't solved the crown problem I mentioned yesterday, my hair isn't looking or feeling dirty at all.

I'm looking forward to the day where I can wash it in water-only, but I'm not there yet. I may start alternating between a natural wash one day, and water the next. Hopefully after a while I can gradually reverse the routine so that I'm only washing with ingredients once or twice a week.

And also looking forward to the weekend! Might go lazy and give my hair an unwashed break again...

Day Seventeen: Sunlight

I've had a busy few days, although always managed to keep up with this hair care routine. I was finding that the crown section was still not feeling clean enough, with a gunky feel to it. Not very nice...

So I tried another approach after my Mum suggested using Sunlight soap. I Google everything before I try it, so I read a little and heard that there are women who've sworn by Sunlight soap for body and hair care their whole lives.

One supermarket trip later and I was back at home, in the shower and testing out the Sunlight method. It certainly does give that squeaky clean feeling, and it doesn't really clog up the hair very much like I'd expected. Maybe it helped also that I did the lemon rinse afterwards too.

The only problem is the crown again. Sunlight soap is probably best not worked into the scalp like I did. I've since learnt to return to baking soda for my scalp, wash the rest of the hair in Sunlight, then rinse it all in lemon water.

Today it's feeling ok, but the crown... not sure I'm ever going to get this fixed. But it is after all the roots of my hair, and if this is the adjustment period, I'm doing pretty well. It does look and feel slightly greasy at that part of the hair, but the rest looks really clean and healthy so it's not too noticeable.

Sidenote: Baking Soda face wash

Although this blog is about my hair experiment, I've read about the many uses of baking soda (way more than I ever thought there could be!). One of them is to use it as a facial wash. I have complicated skin... it can get dry, but the T-zone is also prone to slight oilyness. Pretty sure this means I have combination skin (?). So since I'm on this baking soda thing anyway, I decided to try it out as my new face wash. I have to say, a few days in and I am pretty pleased with how it feels. I don't get any irritation, but probably because I followed instruction and make sure I moisturise straight away (maximum 10 minutes later). It doesn't sting, leave blotchiness or anything, I just need to be careful not to get it in my eyes.

I would definitely recommend it as a cleanser though, it even removes my eye make up! I'll keep an eye on what it does to my skin and blog again in a couple of weeks, and hopefully with more positive things to say.

Day Fourteen: 2 weeks later...

It's now been two whole weeks since I've been shampoo-free, and I'm already at a point where I'm quite happy with these results! The only downsides are slight itching which, when I was a little stressed, caused me to scratch and I've realised I need to be careful. My scalp is adjusting and is a bit tender so I have to refrain from touching it.

But generally, I think I've found a good routine for myself and my hair is looking surprisingly healthy right now. I've definitely converted to the lemon juice wash, rather than apple cider vinegar. It may work for some people, but I found that it just dried out and left my hair feeling strange. The lemon water makes it a lot softer and works well after the baking soda wash. I've kept indulging in the Herbal Essences to condition the ends only.

The only problem area for me is still that crown section, the top/back of the hair. It's the only area that still gets kinda oily, but is easily fixed with a bit of talcum powder brushed through, or a spray of my Batiste dry shampoo.

The best part of this is still that my need to straighten has all but disappeared. I have thick hair, so when I used to shampoo, condition, blow dry (or leave to air dry), I was left with a big frizzy mess. Since switching to natural ingredients that has really changed, and I think there will be a significant improvement now that I'm not straightening.

I'm going to post again today because I've discovered a second use for baking soda that's now incorporated into my daily grooming routine!

Day Eleven: 50/50

After yesterday's horrid result, I attempted to fix the greasy mess of hair that resulted from the food mask. I did a bit more reading yesterday and found out that some people prefer lemon juice to ACV. Since I've had good results from the lemon water rinse on Day 1 (and tried it successfully years ago), I decided that lemon juice was going to be the remedy for last night's wash.

I started with a bottle of diluted lemon juice and completely rinsed my hair, hoping it would wash out the leftover gunk. I then did a baking soda paste scrub to my scalp and thoroughly rinsed it out. Instead of ACV, I did a tea tree oil rinse as well to combat itchy scalp (which is a side effect as your hair adjusts) and then a lemon water rinse. I'm lucky enough to have a lemon tree close by so I just chopped the leaves up and left them to sit in boiling water for a while, before using that water to rinse my hair.

I slightly caved on the conditioner front, just using a very small amount of Herbal Essences on the ends of my hair to keep them soft. After all, I'm essentially trying to get the new hair and my scalp used to this alternative method. The ends really aren't going to be affected as much, and the conditioner gave it a nice scent as I was going out.

After blow-drying, there was definitely an improvement compared to last night. My hair is still adjusting, so there's a layer of oil but as a friend commented, it's really not noticeable and still looks fine.

The most positive thing to report is that even after blowdrying, I've noticed a dramatic reduction in frizz and flyaways. This was always a problem for me, and was something I would generally fix by straightening my hair all the time (too much!). Despite the slight amount of oil, my hair had a nice bounce, wave and frizz-free look to it. Quite natural and a little bit more interesting than previously dead straight hair!

So it was really a case of half bad, half good when it came to the results. I'm willing to overlook the oily texture as, like I said yesterday, that was something I'd read about and expected. I was quite pleasantly surprised with how nice and natural my hair started to look, so I'll be interested to see what happens when the oilyness subsides. I'm hoping to be left with naturally wavy hair minus the annoying frizz, and with no need to blowdry or straighten! Fingers crossed...

Day Ten: Discomfort

Well. Last night was pretty much a disaster. Everything seemed to be going fairly well despite a little oilyness as expected. But after reading several online articles yesterday about treating hair to a moisturising food mask, I decided to give it a go, and mashed up some ingredients to work through my hair in hopes of beneficial results.

- 1 mashed avocado
- 1 beaten egg
- Tbsp lemon juice
- Tbsp mayonnaise

This did give my hair a really nice clean and took care of frizz, flyaways and definitely did moisturise. I'm not quite sure what went wrong though. Whether it was the combination of then rinsing with diluted baking soda and ACV that caused this meltdown, I'm not sure. I did rinse very thoroughly after the mask, and was certain that at least the ACV would clear out any residue. But I was basically left with horribly greasy hair even after blow drying. Not even a second cold water rinse of the problem areas helped, which resulted in me having to comb through some dry baking soda and a bit of talcum powder through it all.

Feeling a bit like Danny Zuko this morning, although he put grease in his hair on purpose... crazy!

This morning was probably the first that I've woken up and been extremely uncomfortable with the condition of my hair. I've put it up in a ponytail for work which has hidden a lot of the trouble areas, but it's itchy and just feels pretty gross overall. I really can't wait to get home and fix it up. Tonight I'm thinking I will need to work the baking soda into my hair dry at first, rinse it out. I'm not sure whether ACV is going to work this time, I may try the lemon water from Day 1 which seems to get rid of residue more effectively.

But I guess the moral of this story is that experimenting with all natural foods for hair and face masks sounds great on paper, but it's a completely different situation when you actually try it!

As I said before, I don't know whether it was the mask that created this result, it could just be the fact that I'm 10 days into the experiment and the adjustment period has really set in, as I was warned about. I'm really craving a good wash at the moment, with shampoo and conditioner that is. But I'm going to push through and still try to achieve the end result. All I can say is, it better be worth this discomfort!

Day Nine: Crunching Numbers

I don't have a lot to report on today, I'm still adjusting and haven't switched to water-only yet. But I decided to look into the aspect of how much money people save through this lifestyle. Shampoos and Conditioners now are extremely tempting, with their clever marketing, alluring packaging and promises of Hollywood-worthy hair.


But here's the raw fact: Shampoos are a rip-off. We don't need them, we never have. Unfortunately, once you start using them you basically can't stop, unless you do exactly what I'm doing now.

Aside from the damage to your hair they can do, which I might blog about in a completely separate post, the other factor involved here is the fact that you're paying way too much for something you just don't need.

So I've done some number-crunching today, and looked at the difference in savings, based on my own usage in the past:

Going by my previously favourite brand, Herbal Essences (seriously, how good does it smell!?), I'd say I would almost buy a bottle per month, but I tend to use more conditioner than shampoo. So in an estimated guess, buying 9 bottles of shampoo and 12 bottles of conditioner a year, I'm paying about $157 a year!

Now, compare this to my current regime. Since I haven't been using the products for very long, it's hard to make an accurate guess but I've done some rough calculations and come up with the following result.

I've bought 500g of Coles Smart Buy baking soda ($1.50), and a litre of Cornwells Apple Cider Vinegar ($2.60). Based on my current tablespoon method (see previous posts), I get about 65 washes from these products.

If I want to wash my hair every 3 days (every day at first, gradually reducing washes by the end of the year), that's about 120 washes.

 

So basically I'm only having to spend about $8 for enough bicarb soda and ACV to last me for a year's worth of washing my hair.

As I said before, this is a VERY rough calculation, and it's really a hypothetical forecast. I'm only in week two of this routine, but even if my numbers are slightly off, there's still no comparison. I'm still going to save a lot of money by switching to this haircare regime.

And of course, by eventually switching to a water-only approach, the calculations are simple: no more money spent on washing your hair.

Day Eight: Ickiness

Today is the first that I'm almost starting to regret doing this! I washed last night with only Baking Soda & ACV, with a quick rinse of lavender water too, as I just can't stay away from adding at least some kind of scent to my hair...

But I've well and truly hit the adjustment period for this experiment. It doesn't quite feel clean after a wash and I've been tempted to use conditioner at least once just to feel slightly more normal, but I'm determined to persevere and do this properly, not waste the past week's efforts.

It doesn't exactly look bad, but when you've been used to washing and conditioning basically every day, this definitely IS an adjustment. I'm finding that tying it up in a pony tail or half up/down is helping, but I'm hoping that eventually it will be naturally clean enough to wash and wear out.