No-poo

Scarlet tagged me for a meme on favorite beauty products. I love a good meme as much as the next girl, but this one's a toughie for me since it's pretty much all I can do these days to shower, never mind use beauty products. Also, I'm in the process of greening up all my toiletries and makeup, but that requires a lot of using up a lot of ho-hum products that I already have, and that are too boring to blog about. I'll try to remember to spout off about lots of green products as I trial them, but I can share a little experiment I started this week. I was planning to wait until I was further along to mention it, but why not let the cat out of the bag early?

I'm trying to give up shampoo. And conditioner. It's called no-pooing and you basically wash your hair with baking soda and rinse with vinegar. My main motivation is saving money, followed closely by saving planet. There are a gazillion websites out there about how to do this. Most of them are very vague and say things like, "Mix baking soda and water. You'll have to play around with your ratios to figure out what works for you." So there's no point in me linking anything for you.

The point is that baking soda supposedly strips out all kinds of residues that shampoo and conditioner leave behind. You also avoid exposing yourself and your environment to all kinds of chemicals that you really ought not to be exposed to.

I've tried this once so far and already think I did not use enough baking soda. It doesn't help that I dragged a Costco-sized bag of baking soda into the bathroom with me and a glass bottle of apple cider vinegar from the kitchen. I then tried to dump baking soda into an empty shampoo bottle while standing in the shower. I'm not going to save much money with half the baking soda going down the drain. Clearly, I need to get my containers prepared before getting in the shower next time (tonight).

I will say this: My hair did not feel squeaky clean like it does after shampooing, but it did feel clean. It was strangely...thicker? I don't know. It felt like there was more of it. The texture was a little off, but I haven't had my haircut since March, so it may have more to do with that. It did not smell vinegar-y.

Anyway, I'll keep y'all updated. I know the status of my hair and hair-cleaning rituals is keeping you on the edge of your seats.