Comments | no_poo: No shampoo (week 5)

mistress_elaine in no_poo

No shampoo (week 5)

Jul 12, 2007 12:21

At the end of Week 4 I decided to rinse my hair more often to see whether that would make any difference. The result? Among many other things (some of them quite bad), serious logorrhoea. Consider yourself warned -- this is going to be a long post.

( Week 5: In which my brush and I beg for mercy )

sticky hair, ~mistress_elaine, buildup, detox period

Comments 44

n3m3sis42 July 12 2007, 11:10:32 UTC

Wow, this sounds so frustrating... I don't do water-only so, I can't speak to how often you would need it, but I can say that I only do my BS/ACV rinse once a week, and I normally feel like I need a "water wash" about twice a week, but it varies because I live in Georgia where the humidity is through the roof all summer and it's in the mid-90's for months. In May when I finished my adjustment period, it was less hot out and I could sometimes go all week without a water-wash.

I've never had the sebum problem though; I don't know what causes it. Good luck finding out--I'm sure you will.

mistress_elaine July 12 2007, 13:06:31 UTC

Thank you! I'm already doing better now that I've stopped washing my hair every night. I'm certain my massive build-up problem was caused by those daily rinses. There's no way I'm trying those again.

Going all week without washing is what I'm aiming at, which is why washing my hair every day struck me as a bad idea right from the start. How long did it take you to get to the point where you could sometimes go all week without a wash? Inquiring minds wish to know...

n3m3sis42 July 12 2007, 13:21:19 UTC

It took me about 9-10 weeks to get to that point...

When I first started, I think I was doing the BS/ACV rinses every other day? But after about 3-4 weeks, I think I had decreased them to every 3-4 days. Looking back on my progress posts, I think I was water-washing every day that I didn't rinse for a while, and then I think I gradually decreased that, too.

Most of the time, if I want to wear my hair down and actuallly leave the house, I do at least water-wash just to make sure the oils are distributed throughout my length. Otherwise, I find that my roots look a bit oily. This was not the case when it was cooler out, and it's really okay at the moment because most of the time when it's this hot outside, I really want a shower every morning anyway, so doing a water wash isn't that big of a pain.

mistress_elaine July 12 2007, 13:35:26 UTC

I love how you say that doing a water wash isn't that big of a pain if you're having a shower, anyway. To me, doing water-only washes is a massive pain as it takes my hair so unbelievably long to dry. Last week, when I was washing my hair every day, my shoulder-length hair took about five hours to dry, which I think is insane. When I'm washing less often, it takes about three hours to dry, which is still pretty annoying. I don't like going out with wet hair, so I'm basically confined to my house whenever I wash my hair.

I think I'll try washing my hair once every three days from now on. I was doing reasonably well with that a few weeks ago; it wasn't until the fourth day after a wash that it got really greasy. One rinse every three days sounds about right to me for now...

Thread 20

gkingsley July 12 2007, 13:12:16 UTC

I've got nothing to add here, except that I still think you need to wash with Stuff more often. Your scalp simply isn't capable of adjusting to WO this quickly.

Good luck. Thanks for the detailed descriptions of your Grand Experiment - I, for one, am enjoying following your story!

mistress_elaine July 12 2007, 13:24:12 UTC

Thanks so much for your support! I think you're right about my needing to wash with Stuff more often. I know some people are successful with the cold-turkey approach, and I was hoping I'd be one of them, but my scalp doesn't seem to be up to it. I think I'll do myself a favour by clarifying my hair every now and then. Now I just need to find the right ingredients and/or ratios...

supercarrot July 12 2007, 15:04:33 UTC

are you washing (or at least rinsing/scrubbing with your fingers) your brush after your marathon brushing sprees?

mistress_elaine July 12 2007, 15:15:32 UTC

I wash my brush every day, and last week I washed it several times a day. So, no, that wasn't what was causing the problem. The problem obviously was the frequent rinsing. My scalp is secreting much less gunk now that I've stopped washing my hair every day, which is quite a relief.

supercarrot July 12 2007, 15:50:38 UTC

are you using very warm water? warmer water is purported to cause more sebum production than cooler water.

mistress_elaine July 12 2007, 16:03:17 UTC

Nope. I'm using moderately warm water followed by a thorough cold rinse. I'm actually considering using hotter water (despite its sebum-producing properties) as some people say it helps melt and wash away the sebum. As you can see, I'm clutching at straws...

I think part of my problem may be pressure-related. I have fairly low water pressure where I live. Some time next week I hope to wash my hair at my parents', whose shower produces a much more powerful jet than mine. I'll be interested to see if that makes any difference.

Thread 17

wingsfromashes July 12 2007, 16:13:02 UTC

I agree about the "Stuff". I have read a good bit of your hair diaries from week 1 on, and I think there's definitely been a lot of too-frequent rinsing (which I can understand a compulsion to do when your hair looks/feels bad) and most absolutely a need for something other than just water. If you don't like the idea of baking soda, maybe at least try tea? I wash mine with tea, and I use peppermint, which I have no idea of any herbal benefit or not, but I like it for the smell. When I use my white vinegar solution to scrub my scalp (which I do for flake purposes), I feel like the strong peppermint fragrance helps get rid of some of the vinegar odor ( ... )

mistress_elaine July 12 2007, 16:44:58 UTC

You think there's been a lot of too-frequent rinsing? That's kind of funny, actually, given that until last week, I seldom washed my hair more than twice a week. I was trying to go as long between washings as I could, but after four days I usually had to wash my hair as it was simply getting too greasy. So that's when other people started suggesting I wash my hair more often, which is what I did last week. I'm now reverting to twice a week. Surely that's not too often at this stage of my routine? I hope to get by with once a week eventually, but I doubt my scalp is ready for that yet ( ... )

wingsfromashes July 12 2007, 17:11:01 UTC

Hmm, well, I know I missed one week's diary post, but from what I remember, there was quite a bit of Day X - wash, Day X+1 - looks bad, wash... that sort of thing. You may have moved past that by now, sorry. I was going on memory, I'm so behind in my LJ reading ( ... )

mistress_elaine July 12 2007, 17:23:52 UTC

Heh. That's quite all right. No need to apologise. I know I'm producing massive texts here; I don't expect others to read them all and learn them by heart. :-) And you're right, there have been times when I did something wrong and washed my hair again the next day to see if that made things any better. For the most part, though, I've been trying to go three or four days between washings, and that's what I'm reverting to now.

Yeah, I read in the longhair community that hibiscus tea must be left in and that it's wise not to use white towels or wear white shirts afterwards. I guess it's a good thing that most of my towels and clothes are dark. :-)

I did a beer rinse on Day 25. I think prettyasapeso (who posted about it the other day) may have got the idea from there.

I may give orange rind water a try some day. It actually sounds kind of cool to me. And I love the smell of oranges, so it may be worth trying if my scalp ever gets smelly (which, thankfully, it isn't at the moment). Thanks for the suggestion!

Thread 6

mayna August 8 2007, 22:28:32 UTC

I've been reading your no-poo saga, and I was actually really surprised to read that English is your 2nd language, not your first. I can usually tell if someone speaks English as a 2nd language, because they don't use the same exact phrases that I would use even if it's grammatically correct. How did you learn English so well? I find that lots of Dutch people seem to speak English incredibly well, and i don't quite believe it's from watching movies ( ... )

mistress_elaine August 12 2007, 18:22:39 UTC

Thank you! I'm a professional translator, so it would be quite shocking if you could tell from the way I write that I'm obviously not a native English speaker. As for how I learned English so well, well, I don't want to brag, but I have a gift for languages. I speak several languages, albeit none so well as English. It certainly helps that nearly all my reading is in English, that I have many English-speaking friends, that I lived in England for a while and that my SOSO (sort-of significant other) is from Australia.

As for why Dutch people are so good at English, I think movies are a huge part of that. About half of our TV programmes are imported from America and the UK, and unlike many countries, we don't dub our films and TV shows; we watch them with subtitles, which is a great way to pick up languages. I suppose it's also a matter of attitude. Holland has always been an outward-looking, internationally-oriented country, where learning foreign languages has always been stimulated. Back in the old days, most well-educated Dutch ( ... )