During early of this year, I was googling through the best organic shampoo and I stumbled upon “no-poo” regime. At first I didn’t bother about it as I never heard of it. I often overlook it. But every time I google on organic shampoos, “no-poo” suggestions are on top of the list. I thought, “can you stop with this suggestion already?!” Because I was somewhat pissed (LOL), I decided to click on one of the suggestion on google and the post are LONG. I was so lazy to read about it so I just scroll down and look through the pictures. What interests me is how the auditor’s hair gets better and better by time. Turned out, I started to put my interest on no-poo regime – which means no shampoo in short. No shampoo? What?? Yes, no shampoo. Most of the successful stories I’ve read use baking soda and apple cider vinegar to clean up their hair. At first I thought, “Gross!” but it is not as gross as I think it is. FYI, I didn’t have the guts to try baking soda wash up until now.
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| Credits to google |
What is No-Poo?
I don’t know how to explain in detail but here’s what I understand about no-poo. No-poo is actually a beauty regime that focuses on washing hair without the use of dangerous chemicals – so to the usage of baking soda as shampoo. There are a lot of methods in going no-poo (using castile soap, water only etc.). Most shampoos in the market contains harmful chemicals especially SLS that is widely being used in most detergents to produce bubbles and remove dirt easily. Because the water here in Malaysia is hard water, SLS can reduce the tendency of detergents to react with the minerals in the water – leading to consistent effectiveness on removing dirt.
SLS can be very useful but it may or may not strip down hair’s natural oils – that causes our scalp to produce more oils. In time, the sebum secretion on scalp will accept that our scalp is lack of certain amount of oils and the scalp will produce extra oil thus that is the reason why our hair tends to turn super oily the next day without shampoo – if we shampoo every day. Basically, our scalp is no longer at its natural state, and we kinda need shampoo every day since then. Have you ever wonder, how on earth did people live without using shampoos? It can happen as our body can naturally (if not interrupted) clean itself up. We don’t even need conditioner as a plus. Natural oils can make our hair turns beautiful naturally.
My journey
I used to shampoo my hair every day. Like I mentioned previously, my hair turns very oily and itchy by the end of the day and I in desperate need of shampoo by the next morning. I can’t stand it. That is how bad my hair turns out to be. I started my no-poo journey by going low-poo – which means that I use less shampoo. I stopped shampoo every day. Because I just bought my kinda expensive shampoo (Giovanni natural shampoo) before decided to go low-poo, I continued using the shampoo throughout my low-poo journey.
On my first month, I shampooed every alternate days – 1:1 ratio of 1 day shampoo and 1 day water wash. The first month was terrible! I have to deal with messy hair and super oily scalp. It turns itchy easily but I prepared myself with this transition period (period taken for hair to detoxify and become normal again) so I decided to continue my journey. Meanwhile, to tame down my frizziness, I used my hair serum that contains silicone – which is a bad idea because it will interrupt my transition period.
My transition period reduces by the end of the month so I can actually go to 1:2 ratios of 1 day shampoo and 2 days water wash for my second month. I water wash because I was afraid that my hair turns itchy. During the early second month, I can’t stand it. I was about to give up but I told myself I have gone too far to quit now. I continued and by the end of the month, the itchiness reduces that I am very happy to increase my water wash days!
On my third month, I went to 1:3 ratio of alternating 1 day shampoo and 3 days water wash. I sometimes go up to 1:4 ratios and I can still go on with it! Amazing right? I found out that, without water wash, my hair turns out better and I no longer feels itchy. I decided to stop using my hair serum to get better detoxification and it works better! On this month, I just shampoo my hair and never let it wet for up to 3 to 5 days until my next shampoo day. During this month too, my shampoo has finally done and I bought castile soap for my journey to no-poo.
Because castile soap is rather strong to be used as shampoo, I decided to dilute it up on 1:3 ratio, 1 part soap 3 parts water – mix both of the substances up in a bottle, shake well and use. It doesn’t lather; it just feels like putting oil on hair, which feels slimy or something. I used a lot of it because it is not easy run it throughout the hair. After rinsing it off, I sprayed on my ACV rinse (1:3 ratio, 1 part apple cider vinegar and 3 parts water) and leave it on for few minutes before rinsing it off.
Truth is, my hair turns dull and straw-like after it is dried up. It is stinky as well! I can’t stand it at all but I decided to continue using it on my forth month. I tried changing my ratios on castile soap and ACV rinse but to no success. By the end of the forth month, my hair is still in bad shape – dandruff all over, straw-like and feels like there’s a lot of residue leftover, so I decided to purchase organic shampoo instead.
Outcome
By the end of the day, I continued my low-poo instead of going no-poo. It is rather hard to go low-poo here in Malaysia as the water is hard water and castile soap can react with the minerals here badly that it will leave residues – thus the result of straw-like hair. I still continue using ACV rinse along with my organic shampoo. I don’t want to use baking soda as it is rather harsh on hair and may result in dryer hair in time. Besides, baking soda is still a processed substance. Castile soap on the other hand uses olive oil as its soap base with essential oils combined together. Both ways, I don’t like it. LOL.
Currently, it’s my fifth month and I am still on low-poo where I don’t shampoo every day anymore. I shampoo my hair with my organic shampoo and then rinse it off with water. Due to the fact that organic shampoo does not contain SLS and it may react to hard water leaving residues behind, I then spray ACV rinse on my hair to remove the residues. Left it for a couple of minutes, rinse it off with water and apply organic conditioner. My hair never felt better. I can go 4 days without shampoo nor water wash and it still looks amazing. It is very manageable now that I often abandoned my hair brush because I can brush my hair simply by using my fingers and still looks stunning. I am very much happy with this regime and I will stay with it until I can find better options.
FYI, ACV rinse is stinky as it is - smells like rotten apple but the smell subsided when the hair dries up. It will somehow return when my hair gets wet again. Any inquiries do leave a comment! I may not be an expert but I will try my best to help!
Regards
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