The Simple Poppy

Clean Hair Chronicles III

 

http://www.vnaturals.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Amla2.jpg

 

    In between rabidly tracking my new Kindle so I can see every inch of its progress to me on blessed, blessed Wednesday, and writing this post, I'm enjoying reading the natural beauty recipes of Crunchy Betty, who kindly mentioned me today on her own blog. Go. Read. Laugh.

    Before getting  too far into this chapter of the Clean Hair Chronicles, a word: Lemongrass essential oil might smell wonderful, but it is not a good choice with which to scent your hair vinegar.

    The Burning. THE BURNING! All day BURNING. It was as if I smeared peanut butter all over my head and laid down in the path of starving fire ants.

     So, after 7 weeks of the no shampoo experiment and not a word did The Simple Man utter, he suddenly burst like a dam(n) and kept complaining so much about the non-shampoo smell, I had to stop his mouth with the unused pomegranate shampoo bar. And as much as I would have liked to stop it by shoving it into his mouth and gagging him, I used it on my hair.

    This time around, because I believe we have hard water, I boiled a gallon of water to use as a rinse. I felt so pioneery going up the stairs with my gallon of boiled water and vinegar rinse. Yes, I know the pioneers would have killed for a pomegranate shampoo bar, but I can't help the way I feel. It seemed to work wonders - so even though I'm committed to not using shampoo on account of the plastic involved, I would be happy to welcome the humble shampoo bar back if it works. However, I still would like to wash less frequently and not always with the bar. I'd like to keep the bar for those times I really want it - especially because it involves boiling water. Which leads me to tip number 2. If you know you're going to be doing this, boil your water well in advance of needing to use it so that it can cool down in time. Otherwise, you know, the lemongrass doesn't have NOTHING on boiling water.

    Also, a few things happened that changed how things were working. I got my hair cut fairly short, chin legnth and she used some Aveda shampoo. My hair stayed clean for about 6 days after the shampooing, but once I went back to my no shampoo shampoo, it got visibly oily right away. That lasted about a week and I wonder if the Aveda stripped my scalp a bit too much and slightly off-balanced it.

    Now that my hair is shorter, I definintely notice that I have to wash it more frequently. That extra 5 inches or so did a lot to distribute the oil and now that it's gone my hair washing schedule closely resembles my former shampooing schedule. Not a  big deal, but combined with the madness of trying to scrape enough hair into a ponytail, I don't think I'll go this short again.

 

http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Shikakai.jpg

    Shikakai. I found some as well as amla and bought both. Even though the recipe I had said to make a tea and then strain it, the directions on the box were quite different. It said to make a thick paste, massage into hair and let it sit for 2 to 5 minutes before washing out. I figured I would try it that way first because the use of Ayurvedic herbs is two thousand years old - I'm going to assume these people know what they are doing.

    The result was incredibly clean. Clean enough to send an anal germaphobe like me into a spasm of joy. And maybe I shouldn't use the word "anal" and "spasm" in the same sentence. Since we're being gross here, I should mention that it's a tad messy, though nothing that doesn't go down the drain easily. Just looks a bit like...the runs. Smells kind of caroby; carob brings back dark memories of my mother forcing "chocolate" pudding on us, never suspecting that no matter how gullible your child is, they do actually know the difference between chocolate and carob. I just use a scented vinegar rinse afterwards. No residue, hair is bouncy(ish), and tangle free.

    Amla - The package said to make a paste, massage into hair, and then wait 30-45 min. Right. I made it to about 25 before showering. The powder is finer than shikakai and smells faintly bitter. Amla has one of the highest levels of vitamin c found in any fruit, so the smell is like that, acidic. As I was rinsing my hair it felt so smooth I thought I would be wild and forgo the vinegar rinse just to see what would happen. This is why all my ideas in life don't work out. They aren't based on what came before. Please, please learn from me since I apparently can't. My hair needs vinegar to clarify it or something. My hair felt, smelled, and looked clean, but by the end of the night I knew I was going to have to bust out the vinegar in the morning. It wasn't dirty, but the vinegar really cuts down on the oiliness. I need it if I want to last more than a day between washings. By the way, this has nothing to do with amla, except that when I googled amla images, this dude's picture kept popping up:

 

http://askmeany.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hashimamlaaskmeany.jpg

 

A bald cricketeer whose last name is Amla. He is not a good advertisement for glorious tresses. It was too ironic and hilarious to pass up seeing as this is a post about hair. Of course, that's a heck of a beard, and for all of you wondering how my husband is dealing with the house of no shampoo, this is your answer. The Simple Man looks like this guy. Bald, with a beard an eagle could build a nest in.

    In conclusion, shikakai = awesome. Amla (the berry, not the cricketeer) = meh. The cricketeer is clearly awesomish. Vinegar is something I cannot live without in this hair saga. My next goal is to try the Japanese recipes I mentioned in my first Clean Hair Chronicles. I'll be reporting back as soon as I've given them a go! Until next time.

 

Start here for all the Clean Hair Chronicles.

 

 

Clean Hair Chronicles II

   It has been 3 weeks since my last Clean Hair Chronicles and I'm at about week 6 or 7 since I didn't exactly mark on the calender when I started.

Some interesting things I have learned about hair in the intervening weeks.Apparently, it resembles the nursing relationship between mother and child, minus the cuddly baby and EXTREME FRUSTRATION. I might be projecting here. Anyway, the more a baby nurses, the more milk is produced. When the baby/toddler is weaned, the body still produces milk in the expectation of feeding the baby, so it takes a while before this function ceases. Wonder of wonder, the relationship between shampoo that "cleans" too well and your scalp is the same, which is why it takes the time it does to get used to not being shampooed regularly.Also, while it is recommended to wash the hair with hot/warm water for it's cleaning power, it's better to end the washing and final rinse with cold water as it is supposed to tighten the hair follicles which means they make less oil.

This post is devoted to vinegar - because it really does deserve a spot all its own. Oh, and I've been using white vinegar, I find I prefer it to apple cider vinegar.

    It has been a rough few weeks for my poor hair. I'd been using vinegar as a rinse after the applesauce, and then finally cutting out the applesauce since the vinegar made my hair so wonderful. What it couldn't do was break up the oil at my roots. Even after washing and drying it looked as if my roots had been waxed. Yes, waxed. Like a surfboard. My one consolation was that it still didn't feel dirty. No itching, just pure, unadulterated, over production of sebum. It was appalling. My hair was lovely, my roots were...not. I finally caved and tried a very diluted baking soda mixture on my scalp in the hopes that its harshness would work. Nope. Finally, nearing the end of my rope I bought some natural tea tree conditioner and did a conditioner only wash. Those of you with straight fine hair can imagine how well that worked, but for some reason I was holding out hope that something in a bottle might be the trick.

Turns out that sometimes you need to up the concentration of vinegar. I'd been using a few tablespoons in a cup of water. I did a 50/50 mixture with grapefruit essential oil and scrubbed my head mercilessly. It worked so well that I swanned around all day smoothing my hair out between my palms because it felt so silky, and was finally clean. This was the first day I understood why people stop using shampoo.

As per life, this bliss could not live long. That very night, The Simple Man and I sat on the couch, watching The Swamp Thing. Suddenly I felt The Simple Man look around and sniff.  I asked if it was my hair and he leaned in and then quickly recoiled, asking incredulously, "Did you wash your hair with pickles?!" You guys, he was totally serious. I was indignant, but I did run upstairs and blast my hair with some natural aromatherapy spray in the hopes that it would banish the vinegar smell. It did not.  

Later than night when we were getting ready to go to sleep he made a face, said, "You  have got to do something about that," and proceeded to drape his entire face in an enormous piece of cloth and turn his back to me. Friends, be honest with me. Is this the way divorces happen?

The next day I was fairly confident the vinegar smell would have abated. I misted myself with more aromatherapy spray to be on the safe side. He didn't mention it all day. In the evening though, in the middle of saying something, he wrinkled his nose and bellowed, "Oh God! It's wafting over here! It's wafting!" and started swishing his arms around in order to dissipate the smell.

The good news? Well, it seems that you only need to do the 50/50 concentration when things get ugly. I actually did a few water only (with some essential oils) washes after that and my hair stayed clean and smelled fine. Also,the lower amount of vinegar solution doesn't seem to bother anyone. I washed the girls' hair with the vinegar rinse and the result was nothing less than spectacular.  I still can't believe how glossy and gorgeous their hair was. My oldest daughter's hair actually looked more blond than it has in years. I think the fact that I rarely wash their hair with shampoo means that their scalp is in its natural state and it just took really well to the vinegar rinse. And hopefully I'm over the worst part and things will get better from here!

To read my "no shampoo" experiment from the beginning, start here: Clean Hair Chronicles

All photos from www.sxc.hu

Clean Hair Chronicles

  

    I've been wanting to do without store bought shampoo for a long time, but I'm flat out rejecting the popular term "no poo" so don't expect to hear about me "no pooing." Ugh. Anyway, I've used natural shampoos without silicon and petroleum products my whole life, so my issue is mainly with reducing my plastic consumption and being more frugal. When you start researching going without shampoo, the first and most common cleanser that comes up is baking soda and apple cider vinegar, often just called BS and ACV. I tried that when I was pregnant with Little Red Chili. It worked for awhile and I was amazed. Suddenly, a few weeks before she was born it stopped working anymore. Spectacularly, I might add. My hair went from manageable to stringy, dry, crispy, and it felt nasty. That was what I couldn't take. I'm less (much less) about appearances than I am about feeling clean. Rather than try something else because I had more important things on my mind, like getting through an impending natural labor, I chose to just shampoo and forget about it.

    Until now, two years later. I've been thinking about how I'd like to try again. I kept hearing really good reviews of natural shampoo bars. I have always been skeptical of this, but I thought I'd give it a try. I could still use the soap even if it didn't work on my hair. So I ordered a few all natural bars and washed my hair. They suggest using a vinegar rinse, particularly if you've got hard water. I used diluted ACV and added some bergamot essential oil because I prefer to smell like an Italian citrus orchard, punctuated cunningly with vinegar. All the boys love it. It lathered satisfactorily, but when I rinsed it in plain water it felt tangly and waxy. After using the ACV and letting it sit a few minutes, it seemed smoother with the second rinsing, though not as smooth as with shampoo. After it dried I wasn't too impressed. My hair looked fine, and my scalp was really clean and the hair close to it was soft. The rest of my hair felt like it had a coating on it, though it was pretty shiny. I repeated this two more times over the course of 10 days and each time it felt worse, and more coated. The end was near when I repressed a scream after brushing out my hair and seeing the scummy coating  left on the brush. Basically, my hair was coated in soap scum. And that was the end of the shampoo bar. I might try a different kind another time, but for right now I'm done.

               
I debated shampooing, but by then I was nearly two weeks into it and I didn't want to give up. I tried applesauce. I read about it here and thought it sounded good. It was actually quite easy to use. I vigorously massaged it into my scalp, and let it sit for a few minutes, as recommended. I then combed it out; it seemed to just melt away in the shower, my hair was smooth when wet and felt clean. When it dried it still felt clean even though it wasn't magnificent or anything, and I also managed to go 5 days without it itching or looking disgusting until the last day. It continued to feel clean, but it never looked as glossy as with shampoo.

    Lastly, I tried banana. I mashed a banana with white vinegar and rubbed it into my head. It felt lumpy and disgusting. Plus, banana smelling hair says "preschool" or "mommy" and not "vixen" or in any way "hot." And you know, I'm not trying to be hot, but I wouldn't mind if me swishing my awesomely clean hair around made The Simple Man fall over once in awhile. 

     I had to spend a good 15 minutes just combing banana out of my hair. When I was done the bathtub looked like a legion of Oktoberfest attendees had barfed in there. I feel a bit gaggy even writing about it. If I ever wash my hair with banana again I will comb and rinse in a 5 gallon bucket and then pour on the garden. But that is a very big if because the banana made my hair very heavy - I think it's too much of a moisturizing humectant for fine, straight hair. I finished up with a black tea rinse. I ended up using water only (WO) the next day because it felt so revolting. I do think it might work well for curly dry hair, though.

    What am I going to try next? I'll be traveling around the world, figuratively of course. People have reported good success with some Ayurvedic herbs, amla and shikakai, and as soon as I can get to the local Indian store I will be trying them. I also have a book filled with traditional skin and hair care recipes from Japan. I will be on the lookout for funori seaweed (used also in bookbinding or something  - amazing - hair and books!) and rubbing down my hair with a rice bran bag. We'll see. I'm not holding my breath.

   Overall, the applesauce has definitely been the winner here. I'm not raving about how it's made my hair because it's not completely awesome, but I'm also trying to make allowances for the fact that my scalp could still be adjusting to everything. I'm a little more than three weeks into this experiment. I'll give it two months and if my hair either doesn't adjust or I can't find something that works for me, I'm going back to my Aubrey shampoo. I've been reading about people saying that their hair still hasn't adjusted after a year of no shampoo and I'm not that dedicated. It sounds like it typically takes around six weeks; I'm game for a little longer than that. I'll keep you all posted in the Clean Hair Chronicles.

Have you ever tried to go without shampoo?

   

All photos from www.sxc.hu