Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Update on the natural experiment

Hi ladies!

So Megan asked me for an update on my experiment.

I will say this (in a nutshell): while the no shampoo experiment hasn't been all roses, I'm still sticking with it for a while longer to see what happens. I think it would be smart to wean yourself off shampooing every day before you start with this so that your scalp isn't producing tons upon tons of oil daily. I wash my hair more rarely to begin with, so that might have helped.

Okay, more details:

Try # 1) tried shampoo recipe of 1 t soda in 3 oz water and conditioner of 25/75 ac vinegar/water (because I've read a bunch of places that vinegar kills the bacteria that causes dandruff and that's why I got interested in this method to begin with). Worked fine, my hair was SUPER soft. (I'm thinking "hmm, maybe this IS going to be amazing!")

Try #2) Same recipe, crazy static. (I do work outside, so that might be part of the reason for it)

Try #3) Not so staticy, and I read that the vinegar is more for the tips of your hair (to combat static) whereas the baking soda is most important to massage into the scalp to break up oil/dirt. That worked better

Try #4) Didn't have enough baking soda, so my hair was really oily the next day (whoops!)

From then on: I'm doing more like 1-2 T of baking soda in 3 oz (~1/3 cup) of water and now am doing ~50/50 vinegar/water. The dandruff isn't going away completely, so I'm wondering if this is worth it. On the blog, commenters were saying stuff like "my hair has never had so much body or looked so healthy!" and "I used vinegar on my head once and the dandruff was GONE!" I haven't been that lucky, but it is interesting to see how my hair reacts. Some days I have body, some, it's totally flat. One of the best times, I massaged straight-up baking soda into my scalp after soaking my hair in vinegar for a while before (for the dandruff help). It was really clean after that!

I'm hoping to hone in on a good plan and try the castor/olive oil mix soon on my face. I've been using 20% shea butter from L'Occitane since christmas, and it's okay, but not great. The dead of winter is probably not the time to make generalizations about skin items that work for me, though.

Until next time!

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