In the past four years, I've also been transitioning to not washing my hair often. I am grateful for Yah blessing me with long thick hair but its just easier to not have to wash it so often. But I don't enjoy dirty hair either. Since we've made even cleaner choices to our diet, such as eating more raw, I have to say that my scalp and hair does not get as dirty as quickly. I can easily go at least two weeks before washing my hair since I don't experience itchy or oily scalp, what a blessing! Being able to join in on the No Poo challenge is just another step into a more simpler life.
There are different recipes offered. The first recipe my daughter Leah and I tried is as follows:
Ingredients
- baking soda
- apple cider vinegar
- essential oil of your choice
Directions
- Thoroughly wet your hair.
- Mix in 1 tbsp of baking soda into 1 cup of water. Be sure to shake up the bottle of water and baking soda. Pour the mixture on your hair. Massage your entire scalp really good. This will not lather but you can pretend to lather the rest of your hair to make sure the rest of your hair will be cleaned also. I then rinse my hair a bit.
- Now your hair is ready for the ACV (apple cider vinegar rinse. ( The last time I rinsed my hair, I poured some ACV into a bottle to better control when applying. The next time, I will mix the ACV with water. The dilution will me better rinse without using too much ACV.) I've always left the conditioner in for at least 3 or more minutes since my hair is thick.
If you'd like to try another recipe, please visit Feelin Feminine here. And make sure to link-up the No Poo Challenge as well. So join in!
One pebble closer to simplicity.
Many blessings!
Have you been washing and rinsing your hair with baking soda and vinegar? If so for how long? Do you have other tips you'd like to share with our readers?
This was shared at
Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWGLINS
Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist
Carmen, I went for about a year using only conditioner, no shampoo. It's a good way to clean your hair (although it sounds counter intuitive) without all the sulfides you find in shampoo, which are harsh and leave my hair dry and brittle. The shampoo necessitates using conditioner. I think just another way to sell yet another product. I was concerned about my hair, and also about the number of silly bottles I was adding to the landfill. The condition only method worked really well for me. I had to go back to using shampoo a couple of months ago, because I started drinking goat's milk. It's funny what a very small change in diet can do to your hair. I may try your method. It sounds worthwhile and simple.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting Elaine that such a small change would make a difference. Please keep in touch and let us your results. ~ blessings
ReplyDeleteI'd really like my girls to try this, but it seems whenever they reach puberty they get really oily scalps and I just don't know if it will work. I did try it once on my 8 year old, but she was not happy about it. It just was too different - so I highly recommend starting this when they are little if you're going to get them to like it! We still may try again this fall when the weather cools down and they're not getting so dirty outside.
ReplyDeleteThank you Amy for the great tip!
ReplyDeleteMy sister who has two young girls, one 14 and one 15, it worked well with her 14 year old. And with the 15 year old, they are having to slowly reintroduce the vinegar to help alleviate the oily scalp to give time to adjust while transitioning.
Two weeks without washing... wow! That is great! I really need to try something new and have always been a bit intimidated by the no poo challenge... hmmm... you've got me thinking!! Thanks so much for sharing this on Simple Lives Thursday :D
ReplyDeleteI have been using a traditional bar soap made by my local farmer using their pasture-raised pigs’ lard and lye with some goats milk, tea tree oil, and honey and I LOVE IT! I love how it still lathers so good like shampoo and I can use it all over my body not just for hair. It does tend to leave a residue, so what I have been doing is using some borax in my hair before I shampoo, like rub the mixture of water and about a teaspoon of it in my scalp (borax-the laundry stuff, its just pure boron, and has anti-fungal properties, and if you ingest about 1/4 tsp in a liter of water a day can help flush out fluoride from the body- see earthclinic.com for borax cures along with many other cures!), and that has been making my hair feel really nice, along with a final rinse with a tall cup of water with about a tablespoon of ACV, just pour some through the hair while running your fingers through it to make sure the soap residue gets rinsed. Then leave it on, its also good because chlorinated water and soap leaves the skin too alkaline and stripped, the skin needs to be slightly acid.
ReplyDeleteAnd guess what?! I never knew my hair was slightly curly! And now I will never go back to regular shampoo because obviously its not doing anything good for the hair no matter how many organic ingredients are in it. I haven't tried not washing my hair though, my diet is still not clean enough to quit, but I only shower every other day or third day without it feeling too icky. But thats awesome you can go so long without 'pooing' it!
Janelle, thank you for sharing the interesting tidbit about using boron. I will be reading more to learn of the benefits. Because we follower a biblical kosher diet, we wouldn't be able to sue the soap made with pigs' lard/goats milk though.
ReplyDeleteblessings
I giggled when I read the name of this post. I though for sure this was going to be about digestion! Hehe =)
ReplyDeleteI would really like to try your method. I use organic shampoo and my little daughter only uses Dr.Bronners as a shampoo and body wash. My hair has changed a lot since I started eating a clean diet 2 years ago. My teeth are also whiter and I no longer get blemishes!
I have naturally curly hair and have to be very careful not to wash it too much as it dries it out bigtime. Problem is, I live in sweaty FL so my solution is to just rinse and condition it when I need to without using shampoo more than once a week. This keeps it clean and soft without the problems that come from overwashing. Thanks for stopping by Monday Mania to share with us!
ReplyDelete