Natural Living

So I think that I finally have this thing figured out (read Day 1 and One Month In) .  The last couple weeks have been good. I wash may hair with 1 tbsp of baking soda in 1 cup of water. I then rinse it with a 50/50 apple cider vinegar mix. Once my hair is dry its pretty straw like so I have been adding coconut oil in from the bottom up. On day 2 it’s fine, and on day 3 its completely flat, so I give it a rinse with just plain water to bring the curls back for another couple days, then by day 5 or 6 its greasy and needs another wash.

My hair seems to have calmed itself down and settled into this new routine. My scalp on the other hand has been crying. I have cracked and bleeding skin all around my hair line. The itching is worse than I have ever experienced in my life. It is indescribable. It is unbearable.

Since I’m not about to give myself a moisturizing hair mask multiple times a week to counter act this problem I have decided to give this no-poo thing up. I simply just can’t swing it.

I think it’s a great concept and can totally work for someone without my dry skin problems, but it doesn’t work for me. I’m spending this week using Head & Shoulders, and hair masking it up like a boss in an attempt to repair the damage. My fingers are so crossed that this goes away soon.

As a side note it felt really good to have silky smooth, good smelling hair again. 6 weeks is a long time to go without pretty smelling hair.

btw this is me after  a day at work and a regular shampoo and conditioner

In the mean time (and once my scalp has healed) I’m going to try out a few sulfate free vegan alternatives. I’ll let you know how that goes as it happens. Wish meluck!

Have you tried this No-Poo experiment yet? I’m interested in
how it goes for different people.

I’m going to be totally honest. I HATE THIS!

The first few weeks were all about learning how much baking soda to use, and that you need to wash it all out. It takes a really long time for me to get all of the baking soda out of my hair, but after an evening spent near to tears on my bathroom floor, because I couldn’t run a brush through it to save my life I learned that it is worth the extra time. In case you are wondering the only way I was able to comb out the tangles was my slathering my hair with coconut oil, which meant I went to work the next day with the greasiest hair you have ever seen.

I think my hair is starting to adjust because this is the first time it didn’t become a complete grease ball the day after washing. I’m going to try to hold out for another couple weeks before I throw in the towel. You can read about why I started this experiment here. 

You see it’s not just the time it takes to do this new routine, mixing up the stuff before the shower, the extra time to really rub it in, and then the time to really make sure it’s all out. I mean that’s pretty bad on its own but the fact that my curls aren’t really looking that much better, and they don’t last as long as they used to is enough to say it’s not worth it. Then there is the smell. Chuck says that he doesn’t notice it, but I do. My hair smells dirty, like old stale laundry, and I’m not loving that, like at all.

The dry skin is another thing. I want to preface this by saying I have always had this problem, that dry skin is a constant plague, and that most normal shampoos will give me this problem, so severe dry skin like this is not necessarily a side effect of the no-poo experiment (though I usually only have these problems in the deepest winter months). The skin around my hair line, my forehead, behind my ears, and the base of my neck are all so dry that the skin there is cracking and bleeding. Seriously can you picture dry skin around the hair line and a greasy mess on top and the back of my head. It’s a good look I’ve got right now. This is something that can happen to me in the
winter even if I’m using something like Head & Shoulders, so I often do hair
masks and oil rubs that time of year to ease it a bit. The thing is that it’s
not winter, and I’m getting this, which makes me think that it will only get
worse that time of year.On a positive note this is my first weekend that is totally free. Meaning I actually have time to catch up on laundry, and vacuum for the first time in months. Literally months. I’m stoked for this. So this is my one and one down for the link up over on Chrystina Noel.

Today marks the beginning of a new hair journey for me guys. I’m going to get on board this crazy no hair washing train that’s going around. A couple of my best friends are already doing it (and one for over a year) with some pretty amazing results, and it’s supposed to make my curly hair beautiful so why not?

 

I’m already half way there since I only really wash my hair once a week or so, more often if I have a particularly sweaty workout. I’m not really one to do much styling on a daily basis, and up until this past Wednesday I hadn’t had a hair cut since my birthday in February (yes that’s six months ago). I didn’t need one because my hair had been pretty healthy, but I thought that six months should be a good maximum for length between haircuts. You can read more about how I got my hair to be this long and this healthy here. It’s pretty simple really.

So this is my plan: I’m going to start off by washing my hair with baking soda and rinsing with apple cider vinegar when necessary (hopefully my current 1-2 times weekly). As for styling if it is actually required I’m going to use coconut oil, because you know it’s used for everything these days. I have been using this for the last few weeks instead of my usual products and I really like the results. It helps the curls stay silky without making them crunchy. I can run my fingers through the curls and they bounce right back like nothing happened. It’s great!Some things I am afraid of: I have A LOT of problems with dry skin (Gingers are meant to live in rainy places). I switched last year to an all organic soap (it is made in HI, however they started in VT and still have a small shop there so it’s local, double bonus) and so many of my problems just disappeared. I still have issues with the skin right around my hair line, you know forehead, behind my ears, and the base of my neck. It’s super embarrassing and I have been using head and shoulders to combat it, but it doesn’t always work. I am really hoping that switching to something more organic will fix this as well. But I suppose time will tell.

At the absolute minimum I am going to shoot for a month, but ideally I would like to give this change a solid 6 months before I decide if it’s a keeper.

Wish me luck!

I will let you know how this experiment goes in a few weeks. Any thoughts, comments, or info is greatly appreciated.