No shampoo! Or, Another revelation.

I decided this week I would try out a method of hair washing I had heard about a number of times recently.

This method involves no shampoo, only baking soda, water and apple cider vinegar.

If it were to work, I would be able to cut my $20 bottle(s!) of shampoo out of the shopping budget, AND, I would stop lacing my scalp with a mixture of Sodium laurel sulphate, Methlyparaben and Ethylparaben, to name but a few of the less desirable ingredients.

I'm a bit particular about my hair, it's dark, longish and wavyish and I like it.
(Ok, this is an old photo, this lil guy is 5 now, but my hair is largely the same.
Umm, just more grey.)

Usually, I like it.

But not right now because I'm sporting a REALLY BAD HAIRCUT which I detailed here.

However, a really bad haircut combined with nasty looking greasy hair would be much worse, so I decided the time is right to try this new method, as I am not working outside the home. Mostly.

The worst that would happen is the lifeguards at the pool would reel back in horror and the other mums in the playground would keep their distance.

So try it I did.

And it works!

My hair is just as it should be, apart from the bad haircut of course.
It's not greasy, or too dry, or heaven forbid, smelling of vinegar.

And a big positive, my scalp is much less itchy than it has been lately, I have a feeling all the nasties in my expensive shampoo where drying out and irritating my scalp.


Here's what to do if you would like to try it:

Wet your hair. Duh.

Make a thickish paste of baking soda with a bit of water.

Massage the paste onto your scalp.

Rinse it off well.

Mix about 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar with 3/4's cup of water. More or less.

Rinse your scalp and the length of your hair with this.

Rinse with water. Or not. I did.

Dry as normal.


How easy, and cheap, and environmentally friendly is that???

I love it!

7 comments:

  1. I keep meaning to try this, but we still have plenty of shampoo and conditioner. Eventually I will get there! I wonder if it would work with the cheap vinegar (not sure what kind it is), because apple cider vinegar isn't too cheap here. My hair is similar to yours, so I'm encouraged by your experience!

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  2. Hmm - how does it work on knots or do you still need conditioner? Three long haried females in the house certainly get through a lot of shampoo and conditioner.

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  3. Yup, I'm a no-pooer!

    Re needing conditioner....I found my hair was easier to comb out than when I use my commercial shampoo, that's usually sans conditioner though.
    After the baking soda it felt very dry but with the apple cider vinegar rinse it felt lovely, as if I had conditioned it.

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  4. Hate that Laurel Sodium thingamy whotnot in everything. Have you tried this on the kids? I'm wondering if little Cuggle will let me do just the bi-carb part.

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  5. I haven't tried it on the kids, because hubby has just given both of them a no' 4 buzz cut again. Which means I don't wash their hair, it just gets rinsed in the shower. Not that I washed it before either, their hair is usually fairly short so they don't tend to get anything (food!) in it. Just the baking soda may dry it out a little, I found the vinegar took away the dry feeling left by the bi-carb.

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  6. AHHHHHHHHHHHH. You have no idea how exciting this is to me. I'm pretty much obsessed with simplifying my shopping list and I already use baking soda and vinegar (white) for almost all of our cleaning. I'm DEFINITELY going to try this!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!
    (Found you at Friday Blog Hop)
    Amy @ www.thecheapandchoosy.blogspot.com

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