Water Only Success Story
I haven't even looked at LJ for months, but after having gone no-poo for a couple years now, and WO for at least a year, I feel I owe the community a report on how it's gone. I found the info in this community to be absolutely indispensable while I was getting started (i.e. about the first year), so I hope this post may be of help to someone else. My hair is 2b/F/i (wavy/thin/fine) and, in the time I've been no-poo, has ranged from shoulder to brastrap length.
I started no-poo two summers ago, after experiencing a lot of hair loss/thinning. I was desperate to do anything to stop it. The loss has stopped and there has been some regrowth, but I now believe that was related to a B vitamin deficiency, not hair products. Benefits I do believe are related to going no-poo include less scalp odor, stronger/healthier hair (fewer split ends), shorter shower times, a better understanding of my own body, and money saved on product purchases.
I started out on BS/WV, but concluded that baking soda was way too harsh for my hair. After a few months I started doing WO more often, with occasional applesauce scrubs and flaxseed gel conditioning (maybe every 1-2 weeks). I thought they were kind of a bother (it's hard to get all the apple fiber out of your hair, and flaxseed gel requires a little prep beforehand instead of just hopping straight into the shower). But I liked what they did for my hair, and was committed to sticking with this project, so I did it anyway.
I want to emphasize that going no-poo has required a lot of troubleshooting, creativity, flexibility, and compromise on my part. It's been a fun project to take on, but sometimes also frustrating. There was no clear end to my "transition period", just a gradual improvement over time. I have definitely had some gross hair days. I have been lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest region of the US, where there's not a lot of social pressure on white women like me to be immaculately groomed (I can't speak to the experience of women of color there, but I suspect it varies). I also worked in a pretty relaxed environment. So while I have had days when I hated the way I looked, I didn't suffer any social consequences for it. That freed me up to experiment on my hair with a sense of adventure, rather than a sense of dread.
I have spent the past year traveling around the US, and my hair has survived many different environments and conditions. I wash WO whenever possible, but differences in climate, water pH and water pressure sometimes require troubleshooting and patience while my hair adjusts to new conditions.
My hair is currently shoulder-length, and I WO wash it as needed (which varies anywhere from 2 days to a week) by scrubbing my scalp under hot water with my fingertips (no nails). Sometimes I'll also comb my hair out with my fingers or a big-toothed comb under the water, so that I can avoid combing it after it dries (to retain as much curl as possible). Sometimes I give it a final rinse in cold water to "set" the curl, sometimes I don't. I scrunch it in a towel to dry; I haven't used a hairdryer in decades.
When I wash my hair with hard water, especially where water pressure is low, it can get heavy and waxy-feeling, and leave a lot of gray gunk on my combs. My hair is really well-behaved on my first day after a hard water wash, but after that, sometimes it's just clumpy and greasy. It can adapt to these conditions over time, but in the meantime, I sometimes de-gunk with a conditioner-only wash. I use Suave Naturals, because they're cone-free, cheap, and easy to find in the US. But I use so little per wash that a bottle lasts me approximately forever.
When I wash my hair with soft water, especially where water pressure is high, it can get dry and frizzy. To combat this, I rub aloe vera gel into my scalp while it's still wet. When it's dry, sometimes I'll comb a little more into my hair with my fingertips to turn the frizz into locks. It works really well. I've found that aloe vera gel is also a great treatment for an itchy or flaky scalp.
I use a plastic big-toothed comb and a wooden fine-toothed comb at different times, and they still get gray gunk all over them, even when the water is soft. I'm not gonna lie: the gray gunk is gross, and I wish I knew how to reduce it without going back to shampoo. But that's the sebum doing its job to keep my hair healthy, and it's a fact of life I'm willing to live with in order to be no-poo. I clean my combs with a toothbrush (water for the plastic one, not for the wooden one), and then I clean the toothbrush with liquid soap and hot water.
Overall, the system works pretty well, though not flawlessly. I still have bad hair days, I still have comb gunk. A big part of going no-poo for me has been giving up total control of how my hair looks from day to day. And there have been lovely surprises in giving my hair more leeway to figure out what it wants to do, days where I looked in the mirror with delight and said to my hair, "Wow, I didn't know you could do that!" I'm sure the future will hold more problems and solutions to discover, but no-poo has been a worthwhile journey so far, and I'm confident it will continue to be.
Incidentally, after I went no-poo, I also gave up soap (except for handwashing). That was a much easier transition: after a couple of stinky weeks, I didn't miss it at all. If anything, I smell better now without it. I scrub my skin with a washcloth in the shower every few days, and occasionally clean my face with the Oil Cleansing Method. I use a natural (crystal) deodorant and sometimes augment it with a teeny dab of perfume oil to mitigate any smells that may sneak through. I wouldn't recommend no-poo to just anybody, but I think everyone should try going no-soap for a month!
Please feel free to comment if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.
[edited to fix link issues]
I started no-poo two summers ago, after experiencing a lot of hair loss/thinning. I was desperate to do anything to stop it. The loss has stopped and there has been some regrowth, but I now believe that was related to a B vitamin deficiency, not hair products. Benefits I do believe are related to going no-poo include less scalp odor, stronger/healthier hair (fewer split ends), shorter shower times, a better understanding of my own body, and money saved on product purchases.
I started out on BS/WV, but concluded that baking soda was way too harsh for my hair. After a few months I started doing WO more often, with occasional applesauce scrubs and flaxseed gel conditioning (maybe every 1-2 weeks). I thought they were kind of a bother (it's hard to get all the apple fiber out of your hair, and flaxseed gel requires a little prep beforehand instead of just hopping straight into the shower). But I liked what they did for my hair, and was committed to sticking with this project, so I did it anyway.
I want to emphasize that going no-poo has required a lot of troubleshooting, creativity, flexibility, and compromise on my part. It's been a fun project to take on, but sometimes also frustrating. There was no clear end to my "transition period", just a gradual improvement over time. I have definitely had some gross hair days. I have been lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest region of the US, where there's not a lot of social pressure on white women like me to be immaculately groomed (I can't speak to the experience of women of color there, but I suspect it varies). I also worked in a pretty relaxed environment. So while I have had days when I hated the way I looked, I didn't suffer any social consequences for it. That freed me up to experiment on my hair with a sense of adventure, rather than a sense of dread.
I have spent the past year traveling around the US, and my hair has survived many different environments and conditions. I wash WO whenever possible, but differences in climate, water pH and water pressure sometimes require troubleshooting and patience while my hair adjusts to new conditions.
My hair is currently shoulder-length, and I WO wash it as needed (which varies anywhere from 2 days to a week) by scrubbing my scalp under hot water with my fingertips (no nails). Sometimes I'll also comb my hair out with my fingers or a big-toothed comb under the water, so that I can avoid combing it after it dries (to retain as much curl as possible). Sometimes I give it a final rinse in cold water to "set" the curl, sometimes I don't. I scrunch it in a towel to dry; I haven't used a hairdryer in decades.
When I wash my hair with hard water, especially where water pressure is low, it can get heavy and waxy-feeling, and leave a lot of gray gunk on my combs. My hair is really well-behaved on my first day after a hard water wash, but after that, sometimes it's just clumpy and greasy. It can adapt to these conditions over time, but in the meantime, I sometimes de-gunk with a conditioner-only wash. I use Suave Naturals, because they're cone-free, cheap, and easy to find in the US. But I use so little per wash that a bottle lasts me approximately forever.
When I wash my hair with soft water, especially where water pressure is high, it can get dry and frizzy. To combat this, I rub aloe vera gel into my scalp while it's still wet. When it's dry, sometimes I'll comb a little more into my hair with my fingertips to turn the frizz into locks. It works really well. I've found that aloe vera gel is also a great treatment for an itchy or flaky scalp.
I use a plastic big-toothed comb and a wooden fine-toothed comb at different times, and they still get gray gunk all over them, even when the water is soft. I'm not gonna lie: the gray gunk is gross, and I wish I knew how to reduce it without going back to shampoo. But that's the sebum doing its job to keep my hair healthy, and it's a fact of life I'm willing to live with in order to be no-poo. I clean my combs with a toothbrush (water for the plastic one, not for the wooden one), and then I clean the toothbrush with liquid soap and hot water.
Overall, the system works pretty well, though not flawlessly. I still have bad hair days, I still have comb gunk. A big part of going no-poo for me has been giving up total control of how my hair looks from day to day. And there have been lovely surprises in giving my hair more leeway to figure out what it wants to do, days where I looked in the mirror with delight and said to my hair, "Wow, I didn't know you could do that!" I'm sure the future will hold more problems and solutions to discover, but no-poo has been a worthwhile journey so far, and I'm confident it will continue to be.
Incidentally, after I went no-poo, I also gave up soap (except for handwashing). That was a much easier transition: after a couple of stinky weeks, I didn't miss it at all. If anything, I smell better now without it. I scrub my skin with a washcloth in the shower every few days, and occasionally clean my face with the Oil Cleansing Method. I use a natural (crystal) deodorant and sometimes augment it with a teeny dab of perfume oil to mitigate any smells that may sneak through. I wouldn't recommend no-poo to just anybody, but I think everyone should try going no-soap for a month!
Please feel free to comment if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.
[edited to fix link issues]