Going ‘poo’ free again!
Two days ago I announced that I was going to undertake a year of eco challenges The first of which was to give up shampoo again. I have tried this before and it didn’t go very well. I started rather optimistically back in June/ July 2012. After six weeks it wasn’t going well, but I was still feeling optimistic and carried on. I tried cleaning my hair with all kinds of things including just water, bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, aloe vera, rosemary water and cornflour. Finally after around 6 months when I had a head full of greasy dandruff ridden split ended hair, I decided to give up on no poo.
Since going ‘poo’ free my hair changed. Before I started I only ever needed to wash my hair once a week. During and since I have found my hair to be generally greasier than it was before I gave up shampoo and I have been washing it more frequently (a couple of times a week). All that effort to give up shampoo and conditioner resulting in me needing to use more of it than I needed beforehand – oh the irony!
You would think (well quite a few people close to me do) that giving up shampoo again might not be a brilliant idea. However all my original objections to shampoo still apply.
- Each time you buy it, it comes with a plastic bottle and I’m not a fan of one time use plastic bottles.
- It contains all kinds of ingredients that I’m not sure about – what kind of effects are they having on the environment and my body?
- Is shampoo something I actually need or is it a bit like lipsalve – something that causes as many problems as it solves? (I haven’t used lipsalve for over a year and a half now!)
So I think it is worthwhile giving it another go. I still don’t feel a huge amount wiser about how to go about it but I have started with olive oil soap. I read somewhere about how when you first go no ‘poo’ it is a good idea to wash your hair with a natural soap to get rid of the shampoo build up in your hair. Whether that is true or not I have no idea, but yesterday my hair was pretty greasy and I took a bar of olive oil soap into the shower with me. I piled on the soap and massaged it into my hair. It worked really well and my hair is not greasy at all today as you can see from the picture of me squinting at the top!
I’m really not sure where my ‘no poo’ adventures will take me next but I have one thing on my side – I’m very stubborn. So what I’m hoping is that by trial and lots of error I will work out how to be poo free and happy – eventually.
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