The fabulous Lani Diane Rich has been writing recently about her experiments with homemade and natural methods for a multitude of things, from lipbalms to dryer sheets. And I, being the sporadic, lazy-ass, wanna-be blogger that I am, decided to finally start writing about my experiments as well. I've been meaning to do this for over a year now anyway, so I might as well take inspiration when I can.
First, I'll start with the one that I embarked on today, known in some circles as the "No 'Poo" method. Me being on the same level of humor as a 12-year-old boy, the words "No 'Poo" just make me think of avoiding the toilet for some unknown 12-year-old-boy reason, so I'm going with the more innocuous "Natural Hair Care" method instead.
The most common recipe that I've found goes something like this:
1 tbs baking soda with 1 c water, to rub into scalp
1 tbs apple cider vinegar with 1 c water, to rinse ends of hair
-- Add honey for frizz
-- Switch to lemon juice for grease
-- Add lavender oil to help with itchy scalp
-- Add olive oil to ends for dryness
Considering the number of "sparklies" (aka gray hairs) I've been noticing, I dyed my hair again this past Saturday. Sadly some of the grays are already sparkling away in my bangs again, despite the fact that I haven't used shampoo in 6 days before even starting my experiment with the natural ingredients. I usually only wash my hair every other day anyway, so this week I just gave it a good water rinse to try and get some of the product out of it without using shampoo. I also figured this might give my scalp a chance to balance out so it might not get as oily throughout the whole transition process, which many people have commented can last up to a month. I had one day this week which could have been considered a "hat day," but otherwise it wasn't so bad.
So today, here's what I did.
I grabbed a couple of leftover Red Solo Cups (I fill you up... LET'S HAVE A PARTY...) and put my baking soda and ACV in them to take to the shower. I added a tiny squirt of honey to the ACV - my hair tends towards flyaways using regular conditioner so it made sense to try this right out of the gate. I filled the cups about halfway with water and gave them a swish with my fingers, then just tipped my head back and poured the baking soda over my scalp. I took a minute to scrub with my fingers a bit, but it didn't feel particularly gritty. Got some baking soda water in my eye which felt funny but didn't burn like if it was shampoo, so there's another bonus. I rinsed my hair, then repeated the mixing process with the ACV/honey. This time instead of pouring it over my scalp, I held my hair up from my neck and poured most of the mix just over the ends, then poured the last little bit over my whole head. I kind of squished my hair a bit to work the mix through, then rinsed again with water.
I was worried about detangling afterwards, but it wasn't too bad. As long as I don't rub my head with the towel but just squeeze the water out, I think it'll be okay. The smell of the ACV didn't bother me at all, but I do want to find out what an occasional beer/egg rinse might do for me too. My hair felt "sticky" like velcro when blowdrying, not the usual slippery-overconditioned-smooth. It also seemed to dry faster than normal.
So far, no noticeable negative effects - frizz is of the normal sort, but we'll see what it does over the course of the day. Too bad there isn't anything to be done about my cow-licks.
