Oops.  I don’t know what I was thinking but I totally forgot to do my day 16 no poo update.

So, here it is on day 17.  We’ll just go ahead and call it day 16 and be good with that. I’ll post a picture later today, as I didn’t take one yesterday. 

Quick recap -
Because I’m frugal (along with a ton other reasons, like I’m a little crazy) I’ve decided to experiment with no poo hair washing.  That means no shampoo or conditioners.  At. All.

I’ll be posting updates on days 2, 4, 8, 16, one month, then monthly from there on out until I hit 6 months

Or until I quit because I realized it was a stupid thing to try.

Today is day 16.

My hair is getting softer, though the just showered texture still feels funny – I’m getting used to it. 
We went camping and my no poo experiment almost took a detour… well, let’s just say I thought about shampooing a couple times.  Not going totally back to shampoo – just using it once to get the campfire smell out.  However, I didn’t succumb and just did a baking soda scrub when I got home.  After that my hair was so soft and a lot less frizzy and had no residual camping side effects. 

Speaking of frizz, I haven’t had to use nearly as much gunk to keep it from frizzing.  In fact, yesterday I went without any products at all and my hair didn’t frizz but a tiny bit!  My natural waves are really starting to show without any effort on my part. 

So far all is good.  I’m quite happy with all this no pooing. 

I’ll post a picture later, like I said before.   And my next update will be on Day 30.

Today is day 8 of my no poo experiment.

Quick recap -
Because I’m frugal (along with a ton other reasons, like I’m a little crazy) I’ve decided to experiment with no poo hair washing.  That means no shampoo or conditioners.  At. All.

I’ll be posting updates on days 2, 4, 8, 16, one month, then monthly from there on out until I hit 6 months

Or until I quit because I realized it was a stupid thing to try.

Today is day 8.

My hair is doing well. I haven’t had any of the issues other no pooers claim in the beginning.  My head is no longer itchy and dry, and although the texture is weird when it’s wet, it’s still easy to brush and dries soft.  The texture when it’s wet does bug me more than a little, and if it weren’t for all the positive results I might have switched back to conditioner by now. 

I quit using apple cider vinegar 3 days ago.  I didn’t really notice any difference when I used it so I stopped.  The only difference is that I don’t catch a slight whiff of vinegar when I turn my head. 
And that is fine by me.

So, I am truly not washing or conditioning my hair with anything.

I’ve noticed that when I decide to scrunch my natural waves, it doesn’t take nearly as much gel to keep the friz out.  I’ve got to figure out how little to use because I don’t like my hair all crunchy. 

The picture shows it slightly damp (it’s thick and takes forever to dry) and with nothing in it. 

I curled it with a curling iron on Saturday just to see how it would do.  It curled fine and I didn’t need anything to hold the curl in.  However, I’ve always curled my hair without having to use hairspray or gel or anything, so this isn’t the result of the no poo experiment.

Then my friend threw mashed potatoes at me and I had to no poo wash it real good to get it all out. 

Thanks, friend.

The food came out of my hair just fine, so my worry about needing to use shampoo went down the drain. (goofy pun intended)

I’ll update next on day 16 – next Tuesday, December 1st.  That’ll be after 4 days of camping.  Should be a good test.

Today is day 4 of my no poo experiment.

Quick recap -
Because I’m frugal (along with a ton other reasons, like I’m a little crazy) I’ve decided to experiment with no poo hair washing.  That means no shampoo or conditioners.  At. All.

I’ll be posting updates on days 2, 4, 8, 16, one month, then monthly from there on out until I hit 6 months

Or until I quit because I realized it was a stupid thing to try.

Today is day 4, like I said.  In the picture my hair is still damp and I’ve scrunched the natural waves a bit.  Usually I have to work hard to get it this wavy but yesterday and today it didn’t take any work at all.

I have very dark brown hair that I colored to dark blond like crazy for more than 10 years (except for that one time I accidentally colored it black.  But we won’t talk about that). 
About 8 months ago I did one last color back to my original dark color and haven’t colored it since.  The roots are nice and dark - natural color, but the colored portion has faded quite a bit back to an unnatural lighter color.  Not as light as I had it colored before, but definitely lighter than it should be.

So, the reason the roots look so much darker than the rest of my hair is because they are.

Today, just to try it out, I rinsed my hair in apple cider vinegar after I washed it in just warm water.  I put about 2 TBS of ACV in a spray bottle with about 8 oz water.  I sprayed it all over my hair, being careful to get the roots.  I let it soak into my hair for about 3 to 5 minutes and then rinsed thoroughly. 

I notice only a slight difference in the texture of my hair, it feels a little lighter and softer, and my head has a slight salad smell.  Kait said she couldn’t smell it until she put her nose right into my hair.  She also said it doesn’t smell bad at all.

Other things I’ve noticed in the last two days since my 2 day post:
My head no longer itches and my dandruff is almost gone.  The flakes I’m seeing now are very small, where 4 days ago they were huge and my head itched really bad (I have cronic dry scalp in the spring and fall).
My hair is taking on a different texture.  I can’t decide if I like it or not.  It almost feels like I’ve used too heavy a conditioner or something.  Still, it looks clean and doesn’t smell nasty.

I’ll update again on the 8th day.  Though we’ll be camping with a large number of very good friends so if you don’t see the post right away it’s because, well, we’re camping. Got my days wrong.  We won’t be camping yet.

If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments or contact me (the link’s at the top of the page).  I’ll answer what I can so far in this experiment.

It’s because I’m frugal.

I started by looking into making my own homemade shampoo.  I really wasn’t satisfied with any of the recipes I was finding but I was intrigued by the amount of people who actually confessed to not using shampoo at all.  They call it no poo.

Gross!

But I kept reading.  And the more I read the more it made sense. 

When the natural oils in our hair are stripped out by shampoo everyday, our head will do one of two things.  Either cease to make much oil – creating dry hair, or make too much oil to replenish what we’re stripping out with shampoo, creating heavy, greasy hair.  There’s also a lot of discussion on the carcinogenic nature of your regular store bought shampoo’s ingredients.  I’ll have to say that I’m not all that concerned about that particular issue – but if it’s true, then bonus!
People who use regular shampoo claim it took 3 to 6 weeks for their body to regulate the oils in their hair when they started going no-poo.  And those who have only used natural shampoos said it took about a week to achieve positive results. 

So, I’m doing this experiment.  Mostly because I’m just curious and I like to try odd things for myself.  But, I have a few other reasons, too.  Like my dry scalp.

Here’s  what I’ve started doing. 

I’m washing my thick, dark colored, wavy, long hair with hot water once a day, carefully massaging my scalp.  No shampoo, no conditioner.  If my hair starts to look or smell yucky I’ll do a baking soda scrub – 2 tablespoons dissolved in 16 oz of water.  And if my hair starts to get hard to manage I’ll rinse it with apple cider vinegar – same dilution as the baking soda scrub.

If this doesn’t work I’ll lock it up in the safe of stupid-things-I’ve-tried. 

But, if it does work…

How awesome would that be!  No more wasting money on over priced shampoo!

My perfectly positive outcome would be a head of very wavy or curly hair -many people say that their wavy hair became positively curly after a month of no-pooing it, no more friz, and no more itchy dry scalp issues.   I guess it could take a month or so of no poo to achieve my desired results.

Today is day two.  I’ve washed my hair in just warm water this morning.  Although it didn’t have that slickish conditioned feel, it wasn’t difficult to brush out at all.  I waited until it dried and then I straightened it.  I have no product in it at all.  It’s perfectly shiny and healthy looking.   It doesn’t seem overly greasy or unwashed.  It just looks normal.

So far so good.

Here we go.