Runaway October

While I was work­ing I could eas­ily spend all day cruis­ing the inter­net, with lim­ited acces­si­bil­ity because of fire­walls and IP block­ers. I spent most of my time perus­ing par­ent­ing forums. My favorite was Mothering.com, which is where I came across the crazy notion that sham­poo was mak­ing my curly hair unruly. They called it No ‘Poo, I called it nuts. While doing some research I came to real­ize that typ­i­cal sham­poo was chock full of chem­i­cals, most that I couldn’t pro­nounce and didn’t want to rub on my head. 

There are a cou­ple of premises behind No ‘Poo. A few are:

• Sham­poo is a deter­gent and lit­er­ally strips your hair of mois­ture, oil and shine, mak­ing it prone to dam­age and break­age.
  
• Curly hair is espe­cially prone to sham­poo dam­age because it is more porous and frag­ile.
  
• Because hair is fre­quently stripped of its nat­ural oils, your scalp goes into hyper­drive. This is why some peo­ple describe their hair as an oil slick.
  

Start with three main ingre­di­ents — Bak­ing Soda, Apple Cider Vine­gar and a good con­di­tioner. When pur­chas­ing a con­di­tioner, read the ingre­di­ents.

• Try to find some­thing that does not have any ‘cones’ — Dime­thicone, Sil­i­cone, etc. These will coat your hair and you’ll end up with a greasy mess.
  
• Avoid min­eral oil, a nasty byprod­uct of gaso­line dis­till­ing. Your body id unable to absorb it, so it will also cre­ate a greasy mess. It also blocks the scalp from releas­ing built up tox­ins and oil. Acne any­one?
  
• Also avoid Sodium Lau­ryl Sul­fate (SLS) and Sodium Lau­reth Sul­fate (SLFS). Known skin irri­tants, SLS and SLFS are com­monly added to sham­poo and other deter­gents as a foam­ing aget. They are cur­rently being ques­tioned regard­ing can­cer and toxic build up in tis­sues.
  
• If you use a gel, use a clear one. You may find that oils work well for you now, such as coconut oil, jojoba oil, apri­cot oil, extra vir­gin olive oil. Some peo­ple like to use alcohol-free Aloe Vera gel.
  

When Declan was born, I was a shower and sham­poo every day kind of girl. I used lots of extras to keep my hair in check. I tried No ‘Poo for about a week before I couldn’t han­dle it. My roots were detox­ing and super greasy and my ends were dry, split and straw like. I had to go in pub­lic like that for 40+ hours a weeks. Eek.

Now that I stay home with the boys, I don’t get out as often and sham­poo­ing has come down to 2 or 3 times a weeks, to save time in the shower. I’m hop­ing that my hair wont have to detox nearly as much this time, and if it does, oh well. I can always wear a hat to the gro­cery store.

I’ll be photo doc­u­ment­ing my jour­ney and post­ing more info as I go. Next Up — No ‘Poo routines.

Here are some No ‘Poo sources:

What is No ‘Poo?

Info: Sham­poo Free

The No ‘Poo Method

The No Sham­poo Alter­na­tive — No Poo

Of Course I Washed My Hair Last Year (I’m Almost Certain)

How to Ditch Shampoo

All about the No ‘Poo Routine

Break the Sham­poo Habit

Treat­ing Your Hair Like a Bath­room Sink

Conditioner-Only Hair Washing

Wise Woman Forum — The No Sham­poo Thread

Moth­er­ing Dot Com­mune — Going No Shampoo

Have you ever con­sid­ered chang­ing up your beauty rou­tine in such a dra­matic way? If so, how or why not?

Have any of you tried No ‘Poo?