Posts Tagged ‘hair’
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I got a new haircut today.
A few people have asked me lately about the whole shampoo-free thing. So, just so you know, yes, I am still doing it, and I have used commercial shampoo exactly twice in the past almost-year: once when I got some icky goo in my hair, and another time when I wanted to put henna in it and needed to shampoo it first.
Instead, I’ve been washing my hair with honey once a week, or a mixture of honey and vinegar if it’s really dirty) conditioning it every day with silicone-free conditioner (Trader Joe’s has really cheap silicone-free conditioner, btw), combing a little oil into it (castor oil, jojoba oil and vegetable glycerine).
I have literally not had a bad hair day since I’ve started doing this, with the exception of October in Louisiana, when it didn’t matter how much conditioner or oil I put in my hair, because my hair wanted to look like this and there was just no convincing it otherwise.
Anyway, today I got the first haircut I’ve had since November, 2008.
Before!
After!
I don’t know if people can tell that it’s any different! It looked much, much more different in the salon but the weather on the way home was so blustery that by the time I got in, it looked more like this again. So I put a little shea butter and oil in it and there you go.
Comment
A lot of people have asked me about how the Curly Girl thing that I started doing this summer (Read About It Here!) has been going and what I do on an every day basis to keep my hair clean AND shampoo-free. so here is a comic explaining the regular steps that I take now that I’ve settled into a routine.
I know, I know, I said you would get results after about a week, but there is a good reason why it has taken me so long to tell you how the whole shampoo-free thing is going!
It is called, I MADE A COMIC ABOUT IT.
Shampoo-Free Tea
Enjoy! This documents the process from start to end of the first day of shampoo-freeness. Click the image to read the comic!
It has been nearly three weeks and I have got to say, I do not feel like my hair is dirty, and I don’t miss shampoo at all! In fact, I am happy to report that when I went down to my grandmother’s house for the weekend, I brought down all my silicone-rich conditioners and all but one bottle of sulfate shampoo. I kept one bottle of shampoo in case I have an awful hair emergency. But other than that, my haircare regimen now consists of silicone-free conditioner, water, and castor oil or vegetable glycerin (I like to alternate what I put in my hair).
It was slightly greasy at about the two week mark, but other than that, all the warnings that it would make my hair look worse before it looked better? Lies! It has looked great from the first day on. I mean, I still have some bad hair days, but my hair is softer, shinier, and healthier overall. The softness is amazing– you can really tell that there are no products in my hair.
When it got greasy, I massaged my scalp with baking soda and then poured vinegar in– a recommendation I got from Destiny and several other sources. I was hoping it would make my head into a kiddie science project volcano, but it did not. Woe! It made my scalp feel a little dry for a few days, though, so I’m not sure if I will do that again.
But generally, I am very pleased with the results and I would happily recommend this alternative to icky chemicals to anyone and everyone– my mom picked it up already.
Destiny recently started posting about her attempts to go shampoo-free, so after asking her about it and doing a little reading of my own, I decided to do it, too!
I have always heard from stylists that shampoo is very bad for my hair and to only use it once every week or two, but to condition it every day. So when Destiny started talking about not using shampoo at all, I have to say I was immediately intrigued.
I started reading up. The most valuable information I found was from this WikiHow article. It was a lot to absorb, so I kept reading up and read a lot of other opinions and reviews of the book it was based on, Curly Girl, by Lorraine Massey.
The idea is pretty simple: most shampoo contains chemicals called sulfates which are used to strip oils. This is good because it strips out all the non-water-soluble products you use in your hair, but it is bad because it also strips the natural oil out of your hair and dries it up!
So, to repair your hair, you need to stop using shampoo with sulfates. However, in order to do that, you need to stop using hair products that require sulfates to get them out of your hair! These products are products made with silicones, which are…well, you know what silicones are. They’re plastics! Lots of hair care products have silicones in them because silicones coat your hair and protect it from all kinds of junk, and also work to glue split ends back together, but they also keep the natural oils in your hair from getting soaked into your hair like they should, and they also need sulfates or other harsh chemicals to come out!
So it is pretty simple: if you want to use silicones, you have to use sulfates. Sulfates damage your hair, so if you want to not damage your hair, you have to use neither sulfates nor silicones. This means changing your hair care regimen to only use silicone-free hair products. If you do this, you will never need to use any shampoo!
I told my mom about it last week, and she told me about this guy she used to know who worked for her father. Pete had really long, beautiful hair and he always said that they key to his beautiful hair was that he only shampooed it once a year, on his birthday. My mom said it never looked dirty or greasy. So that, combined with reading Destiny’s writeups and lots of testimony online, convinced me.
The next step was getting the products. Thursday at lunch, I went out to do this! This is tough, because there are a lot of ingredients that are silicones. Most of them end with “cone” but not all of them do! Fortunately, I found a huge list online.
And now I will let the video tell the next part!
I made this video four days ago. In spite of reading many warnings that my hair might look worse for the first few weeks, it immediately looked amazing! It has looked really good every single day since I started it Thursday night. Even today when I washed it at night and slept on it, it doesn’t look too bad, and I have never been able to do that before.
There will be more updates on this as I go! If anyone has questions they would like to ask me about the process please feel free!