My Hair cleaning Journey: Natual shampoo

The truth is I hate the name for natural shampoo "no-pooing". Why is it called nopooing. It sounds gross, I don't want to associate my hair with poop! It actually makes me think of rubbing dog poop in my hair.

I used to have dreads(I'm the one with dreads in the picture), and though they were just as clean as most people hair, I washed them once a week, I heard horror stories. I heard of people who actually put poop in their hair to make their dreads. Thats nasty!

I have always been a more shaping hair washer. I have always cringed if I had to wash my hair two days in a row, but I only recently discovered the natural shampoo.

What I did:

What is natural shampoo? Simply a mixture of baking soda and water.
What is natural conditioner? Simply a mixture of vinegar (apple cider is recommended) and water.
Thats it!
This is the blog that got me started

I first started with natural shampoo and kept to my normal conditioner. I have such thin brittle hair that I often leave the hair dresser with split ends. I have heard lots of blogs where people want you to cold turkey just go for a week with no shampoo and things will get better, but I work in an office, and that just not professional! I star by mixing 50% of my current shampoo with 50% of my natural shampoo. Every time I got half empty on the bottle I topped it up with natural shampoo. I guess I now still have microscopic remains of chemical shampoo, but I think I can live with that. I also slowly added more days to my wash-free routine.

I find its helpful when you go camping. I didn't wash my hair for a few days before the camping trip. Then, I wear lots of bandanas headbands, and keep my hair in french braids the rest of the time. If I go swimming the harder water often pulls some of the grease out. If you do want to go cold turkey, camping would be the best time. I know you cant see my hair too well, but this is probably day 6 of no shampoo on a camping trip.

After I got my courage up I started to do the same with my conditioner. I added a bit of vinegar and water to my current conditioner bottle, and slowly as I used it up I made it more and more natural. I now am finally at pure vinegar and water.

The results

In the end I am quite happy with my hair. I find there are days when my hair actually seems to have some volume! I still use dry shampoo (its actually just baby powder) around day 3 or 4, and have to keep my hair up on days 4-7, which is how I prefer it anyhow. My hair smells normal, and looks normal. It feels healthy and I love it!