My reasons for going "no poo"

#1

I’m on day 6 of “no poo” & trying to do this without baking soda & ACV. I just did my first water washing & blow dry today & my hair is not terrible.

There is no better time to try this since the whole world is essentially on corona virus lockdown & I’m working from home for at least a few more weeks. I don’t think having greasy hair would fly in my professional job but I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time now.

My main reason: I deal with what I call a “goopy” hair problem. I have a patch of skin on the back of my head that produces a sticky, “goopy” residue only on one part of my hair. I’ve tried 1400 different shampoos & have cut back from washing my hair daily to every 2 - 3 days because the goop is thicker/worse after washing. The front of my hair usually looks great but the back of my hair is tangled, sticky, matted. I dread washing my hair. I have never used products in my hair, have talked to doctors & hair stylists about the condition-- no one can figure this out. It’s caused many tears.

About once a week I mix baking soda into my shampoo & that seems to keep the goop from building up too much. Follow that with an ACV rinse. But I hate using baking soda on my hair because afterwards it’s brittle & dry. It does feel much lighter & cleaner than the goopy hair but I really hate doing this to my hair all the time.
Side note: I also had a terrible fruit fly infestation at my house for a while & those damn critters LOVE ACV so they were flying all over my bathroom & my pillow after I laid down with wet hair. I had to stop the ACV because I couldn’t handle it.

The last time I washed my hair (3/22) I used baking soda with my shampoo. My hair felt so wonderful & goop free afterwards & three things occurred to me

  1. THE SHAMPOO IS CAUSING THE PROBLEM
  2. As nice as it is to be goop free, I really don’t want to depend on baking soda for the rest of my life.
  3. NOW IS THE TIME TO GO SHAMPOO FREE BECAUSE NO ONE WILL SEE ME (except my boyfriend, who basically lives at my house & says he is supportive of my decision but actually hates it)

Also, for some reason, I can’t get behind calling it no poo, so from now on I’ll just call it shampoo free.

Water wash/blow dry: I did a very vigorous scrub of my scalp & hairline in the shower today (day 6) for about 5 minutes followed by blow dry. My hair looks… clean! It slightly greasy as expected but the oil is spread throughout my entire head. I wasn’t cringing/having tears while blow drying my hair. There doesn’t seem to be a goopy patch in the back of my hair. If it doesn’t get worse than this, I think I will ditch shampoo for good! Honestly, this is way better than a goopy patch.
I may need something to control the grease between water wash-- I’m thinking corn flour.

Thanks for the support & conversation!

Steph

#2

Sounds good. Though, I’ll say after being no-poo for over a year, that your hair can get pretty good and very healthy, but it will never have that shampooed feeling. It’s just not a possibility, because the whole idea is that the oil is your source of health. It took me a while to come to terms with that, but much like you, it was so bad with shampoo (I had to wash pretty much every day to keep it clean, and it made my skin break out), that even now when I moan about it, I remember that it was never much better. The strength and health of my hair and skin is not to be compared with how it was then, so… I continue to manage the ticking grease bomb, and lengthen the fuse every few days, with a warm water wash. You do learn to clean, handle, and wear it it ways that accommodate the the oil. Day 1, hair down (maybe!)- Day 2, slicked hair with middle part french style - Day 3, in a low bun, maybe with a middle part… And by Day 4 I usually wash again or if I’m lazy I leave it till my weekly sauna and bath. (Note: I do live on a farm and am a homemaker, train horses, grow gardens, and am basically a ‘Jill of all trades’. As you can guess, I can be more free with the state of my hair. However, I don’t believe in wearing an ugly mop, so I usually keep it in a tidy low bun.)
Oh, and, I kinda learned this the hard way; be really careful with BS as it can really strip you hair. In a way it’s even stronger than shampoo, so I would try to get off it as soon as you can. Or at least lengthen the time between washes. I personally find that if I strip my hair that harshly, I set myself back quite far…

What do you mean by goop? Like, gluey? Or syrupy? I’ve heard gluey, but never goopy…?

Hope K

#3

Are you using a boar bristle brush?
Dusting cornstarch (I also add a bit of cocoa powder too since i have dark brown hair, 2 parts cornstarch 1 part cocoa powder) on your scalp and brushing it out with a BBB I swear by, I probably would have given up if I didn’t use it. Now (over a year since last shampoo), I rarely need it at least not in the winter/early spring after my first year.

Yeah, I am not a fan of the term “no poo”, I even prefer to type No (Sham)poo. And just say “I don’t wash with shampoo anymore”. But on this site I still type no poo just cause well it is the site’s name XD