126 Days, No Shampoo!

It has been exactly 126 days since I last washed my hair with shampoo. 

I started this experiment on a whim, I saw a blog post on the subject of 'no poo' and thought, that could be interesting, I'm gonna give that it a go and here I am 126 days later and I still haven't washed my hair with shampoo!

It's been quite difficult really as you have to find an alternative to shampoo that works best with you own hair type. 

I started washing with an egg and lemon wash and it was working great. My hair was always lovely and soft afterwards and then about three weeks ago it all went wrong and I have no idea why? After I had used my egg and lemon wash my hair was heavy and almost waxy. It was very odd. 

So I decided to start using bicarbonate of soda and apple cyder vinegar instead. That worked really well and I now use that instead. 

The only problem with the cyder vinegar is that it smells, a lot! However once your hair is dry there is no smell at all, just don't get it wet again unless you are in your own shower. I took my kiddies swimming last week and forgot about the vinegar and got my hair wet, it was not good, I smelt like a mobile fish and chip van!

So aside from me going into major panic every time it rains and I have no umbrella, the new alternative to shampoo seems to be working well, for now!

Oh and I also finally caved and dyed my hair and yes it was with horrible toxin filled, really bad for you, bottled stuff. I searched for alternative dyes but there doesn't seem to be much out there (if you know of one please let me know) and a lot of products claim to be 'all natural' when in fact they are not, it's confusing! The plan was to wait until the sun came out and just put lemon on my hair to bleach it but the sun is still yet to make a proper apperance and I got fed up of waiting. I also thought that perhaps the cassia obovata that I have been using might of lightened it a bit. It didn't! 

So there you have it my 'no poo' experience so far.

  Previous posts on this subject

 To Wash or Not To Wash

Goodbye Shampoo 

Week Two of Social Suicide 

Week Three of Social Suicide

Week Four of Social Suicide 

50 Days and No Shampoo 

50 Days and NO shampoo!

It has been exactly 50 days since I last washed my hair (with shampoo)! It has been a very interesting journey so far and I've had my good and bad days. The whole thing is a learning process and you have to find what works for your hair type and what definitely doesn't!   

Today I'd say is a bad day. I washed my hair last night with bicarbonate of soda and conditioned it with cyder vinegar and this is what it looked like this morning...

Please excuse the serious lack of make up and ghostly pale skin, I feel rather rough today!

To me my hair looks greasy but still frizzy and just generally looks grim. I have decided that there could be three possible reasons for this...

1) I feel ill and think I have a some kind of infection as I have lost my voice so perhaps this is having an effect on my hair?

2) I didn't use the right amount of bicarbonate of soda when I washed it. I was running low so perhaps I didn't use enough?

3) I haven't eaten very healthy food this week. I read somewhere that what you eat has a big effect on your hair. Too much greasy food this week I think!

 I feel I have kind of lost my way with this process and I'm currently not seeing a huge improvement or any particular benefits to it. Don't get me wrong I won't be going back to using shampoo, I just don't know if I'm doing the whole 'no poo' thing right! 

I'm currently washing my hair once a week with either my egg wash or bicarbonate of soda and I'm definitely preferring the egg wash (it feels softer afterwards). I have about three days where I can wear my hair down and then I have to tie it up for the remaining days because it looks oily. It's hard to brush the oils through my hair because it's curly and the minute you put a brush near it, it puffs up into a mass of frizziness! 

I'm not using any products at all at on it at the moment and I desperately want to dye it because the roots are looking hideous but I don't want to undo all of the hard work of not putting gunk on it! There must be an alternative, natural, solution for dying hair out there??

However I shall persevere with my 'no poo' adventure and hopefully I will see an improvement soon. 

I'd love to hear from anyone else that has under gone this process and if anyone has any suggestions as to what I may be doing wrong.

Check out my other posts on my 'no poo' adventure...

 To Wash or Not To Wash

Goodbye Shampoo 

Week Two of Social Suicide 

Week Three of Social Suicide

Week Four of Social Suicide 

Week Four of Social Suicide

I have become obsessed with hair! I find my self staring at other peoples heads, thinking 'ooo their hair is so soft and shiny and looks so clean'. When I'm washing the kids hair in the bath I have to restrain myself from dunking my head in a swishing it around in the lovely sweet smelling strawberry stuff.

I'm now in week four of my 'no poo' adventure and I'm starting to think that I should just be like 'normal' people and wash it with shampoo. 

I'm really not liking the once a week wash with just water, it just goes what I can only describe as waxy, here have a look...

I can't wear it down after a water wash, it just looks hideous!

 

I last washed my hair on Friday (6 days ago) with an egg and lemon wash. After this wash my hair did feel quite nice and clean but still not the same result as if I had used shampoo. 

I think my main problem is that it's gone so dark, it's neither blonde nor brown at the moment, just a kinda of greyish/brown colour! I thought that the cassia obovata that I used a few weeks ago would help to lighten it a bit but it just seemed to make it a darker but richer colour.

 Anyway this is what my hair is looking like today ... 

Saying all that though I am starting to notice a difference this week. As I said I last washed it 6 days ago and it's only just starting to go greasy today. So that's a major improvement. I've also been able to wear my hair down all week, which I haven't done since starting my 'no poo' experiment. So maybe it's not all bad.

I have also noticed that my dandruff has pretty much gone now, which is awesome.

 

 The next step that I plan to take is to try washing with bicarbonate of soda and condition with cyder vinegar. I'm want to try this just to see if it gives a better result than the egg and lemon wash. 

I'm slightly concerned about using the bicarbonate of soda incase it dries out my scalp but we'll see I suppose.

I'll let you know how that works out.