Tuesday, February 25, 2014

No Poo - 4 Weeks

i am now four weeks into my no shampoo experiment.

(ps the kid spilled dr. pepper on the computer keyboard, and BAM the shift key stopped working.  no more capital letters for us!)

here's the original post explaining what i'm doing, giving my "recipes", etc.

the past two weeks have been even more educational and here are some of the things i discovered:

1.  i have been able to go back to the gym several times over the past two weeks and it turns out that washing just once a week is not going to work.  have i mentioned that i'm the queen of all sweaters?  after two days, my hair was looking crusty and fugly, so i used the baking soda twice in one week.  so far, it looks like that's the ticket - washing on Wednesday and Saturday.

2.  my hair looks better on the days when i don't wash.  in fact, it usually looks it's very best on the third day of no washing.  who knew?!

3. there's also less frizz if i don't blow dry.  i know, this one is common sense, but i apparently had to see it to believe it.  the funny thing is that with the baking soda, it takes my hair forever to dry on it's own.

4.  i got a haircut today.  i absolutely love the stylist, but the hair washer didn't get the memo that i wanted her to use only sulfate, silicone, and paraben free cleanser and conditioner.  i didn't really know if it was making that big of a difference, but it was.  after the haircut, my hair is crusty and decidedly less curly than when i went in.  the cut looks like it will work out well after i go get back to the baking soda.

here's the evidence (on the right, how i looked two weeks ago after no shampoo (aka "natural" hair products) and on the left (with an outstanding photo bomb by the kid), how i look after just one use of "normal" shampoo and hair products):

 
it's a big difference, right?  like...a bad big difference.
 
and just as a ps, my scalp feels really dry and tight...and it itches like mad.  it might also be because i had a demi-permanent color put on my hair, but i'm blaming the shampoo!
 
i will be washing this stuff out of my hair and going back to the baking soda asap...then there will be another sweet selfie photo to document the difference.

2 comments:

Mom'sLove said...

have you tried coconut oil? I love it. I do it every sunday night

Erin said...

I am a HUGE believer in coconut oil! I use very, very little on my hair (being that I have very fine hair, it greases it up pretty fast), but I use it for all kinds of things - body scrubs, cooking, lotions, and even to treat any skin conditions my kids have. I've even made my own baby wipes using it! Seriously love the stuff.