Saturday, May 28, 2011

The "no poo" transition

About three weeks ago, I came across the idea of 'no poo' which essentially means washing your hair without using shampoo... this idea appealed to me greatly, because 1. it's cheaper than buying shampoo all the time 2. I *hate* plastic bottles and generally speaking, it is better for my hair as well as the environment, a nice plus in my book

Now the method by which a person should 'no poo' their hair is a topic worthy of much discussion, as I discovered while trolling the message boards and assorted blogs in research. Basically, there is no one single correct way to do this, and I just have to jump in and see what happens (this could get interesting lol)

I chose to use the baking soda paste and apple cider vinegar rinse method.

Basically, I put baking soda into a reusable container, add water and stir until it's a thick cake batter consistency. I have also been adding a few drops of tea tree oil and sometimes an essential oil for fragrance (although I haven't really noticed my hair smelling fragrant after)
Maybe it just makes me feel better?

Three weeks in, here's what I know for sure:

My hair is in transition, big time

I was NOT using enough baking soda mixture

I know these things because my hair has become this very interesting, terrifying oil ball on my head. Ick.

Seriously, the amount of oil that my head has been producing while I was essentially stripping it bare with shampoo for all these years is quite impressive. That's basically my understanding of the transition phase, for those who aren't familiar (as I wasn't). From what I can tell, transitioning refers to your hair adjusting to a normal oil production now that it isn't being stripped with harsh chemicals all the time.

Who knew that the oily-ness of my hair was in direct supply-demand response to the stripping I was doing by using all those wonderful chemicals in my shampoo?

I certainly did not, but let me say that myself and my husband will be staying away from shampoo, and I am currently researching no poo methods for the kids too.

However,

My hair is in transition, big time, and there's a lot of hair on my head, and it's getting a little terrifying..... I have high hopes for this, now that I have discovered I was using way too little baking soda, and probably not getting much accomplished with that tiny amount. We'll see.

If this doesn't work, I will either be shaving my head or learning about how to care for dreadlocks.

For anyone interested in where I found some of the information I used to get started, I'm providing some links here:

http://www.naturemoms.com/no-shampoo-alternative.html lots of good information about no poo

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/category?cat=2385 the failings of a no poo attempt

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