My recent praise of Arm&Hammer baking soda prompted some questions from two of my favorite people who hadn't seen my rejection of shampoo or wanted updates.
If you missed what's going on: I stopped using shampoo, probably about six months ago.
Instead, I use baking soda to clean my hair and apple cider vinegar to condition it.
Q: Do you smell like a salad?
A: Nope, you rinse everything out. Vinegar loses its smell when it's dry anyway.
Q: Baking soda isn't soap. What gives?
A: I'm rapidly understanding the view that we're not supposed to be using harsh soaps that leave our hair and skin dry and brittle. No harsh soaps, no needs for gooey conditioners and chemical lotions.
Q: You're not washing your hair. That's gross.
A: That's not a question. And it's not gross. If you ran your fingers through my hair, you little flirt you, you wouldn't know I'm doing anything different, except my hair feels healthy.
How does it work?
There's no exact science to this. Your hair might need something different than mine.
I toss about a tablespoon of baking soda into a little bowl and about two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into an old coffee mug. They both come into the shower with me.
I soak my hair, add a little water to the baking soda and dump it on my head. I give my noggin a little massage rubbing the baking soda solution around.
I rinse that out of my hair, fill the mug with warm shower spray to dilute the vinegar, and dump that over my head. I smoosh my hair around to be sure I got the vinegar everywhere, then I rinse.
Done. My hair comes out tangle-free, clean feeling.
I do this every other day. On noncleaning days, I just rinse my hair under warm water in the shower.
Troubleshooting
- If you decide to try this, you will think you've made a big mistake until your head gets used to it. The first two weeks or so, your hair spazzes out, wondering where the sodium laureth sulfate went. You'll feel like a greasy teenager. You'll embrace ponytails. But you'll bear through it to save money and keep chemicals out the water. (Plus, you're saving habitats for tropical animals. Really!) Keep on keeping on. It'll get wonderful after this introductory period.
- Don't use off-brand baking soda. Arm & Hammer actually makes a difference. It was like going from Suave to salon shampoo.
- Experiment with the amounts and the procedures. You can sprinkle in dry baking soda, then add water. You can create a paste to work in. Some folks premix the baking soda solution in a shampoo bottle and use it as they need it. You can keep the diluted vinegar in a spray bottle and spray it on.
- If your hair has special-needs, do an internet search. There are baking-soda-and-vinegar variations for dandruff or hard water (do a little vinegar before the baking soda), very curly hair and other problems. If you search "baking soda" and "shampoo" on Google, you'll get a wealth of other people's trial and error experience.
My hair is no longer as short as in my photo. It's about shoulder length, but it's fairly straight and trouble free. I'm having my usual scalp freak out that occurs with the fall-to-winter transition, but this system does seem to work better on that the shampoo did.
This is a perfect match for me. I'm frugal (who isn't in this economy?), I tend to be allergic to some shampoo ingredients, I don't like the idea of what SLS does to us and the planet and I love the smell of apple cider vinegar. When was the last time you got conditioner in your mouth and actually licked your lips?
Julie Todd is the night editor at The Herald News in Joliet. She and her
husband are looking to cut the chemicals and get back to basics -- minus the
granola and hemp clothing. They live in a home they bought last year in
Plainfield, where they're making changes to create their own little patch of
utopia.
Julie,
You need to use your spell check, or get someone to proof read your articles. When you talk about the subject of food, "meat" is spelled "MEAT", not "meets".
Don
Box of Arm & Hammer baking soda... $.79
Gallon of apple cider... $1.89
Being able to get conditioner in your mouth and lick your lips....priceless
Welcome to my dirty little secret: I do these in my spare time at work, dashing off entries at 10:15 p.m., when I'm exhausted and can't see straight after nine hours of editing. Mistakes get in. And the program we do blog entries in doesn't have a spell check, so when I typo it appear.
Because this is a labor of love, I want to keep doing it. But if I need another employee to edit it, it stops being something done in my spare time and might be ruled as something we don't need to be doing for the newspaper.
If I have to choose between my typos appearing and not having a green blog at all, I'll suffer the ridicule of a few typos.
Understand that I'm a grammar nut and a good speller. Mistakes in publications irk me as they bother you. But also understand that I will still make mistakes in this because I'm human and I'm doing this alone.
I'll look for the mistake you mentioned to fix it. And feel free to let me know when I typo again. It's sure to happen soon as I excitedly dash off news of some eco discovery.
Hey Juluie,
I think the hole wurld wood be a funnieer playc iff we awl spelld in wotever weigh we desided. It wurked fore thee Olde English laynguiage. Their uzed too be no reel spellyng rulz and manny wurds had severall difrent possibel wayz to be speled. The kee waz that you coold stil no the word meening baysed on the kontext of its ewsage. Cleerly we ar smarte enuff four that twoday. Know?
Hey Julie,
To get around the typo issue and still have this be a "labor of love" you might consider typing your entry in a Word document and cut & paste it into your blog program. I have a number of applications I must use in my job that don't have a spell check and this is my way around it. Hope this helps!