Another green post--a hair experiment

Over the past few months, I've been reading about all types of "green" beauty stuff, natural beauty stuff, etc.

I'd been really curious about the "no 'poo" movement, for awhile. Especially because I have very thick, wavy hair, that sometimes wants to be curly...but of course, not every day. [The Curly Girl website is really into "no 'poo" as well.] Last week, there was an article/segment on NPR about how shampoo might not be that great, maybe your hair doesn't need it, the body will produce its own oils, etc. [I'm probably paraphrasing it now.] The comments were actually more interesting and informative than the segment itself, haha, and gave some great tips about how to use natural/household products to get cleaner hair.

So this weekend, I tried it. Not really planning to, it just sort of happened.

Friday--I washed my hair with shampoo and conditioner in the morning.

Saturday--While showering after a workout and errands and stuff (so mid-afternoon), I decided to just rinse my hair super well. By the time my hair dried, it looked a little greasy, but I had it pulled back with a headband, so it didn't look too badly. [See what I meant about "it just sort of happened?"]

Sunday--I didn't wash it until late at night, and after another workout and cleaning my car. So it was pretty greasy by that point! By then I figured that I should try the baking soda and apple cider vinegar tips, as I didn't think that just water would help my hair!

I took baking soda and water, made a paste, sort of distributed it through my hair, making sure it got on my scalp, scrubbed really well, and rinsed a lot. Then I poured into my clean hair a mix of 1 part apple cider vinegar and 10 parts water. [I used a 1/3 cup for my "part."] Then rinsed that out with clean water. The hair felt super clean, but not slippery weird, like after you use conditioner. Just normal.

I went to bed with it slightly damp (remember: thick hair, takes FOREVER to dry) and woke up hoping not to find a crazy mess. My hair didn't look too bad--didn't look dirty/greasy at all. The waves were pretty manageable, and I ended up brushing it back and using a headband, since some of the waves looked a little weird. It's now mid-day and looking at it, it still looks pretty clean! My head doesn't itch either, the way it did when I used shampoo (a dandruff-preventing one, at that!).

The only "product" I used this AM was some hair spray to keep the shorter pieces back in the headband. It'll be interesting to see how this works when I wash my hair in the morning and have to go to work with a wet or damp head, which means I'll need some product in it...

One more thing, because I'm sure you're wondering...no my head doesn't smell like vinegar! I asked DH immediately after I showered and he was like "Oh my God, get out of here!" LOL Later on, he couldn't smell it at all. Good!

If this works, I'll be pretty pumped because it's cheap (baking soda is less than a dollar and you only use a few tablespoons, ACV is a bit more but again, you don't use much) and it's not a bunch of chemicals being poured onto my head.

Oh, about that picture--that is NOT my house, or my stuff. [Duh, if you know me, I mostly use STORE BRANDS!] Via the magic of Google Images, I typed in "baking soda vinegar" and that's the eleventh image that popped up. How wonderful!