No Shampoo

Shampoo has been a bit of a problem for a while - lots of allergies means more and more shampoos are making us react. My daughter has been having a lot of skin problems due to shampoo, so we've been a bit desperate lately.

Which leads me to here: cleaning my hair without shampoo. I know people do this. I hear about it; I read about it. So I decided to give it a try.
First, I found some good directions. I liked this blogger's method:
http://simplemom.net/how-to-clean-your-hair-without-shampoo/

Her method for going washing hair without shampoo:

1. 1 Tb baking soda in 1 cup water to clean the scalp mostly, and the hair a little - most of the oil is going to be on the scalp. It is a mild alkaline and can clarify the hair. Scrub well with it, then rinse well.
2. 1 Tb. apple cider vinegar in 1 cup water, use to help detangle, seal the cuticle, and restore the PH balance after the baking soda. She just uses this on the ends of her hair, not so much all of it. Lemon juice can be used instead of this, if needed. Supposedly, you can use honey instead of this as well, if your hair is too dry.
3. Use only what is needed. She uses 1 cup of the baking soda water in about a week, and the apple cider vinegar mixture lasts even longer. If your hair is too dry afterward, use less baking soda. If it's too oily, use less apple cider vinegar.

She mentions a phenomenon that many people experience: your hair is used to having the oil stripped almost daily by shampoo, so it produces a LOT of oil. It will have to adjust to your not stripping the oil all the time, so your hair may take some time to adjust to a new cleaning regimen, and may produce too much oil for a while. A few days to a few weeks, maybe?


We made up a batch of this yesterday, using only 2 teaspoons per cup rather than a Tb, just to try it out. For my hair, it worked amazingly well. I was really impressed - my hair looked great!

My daughter's didn't turn out so well, so we had to go over the technique with her today - she doesn't rinse out the baking soda well enough. Today's attempt did much better, I think. We'll see. At least her skin doesn't seem to be suffering because of it! 

I'm hoping this will continue to go well. Not only was it easy, and safer in terms of allergens, it is also a heck of a lot cheaper than the expensive shampoos! :-)

1/17/2013 EDIT:
I now use a slightly different method for haircare that works great with both my daughter AND my hair! Check it out!