Thursday, January 25, 2018

No 'Poo Update

It's getting toward 10 years of no shampoo.

Since I'm mostly showering at the gym, especially in winter, it's kind of a pain to do the baking soda and vinegar rinse.  It takes a while and I hate to have the shower running for 20 minutes.  In the summer, using a bucket or big bowl of water, it is easier to get my hair wet (natural oils repel water...probably one of the reasons head hair evolved was to keep the brain warm and keeping cold rain/snow off the head helps with that) and I don't have a shower running the whole time.  Shutting the shower off at the gym and hanging out in the stall just raises questions.

So, the system no is to mostly just rinse the heck out of the hair while scrubbing my scalp with my finger tips and nails.  This is followed with a some diluted vinegar in a reused small dish soap bottle scavenged from work.  I can squirt this all over my hair and work it through, let it rest in there while I finish up showering, then rinse and finish with a cold rinse.  I step to the side of the main stream of shower water and just put my head in for the cold rinse.  Fortunately the gym has big shower stalls with room to hang a towel and clothes and get dressed...and to step away from the water during the cold hair rinse.

I brush it well every couple of days.

In the last week I've gotten multiple compliments on my hair.  Apparently this is working.  

I do the rinse bit once a week or 10 days.  Partly because I'm lazy and partly because I'm not out working in dusty conditions while sweating.  Winter is good for that.

I am also keeping my hair braided most of the time including at night. My hair tangles easily and in the past I've had whole chunks of hair missing from coat-collar length down due to tangles and rats from rubbing on coats and shirt collars. Even in a pony tail it was suffering snarls and breakage.  Keeping it braided seems to prevent those issues.

It's braided overnight because in the winter I wear a hoody to bed.  Or sometimes a hat.  It's warm when I GO to bed, but not always when I wake up so the head cover really helps.

The braiding, less washing, brushing, etc, has resulted in longer hair than I've had in a while.  I haven't had a cut or trim since 1989 so the length is related to the health and breakage alone.


3 comments:

Laura said...

Congratulations! Does the vinegar make your hair shiny? It must be pretty long by now!

Jill said...

Not SUPER long because my hair is fragile and breaks a lot, and grows slowly. Midback. That's about as long as it ever gets.

I think the natural oil makes the hair shiny more than the vinegar. The vinegar does help with detangling and it happened to "set" the henna I put in 3 years ago which still lingers on the lower half of my hair. I have reddish hair so no one notices but me.

laura said...

At least you don't have to worry about sitting on your hair!