Chemicals

In an effort to reduce household chemical use (I've never really used them heavily), I have been experimenting with going shampoo free.

When I read about this possibility a few years ago, I was intrigued.  I sorta tried it.  But since I didn't understand the effort - other than to stop using shampoo, the effort failed because my hair felt totally greasy and looked yuck.  So, I went back to shampoo use.

Around the middle of last month (August 2012) I read a blog post that helped me to more fully understand the "movement" of getting unhooked from shampoo.  Given my Cosmetology training combined with learning by reading (didn't you know the skin takes in much of what is placed on it and that includes the stuff in shampoo), this movement makes absolute and complete sense to me!

Basically, going shampoo-free does not mean relaxing personal hygiene.  It simply means changing it.  I've long known and practiced much less frequent shampooing than is common among most women I know - simply as a result of my education to get my Cosmetology license way back when I was a teenager!

How does one change if interested?  Well, we have to change our minds first.  If not, the effort will be to no avail.

If you wanna try what we've done, I'll try to explain.  As a rule, my children have only had their heads shampooed once per week since they got their heads shampooed for the first time (different ages for each).  This is much easier for children than adults because their heads have not been conditioned to require numerous washings each week.  If you are a daily washer, you will reduce your washings to around 3 for the first week.  As a rinse, I've read people use apple cider vinegar (instead of conditioner).  When I stopped bleaching my hair, I stopped using conditioner, so that's not much of an issue for me.

As for me, I've been washing my hair only 2 or 3 times each week for some time.  When it's super hot and I sweat a lot, I rinse my head and rub it a lot under the water.  But washing with shampoo has been down to 2 times each week MOST weeks.  So, going to no shampoo, I simply replaced my 2 shampoos with the new washing liquid.  I'll get to that in a minute.

I directly replaced 2 for 2 because I know that my scalp gets a certain degree of oil build-up between those two shampooings and I didn't feel able to reduce down to only one immediately.  Three weeks of replacing 2 shampoos with 2 washes and I went down to 1 wash per week.

Washing liquid: 1 cup water to 1 tablespoon baking soda and about 3 drops of whatever essential oil I want to try and mix thoroughly.  Obviously, I shake to mix immediately before use as well.

It's gone really well for us.  The children do not have any build-up on their scalps.  I feel like my hair looks much the same as when I was using shampoo.  One big difference is that it's way less frizzy with far fewer flyaways.  I LIKE that difference!

If you have any questions, I'm super happy to share more.  Just let me know.  :)