Weekly Wrap Up! 3.2.13

This week has been busy (i.e. JP and I have gotten caught up in the world of Minecraft, causing us to do almost nothing else). 

While there's not much to report, I will talk about my 'no poo' situation. I hate it. My hair has been so gross this week. So gross. It's possible this is that "transition period" that is talked about, but if it is I'm just not sure I can handle it. Not only does my hair feel gross and dirty, it feels and looks unhealthy to me. Also, I'm pretty sure it's making my color fade - I knew this was a possibility and actually set out to find out if that would happen or not. 

I really hate to give up, but my hair just isn't handling it well and I miss feeling clean. It's possible that it feels so bad because I'm having to train it to not be washed every day in addition to the new washing method.

I don't want to discourage anyone from trying this! Everyone's hair is different and your hair may respond better to it. You also may be better at pushing through crappiness than I am. If anyone tries it, I'd love to hear about your experience - I'm thinking I'm going to work on training my hair to not be washed every day, then try the no poo method again. We shall see.

No Poo Hair Washing - Days 5 & 6

Well yesterday was my day off and I had nothing to do so...I don't think I even showered. Sometimes I'm gross. But as far as my hair, nothing was abnormal. It was kind of greasy, but not worse or better than usual. 

A huge plus is that I did buy a 100% boar's bristle brush! Ladies, if you don't have one, you should get one. I've wondered for a while now if my brushes were damaging my hair and I'm pretty the answer is yes. But my new brush feels amazing and leaves my hair so soft. Even if you're not doing any kind of hair revolution like I am, it's worth buying. I got mine at a Duane Reade (they're a pharmacy that started in NYC and is now owned by Walgreens, for you non-New Yorkers) for like $7 maybe?

Today I washed my hair with the baking soda and vinegar and voila! it wasn't waxy or anything. It felt very nice all day. One interesting thing I'm noticing is that my bangs haven't gotten greasy by the end of the day like they normally do. Could it be because of the new washing routine??

No Poo Hair Washing - Day 4

Ok yeah, today my hair is kind of gross. I washed it with the baking soda and conditioned it with the vinegar, and for the first time I understood what they meant when they said your hair might feel waxy. My hair definitely felt waxy when I first got out of the shower. I decided not use any product on my hair (I normally use a root spray for volume) and once I gave it a good blow dry it felt a little less waxy, but it still doesn't feel clean exactly. It feels (and looks to me) a little greasy. But then I took pics of it and it didn't seem as noticeable as I thought.

Behold, close up pictures of my scalp.

No Poo Hair Washing - Day 3

This morning I woke up to relatively clean hair! It was sort of in between clean and dirty...it was a little bit oily, but it was at that point where you could probably pull it back in a ponytail or wear a headband and get away with it. Let's not forget that I did dye my hair yesterday, which means it got dried out a little anyway. I'm still reserving judgment a bit. I decided to wait and wash it tomorrow morning before work. Sorry there's not more to report!

No Poo Hair Washing - Day 2

This morning I woke up to normal hair. After letting it air dry just before going to bed last night, it was a little limp as usual (blow drying helps with that extra oomph my hair needs), but there was no weird texture and it wasn't extra oily either. 

Today I decided to go big or go home and proceeded to dye my hair a medium auburn. I have no idea how the no poo washing will affect it and no clue if the baking soda will make it fade. I've read so many articles about the affects of baking soda on dyed hair and everyone says something different, so I figured I'd see for myself. I went ahead and used the conditioner provided in the box, but don't plan to do anything else to my hair today. We'll see how everything looks tomorrow and go from there!

No Poo Hair Washing - Day 1

Earlier today I was mindlessly pinning (as I usually do on my day off) when I came across a pin that linked to an article about washing your hair without shampoo. I was immediately intrigued. You can read the article here, but in a nutshell it talks about how shampoo causes a vicious cycle of needing to wash your hair every day. When you use shampoo, it acts as a detergent and strips your hair and scalp of their natural oils, causing your scalp to overproduce oil out of sheer panic, and in turn causing you to wake up with greasy hair and have to wash all over again.

So how do we break this cycle? The article describes how to make a baking soda solution and a vinegar spray to wash and condition your hair. (There are two ways of doing it, but I'll just be talking about the way I chose.) It sounds weird, but the article also says that your hair will be healthier, shinier, fuller, and you won't have to wash it as often. However, it also warns that your hair will go through a transition period where it basically freaks out and wonders what the hell you're doing to it, so they recommend you be able to just wear it in a ponytail or under a hat for a while. And there is a whole list of recommendations on how to help your hair through the transition.

Since I have a 3-day weekend, I figured what the hell, let's try it, and off I skipped to the dollar store.

Pieces of Crap

Step 1: Prepare your solutions.

At the dollar store I bought a ketchup/mustard bottle for the baking soda solution and a spray bottle for the vinegar spray. This was my first mistake. Those things are pieces of crap. Go to Target or Wal-Mart instead, people. I screwed the lid onto the ketchup bottle and when I went to shake it to mix the solution, it was leaking out of the lid. Annoying. Then the spray bottle would only spray at random times and I never knew if it would be a stream of liquid or a wide spray. Also annoying.

However, the two things mixed well. I used 1 tbs of baking soda for every 1 cup of water. For the spray, I used 2 tbs of vinegar for every 1 cup of water.

Step 2: Apply to your hair and rinse thoroughly.

Ok, so I knew that the baking soda solution wasn't going to lather at all, so I was prepared for that. But the lack of lather makes it difficult to know if you're using the right amount. It's hard to tell if you've covered your whole scalp or not. But I did my best and we'll see what happens.

Step 3: Air dry.

As I type, it's still drying. I'm waiting to see if my hair is going to feel funny or not, but so far I must say that the top of my head (which is already dry) already seems more voluminous than the other times I've air dried it. I'll be interested to see if it's back to being greasy in the morning.

I'll let you know how it's looking tomorrow!