I’m hearing this go around the blogosphere and it’s the end of my 6-week experiment so I’m going to recap what happened and what I’m doing now.
None of you have to try this, but .. figured I ought to post my results.
FAILED EXPERIMENT #1:
VEGETABLE SOAP AS SHAMPOO
Directions:
Lather up some vegetable soap (the purest kind), and mix with water as a shampoo
WHY IT FAILED
- Dried my hair out. Like CRAZY dry.
- I hated it. Stopped immediately.
FAILED EXPERIMENT #2:
BAKING SODA + APPLE CIDER VINEGAR
Directions:
Tablespoon of baking soda, mixed with water into a paste.
Use paste on scalp like shampoo rubbing it into your scalp, and not on your roots.
Rinse.
Mix Apple Cider Vinegar (one tablespoon) in a 12 oz glass of cold water.
Carefully pour it on your head (at each temple, on the top of your head, and on the other temple).
Let it sit for 10 seconds.
Rinse with cool-to-warm water.
WHY IT FAILED
- Baking soda caused dandruff, and I NEVER get dandruff.
- It also dried my hair out, like crazy dry.
- Stopped after two times.
- Apple Cider Vinegar worked however.
WINNING EXPERIMENT #3:
WATER ONLY + APPLE CIDER VINEGAR RINSE
Before I start, BF had been harping about this method for a long time. He hasn’t used shampoo for 20 years, and I believe it – I saw the bathroom when I first started dating him!
I was a skeptic. I tried washing with water only once, but I clearly didn’t do it right, so it failed, miserably.
I gave up on it, until I learned the proper way to do it, and it does not involve letting water just run through your hair. You gotta work it!
Now, I’ll never, ever use shampoo again. But I may consider a leave-in conditioner for the ends of my hair, but I think I may end up buying jojoba oil or something and moisturizing my ends with that instead of a chemical conditioner.
SHORT DIRECTIONS
Total time to shower and shave: 10 minutes
Prepare a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar into a large 12 ounce cup with cold water & set it where you can reach it in the bathtub, without it being diluted more by the shower
Soak your hair in regular, warm water
Scrub at your scalp vigorously with your fingernails as you would if you were rubbing shampoo into your scalp.
Do that scrubbing for about a minute (and squeeze out the water from your hair in between)
Take your prepared apple cider vinegar mix, and pour it all over your hair
Let it sit for about 5-7 seconds
Rinse it out thoroughly, scrubbing vigorously at your scalp again with your fingernails
Squeeze out the water from your hair and get out of the tub
Let your hair dry, and the next day as it starts to get a bit oily again, use the 100% boar bristle brush to comb the hair out from root to tip, to use your own natural hair oil to moisturize your hair.
MORE DETAILED DIRECTIONS
Under very warm water, soak your hair.
Using your fingers, scrub as your scalp. Skritch at your scalp if you must. They say it promotes blood flow to your scalp and helps stimulate hair growth.
Fact or fiction? I don’t know, but I have to do this if not the sebum, oil and dirt does NOT come off my hair.
You MUST scrub at your scalp, or else you’re just running water over the top of your hair, and it won’t do anything for you — that’s what I tried the first time I tried Water Only, and I cursed at BF because he told me it worked, but didn’t tell me to scrub my scalp, so I ended up with VERY oily hair that made me irritated.
The method I use to get out the oil is I usually turn my head sideways and let the water run down one temple and I rub my scalp at the temple, then I rotate my head from the crown (the part of your head, where a hat might normally hug your head), and then I do the other temple.
In the beginning of the 6-weeks, you might want to try flipping your hair upside down in the shower and scrubbing at your crown from underneath the hair. This may be easier because you can reach your crown easier and most of the oil collects on top of your head and crown.
After you are finished scrubbing at your scalp, grab that cup of cold, very diluted apple cider vinegar rinse (1 table spoon, 12 ounces of cold water), and slowly pour it on one side of your temple so that it reaches the length of your hair, rotating to the top where it spreads all the way down, and at the other temple.
Basically, saturate your hair with this stuff if you can.
Then, do another quick vigorous scrub of your scalp with the apple cider vinegar liquid still on your hair, to get it into the folds of your hair.
Let it stay in your hair for 10 seconds.
Switch the water to cool-to-warm, and rinse.
You’re done.
Note: You need to alternate the temperature of the water to help the sebum break up. That’s the tip I read online, and it seems to work. Very warm, to cool, back to slightly warm. Works great.
The last step that you absolutely must do, is buy a Boar Bristle Hairbrush (100%).
You will NEED to use this on the second, or third day before you wash your hair with water only. What you need to do, is brush your hair, to break up the sebum and oil, going from the roots to the tip.
Think of it as brushing natural hair oil throughout your hair so that the tips of your hair get conditioned from root to tip, naturally.
I never brushed my hair before this (seriously.. haven’t owned a hairbrush since I was a little girl), so this was a new thing I had to keep remembering to do. I always had naturally bouncy bedhead.
It also helps in the shower, because it untangles your hair and makes it easier to scrub at your scalp.
You will see all the oil and sebum in your hairbrush by the way. You’ll be fascinated by how much natural hair oil comes off on those bristles, and feel the partially solidified oil that your own body created. Sounds gross, but is kind of cool, if at the very least, interesting.
And you will need to learn how to clean that brush by rubbing out the oil from the brush with a towel and once every two weeks, washing it carefully with soap, water, and letting it air dry.
VERDICT
The smell of my old shampoo made me gag. I felt extremely sick. Probably a placebo only-in-my-little-head effect from just the idea of what’s in my shampoo in terms of these chemicals, and I probably made myself sick….. but it still made me dizzy and nauseous nonetheless.
I am going to consider buying some mineral oil, or jojoba oil.. or heck, just using olive oil, rubbing it in my palms (a couple of drops) and then just moisturizing the ends of my hair only, to keep them moisturized, but feeling them now, they don’t need anything.
Oh, and now I only wash my hair once every 3 days. I used to shampoo every day, then every second day.. and now, I wash my hair every third day with water. The third day looks a BIT oily, but nothing a little ponytail can’t fix.
If I don’t like it, I can just wash my hair quickly and it’ll be clean again.
I think every 2-3 days of washing works for my hair. I can’t go a two weeks or a month without washing. Some people have claimed to NOT have washed their hair for a month. I can’t believe that and I will never believe that because I can’t even get past the third day without washing.
BF washes his short (kind of stick-uppy, golf grass-like hair) every week, and it looks clean and feels clean all the time.
I tried washing my hair once every week (still taking showers every 2 days), and my hair was SO THICK and full of oil and sebum that I had to wash TWICE to get the oil out.
You would have thought my hair transformed into an otter or something, the way it repelled water in the shower.
No way. It felt sick, awful, disgusting.. I have to wash every 2 days to feel like my normal old, shampooing self.
WHY THIS WORKS
I’ve read countless articles and have been researching this for a couple of months now.
What you are essentially doing, is re-training your scalp to produce LESS oil than required. With shampoos, they strip your hair entirely of all the natural oils and moisture, and then you add it back with conditioners at the end.
To me, that didn’t make any sense: Clean our hair entirely of all dirt and oil, but then we essentially add it back in? Huh? Why don’t we just keep our natural oil?
After 6 weeks, your scalp WILL learn to produce less oil because you aren’t stripping it with shampoos, but it’ll be a bit of a transition in between.
And water only works and has always worked, because apparently, we do NOT need soap to get rid of grease or oil, BUT, soap makes it easier to do so, without having to scrub hard at a pan.
People say that you can actually remove grease with just rubbing at it with water, but it takes a longggggggg time. So enter the marvels of soap!
Anyway, my hair isn’t so dirty that I need a heavy duty cleanser like soap or shampoo to get dirt and oil out. And this is when I was walking all around the States, being a tourist for 12 hours a day, sweating like a slob.
It works, because you need to scrub at your scalp with your fingernails to break up the sebum and release the oil that is being caught there in between your (thick) hair, if you don’t, you will never get rid of that oily, greasy feeling.
You also need to get your fingers into the crown area and scrub there, as the oil tends to pool in that area. If you don’t, you will feel greasy.
It doesn’t seem to really matter what length of hair you have (short hair of course, is easier to clean), but if you have long thick hair like me, your hair soaks up the water and gets extremely heavy and water-repellent, like an oiled body of a seal.
It’s sometimes kind of hard to lift up that heavy thick hair, soaked in water, to get to my crown to wash my scalp there.
As for the apple cider vinegar rinse, it has been awesome.
CAUTION! Rae says that the cold water and the vinegar will SNAP your hair shafts tight, and that’s WHY it looks shinier and healthier… but I haven’t seen any damage to my hair at all, and in fact, it feels better than before. Less frizzy, smoother, silkier.
WHO SHOULD GIVE IT A SHOT
Boys – they seem to have the best results.
If your hair is fairly low maintenance
If you have short hair (best results have been seen on people with short hair)
If you want to avoid washing those chemicals down the drain…
…or just if you are allergic or nervous about that kind of stuff on your head (like me)If you don’t style your hair with mousses, gels and other things that need heavy duty stripping
If you want a very low maintenance program for your hair without losing your beauty (I’m vain)
If you travel a lot and are sick of bringing shampoo/conditioner along with makeup (me!)
If you don’t blowdry your hair or straighten, or curl it often
Maybe it’s better if I list what I DO to my hair:
- Wash with water
- Rinse with apple cider vinegar
- Let it air dry
- Brush it once every 2 days
I don’t use any products, any blowdrying, styling tools, dyes… you name it. All natural.
But I’m naturally blessed with very nice hair to begin with.
WHO SHOULD NOT TRY THIS
I am never going to advocate that you do anything I do. But if you are interested in trying, you should read these warnings first, learned first-hand by yours truly.
Hard Water is not recommendedIf you have very hard water with a lot of lime in it, avoid trying this. I don’t know how to figure out if you do or not, but in New York, the water was VERY hard at the Marriott Hotel.
My sister has this in her apartment, the water is just NOT good for this method. Even after washing and washing the way I normally did at home, my hair still felt greasy.
I should mention that I didn’t bring any Apple Cider Vinegar along with me, and it seems to work if you use that rinse at the end to finish.
So I started packing 2 bottles of 100mL of vinegar to start mixing in hotel rooms when I travel.
If you like to play with your hair or if you have long hair
If you use hair styling products (before or after), although a leave-in conditioner only on the tips of my hair works for me or if you like to do things to your hair, this may not be a good idea, as trying to wash out mousse or any hair product with just water, is not recommended.
I don’t use any of that stuff, so… I was the perfect candidate.
But I do have long hair, and I find that it does get difficult to wash my hair by rubbing the scalp bit by bit.
If you LOOOOVE shampoo!
If you also like shampoo and how easy it is to use and smell like a fruit or flower after, then avoid this by all means!!
Also avoid if you are allergic to apple cider vinegar
This will NOT be easier than using a shampoo from a bottle, in the sense that you can’t just rinse your hair with water, without rubbing at your scalp for longer, and expect it to work. The water just slides right off your oily hair if you don’t break up the oil and sebum with your fingers to let the water rinse it off.
(Although, can I mention that you don’t need as much shampoo as you think? A LITTLE dollop on very saturated hair will lather up wonderfully and do the same thing as if you squirt half the bottle on your head)
This is a bit more work in the beginning, because it is NOT easier (at the start) than using shampoo and conditioner (although it takes the same amount of time).
Much like a Diva Cup, you have to get used to it, then it’s second nature. Takes me 10 minutes in and out of the shower, including shaving (I don’t use shaving creams, I don’t ever get knicks, burns or scrapes — I also use a men’s Gillette razor on my body instead of a woman’s)
If you can’t stick to the regimen
It WILL take 6 weeks for your hair to adjust and your scalp to stop producing oil. And maybe a bit longer, or shorter. Took me 4 weeks, but I wanted to be sure, and go the whole hog at 6 weeks. I think doing that baking soda thing, really helped wean my scalp off shampoo before I went with water only.
Once you go water only, you can’t start alternating with shampoos. You will confuse your scalp.
OKAY OKAY. WHERE’S THE PROOF?
Glad you asked.
Update: This was before. Now as of 2011, I use more natural/normal shampoos sparingly and every 2 days. My hair is too long to handle no-poo any longer. It’s especially hard in the summer.
I knew this whole post would not convince you, but this is my hair now, and it has changed into being bit wavier, shinier, silkier, and thicker. It was very oily before, and I had to shower and shampoo daily and it looked nice before, but now my hair seems to take even less to look great.
And it keeps its style and shape longer.
UPDATE – July 3rd 2010
Long hair in the summer, takes too long to clean with this no shampoo method, especially if you are a disgusting Sweaty Betty like myself.
I’ve switched back to using shampoo, and went through Hugo Naturals (AWFUL brand of shampoo and conditioners, although they smell good, they SUCK).
I have Burt’s Bees Pomegranate line next, and if I am still not satisfied, I’ve heard great things about using Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap as a shampoo, and they just came out with a line of conditioners.
Green Beaver is also another good, TRULY eco-friendly brand to try. There are plenty of options out there, just experiment.
Another good brand might be Ojon. I have yet to try them.
Don’t trust the big brand names blindly (Aveda, Kiehl’s, Frieda, etc) only because they tend to use sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) but in a milder format of SLS like sodium laureth sulfate, or sodium lauryl sarcosinate…which allows them to claim that they don’t use “sodium lauryl sulfate”
Watch out for sneaky parabens and pthalates as well.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
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How hard do you press when scrubbing your scalp?
Thanks for the advices, very precious specially the fact we had to scub the hair well to get rid of the dirt. It s been almost a week i started the wo method and i must admit my hair already look good ( i had cut for a long time shampoo with sulfate before, guess it s why the result is fast), not smelly as i feared and i like the fact they are a little heavier, has reduced the frizz considerably. The scalp is clean ( scrubbing, scrubbing) and the dead ends are not dried (brushing, brushing with the bear brush). I found i take more time though in the shower to get rid of the dirt, not as expeditive as shampoiing, and also i brush my hair…more. But that s just fine. I am impatient to see how it s going to turn in few weeks.
Have you tried Pears glycerine soap (new recipe)? A great shampoo bar. It rinses clean, and leaves hair soft and shiny. Can be used once a week, and use water only daily (warm wash-cold rinse).
I’ve been WO officially since April, so… 8 months. When I first went no sls 14 months ago, I started with a bar of olive oil soap. My hair got thick and waxy, then calmed a bit but the waxiness never really went away. Then I transitioned to Earthsafe; I was excited it was simply made with syphinated coconut oil and tree saps. It was nice, but still felt like it was prolonging my transition (I was washing every 5-7 days), and although my hair wasn’t what you’d call waxy, it was still on the heavy side. Finally, I went water only, and it was going well, with the occasional egg yolk wash every few weeks when my hair got heavy, the only need for adjustment was in trying to figure out how to get my dry ends healthier. I have tried the vinegar thing and my hair hates it – it make it look like straw. I discovered brushing only at night helped spread the sebum and soaked in during the night; if I brushed in the morning my hair looked greasy at the roots by mid-day. I also picked up some jojoba oil for my ends.
Unfortunately, my hair freaked one day and it was as though over night wax had squirted out of my head, and so once again, after 4 months, I was back to the beginning. This is when I started thinking about the water, and thought about how wonderful my hair was, even with shampoo, when I went out of town. That’s when I looked up how hard the water was in my area, and found it to be the hardest in the country. And not only that, water apparently get harder in the winter months, which explains the sudden change. So, I decided to try something new.
I massaged my scalp with coconut oil and on the ends and let it sit over night. By the morning the oil had dissolved the waxy coat. I also got a juice jug and my Britta, and filled the jug with filtered water, then went and bent over the tub. Pouring the water and scrubbing my scalp at the same time, I washed my hair with the filtered water. Part way through, around half way throught the second juice jug, I added 5 drops of jojoba oil to my ends and pressed it in by using my palms on either side of the hair. Then I rinsed everything with the rest of the water. At that point, my hair felt softer than ever before! My scalp was clean, there was no waxiness, and the hairs just beyond were still slightly oily from the coconut oil (probably because pouring water doesn’t have the same water pressure as a shower head). but the rest of my hair looked fabulous! After 4 days I repeated this, but only rubbed my scalp with the coconut oil 5 minutes before washing not leaving it over night, and everythign looked amazing when it dried!
The one mistake I made was waiting too long to wash my hair between washes and really the mistake was in what I did as a result. I find 4 days to be right for my hair – that’s when I start to see the beginnings of a slight oiliness (similar to the thirsd day when I used shampoo). But yeah, one time I left it for 10 days and because it was so full of sebum (not waxy) I thought I should use something more and reached for an egg yolk. My hair looked terrible after that! It took a week and a half and 3 filtered water washes later to find the balance again.
So now I use just enough coconut oil to cover my finger tip and massage it into my scalp, wash with the filtered water, and press the jojoba oil in befre the final rinse, brush every couple evenings and I’m very happy with the results. I wear my hair down here and there when I feel like it, my hair is healthy, tangle free, and the hair that fell out while I used shampoos, is growing back!
Oh! As for hair type and length, my hair is down to the middle of my back and is pretty much like Julia Roberts.
What I found to be the hardest in all this, was in adjusting my view of what was hygenic. I’m a very natural person to begin with, so I was shocked at my emotional reaction! I was feeling like everything was so dirty, and even went on a few cleanign frenzies as a result. I also had to adjust to what hair really feels like. It actually feels a bit more like cat fur (healthy, soft fur) rather than stripped down, coated, dry shampooed hair. I think its because when it’s just natural sebum, the natural texture of the indidvidual hairs is more noticable.
When I went water onlly, I also stopped using soap on my body, and despite it being winter here in Canada, I haven’t needed to use moisturizers since! My skin is soft and beautiful!
So that’smy story! I hope I didn’t use up all your server space with this!!! 🙂
i am trying this water only thing combined with soapnut powder and chickpeas powder as a natural shampoo. seems like my hair is allergic to the sls and is breaking and falling like crazy. i hv tried burt bees pomgranate (makes the hair veryyy dry – at least for me). i tried lush (has sls…not very good). i have tried ojon (too oily). i tried ‘yes to carrots’ – i think it has small quantities of sls though.
the only decent truly natural brand that has given good results is ‘Aubrey’s shampoo’. i have tried egg and beer (not combined) as a conditioner on various occasions and both work pretty great.
Oh thank you for the recommendation!
I had the same problems with Burts and the others.. even Dr. Bronners is VERY drying. Aubrey’s will be on my list now.
I like the idea of soapnut powder with chickpeas.. soapnuts are a natural surfactant.
I read your blog and I liked how you laid everything out point by point but I found some more info that I thought you might find interesting and this website: http://www.natural-forces.com/essays/poofree.htm and: http://babyslime.livejournal.com/174054.html (she posts the same posts but adds in her own personal experience).
I have been doing the BS and ACV ( 1 TBSP of Baking soda to 1 cup of water and 1 TBSP of Apple Cider Vinegar to 1 cup of water) routine twice a week and it has been working for me. In between I wash my hair with just water and sometimes with a ACV rinse or herb rinse, sometimes both. I periodically do a herb rinse which I love because it gives you a nice smell and I can change them up or mix them together if I need something specific.
Anyway I hope this is interesting to you.
hi – still doing this and loving it overall, but still having horrid, horrid dandruff (i posted a couple of months back). any suggestions for me? please please?
all the stuff on the internet about no-poo and dandruff blames baking soda, but i am using your method w/o baking soda, and dont know why i have such tons of dandruff. can you help…please? thank you!
Dee – have you thought of using jojoba oil? I hear that helps with lot's of things including dandruff… May be worth a try!
I heard using a white vinegar rinse will help with the dandruff. 1 TBSP of White Vinegar to 1 cup of Water. Pour it over you head before or after your ACV rinse. That should help.
thank you! i will try that. hope it helps, and will post here to let folk now. thanks again!
I should warn you, I\’ve since switched back to shampoo but an eco-friendly SLS-free one because my hair is too long and thick (plus I got dandruff)
no really?! yours was my favourite no-poo method – i still love it despite the ridiculous dandruff. will you be going back to it now that winter is coming? i am still hoping to fix this horrid horrid dandruff because that is the *only* downside. i have tried the regular white vinegar mentioned by one poster, but it left my hair WAY to straw-like. Will now try jojoba – but any other suggestions are most welcome!!
I think I might go back to it with winter hitting, or I might just wash my hair less. I need my hair to be shorter to do the no-poo method properly. 🙁
just have to tell you all that i finally have succeeded in controlling the dandruff. had tried tea tree oil, no go. white vinegar, also no go. but it turns out that jojoba oil is just the ticket – thanks so much for the suggestion, laura. i apply it sporadically, as needed.
now i will get some occasional dandruff, but that is usually after i have washed with just water for a long period, and not right after the ACV and the several just-water-washings after. but even so, the jojoba oil seem to control it.
i really love this routine, so many plusses: super fast showering, no more product (not just shampoo, but i stopped used any other products altogether) to waste money on and keep buying, my hair is MUCH thicker and fuller (all those natural oils provide natural body!), and my hair doesnt fall out as much or feel as oily as it did when i was shampooing daily (it would feel gross by the end of the day) or every other day.
i was going to keep doing this routine despite the dandruff, because it didnt show too too badly with my hair colour, but it kind of grossed me out sometimes. now – it's an easy decision, and i dont ever want to go back.
hope my great experience will encourage some others, too!
Oh really? jojoba oil. I have to give it a shot, because my scalp is STILL dandruff-y from my experiment a year ago.
I\’ll give it another shot.
I've been doing a very successful water only washing routine and it was all because I read your blog, thanks! I did want to comment on the section of "Who should not try this..," and it says that people with soft water shouldn't try this, but I think you meant to say people with HARD WATER. I struggle with hard water now because overtime it leaves deposits on my hair, bleh! But, fortunately the vinegar rinse combats this effect. Anyway, great blog!
Thank you! I did mean hard water then 🙂 It feels slimy!
i am LOVING your method and have been following it for about two months. only one problem: dandruff. bad, bad dandruff. like the how-do-so-many-flakes-fit-in-such-a-small-space dandruff. any suggestions?
thank you!
Dr. Bronner's is amazing soap. The company has been around for years and is completely biodegradable, no harmful chemicals at all, totally safe for waterways and humans of course! It's a great little company with one factory/HQ in Escondido, CA.
I’m going to try them out next 🙂
Hi FB,
do you know if there are any alternatives to Boar Bristle available? I'm trying to stay away from beauty products that are not friendly to animals.
My feeling is that anything that would resemble boar bristle would be all right — perhaps a plastic alternative?
The problem with boar bristle versus plastic is either way, there’s a con. Boar Bristle = Animal-Unfriendly and Plastic = Earth-Unfriendly.. 🙁
i was wondering if you could was your hair with only water without the vinegar rinse at the end and still get all the oil and dirt out
I suppose you could, but you’d need shorter hair, and a cloth to get to your scalp to scrub away the oil
Very, very interesting! Thanks so much for sharing your experience! Going to have to give this a try. Do you know if it's okay to use dry shampoo in between since it's not a soap and simply absorbs excess oil?
Hi I'm new to the whole going shampooless, and found your blog extremely helpful! I was sort of leaning towards the same thoughts that you posted: That baking soda might be too drying and that I would go with water and vinegar rinse.
It's really encouraging and helpful to see your steps, advice and results.
Thank you! Hope my hair ends up as nice as yours!
I’m going to try the water-only with the vinegar rinse and see how it goes. I’ll report back!
.-= Ms.Terri´s last blog ..What’s that ya say? I can’t hear you. I’ve got a thigh in my ear. =-.
This is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant. I’m going to run to the store on my lunch break to pick up a big bottle of apple cider vinegar. How serendipitous that I read this today, too!
I have very fine, very thin, VERY curly hair that should only be washed every three or four days, but because it’s so fine, it gets creased and absolutely horrible once I sleep on it. I literally cannot wear it down two days in a row without washing it. But washing it 5x a week to make it presentable for my job (reception for law firm = pretty picky about how I look) was shellacking it in gooey chemicals and weighing down my curls to a gross blanket of fizz.
I was thinking to myself just this morning: “Geez, if only there were some way I could shower to reset the curl and clean the hair without stripping it then weighing it down with conditioner.”
This is too perfect. I feel liberated already. I am SO doing this!
.-= That Kind of Girl´s last blog ..The Kind of Girl Who … speeds down the open road with the wind whipping at her hair (An NTKOG That Wasn’t) =-.
@TKOG I hope it works for you!! Thin hair seems to be more responsive, but you know what — it’s going to feel gross for a couple of weeks. Trust me.