going no-poo

[demi]

so i ran out of shampoo last week and decided not to buy any more!

i was washing my hair about once a week before with shampoo.
i washed it last night just with hot water.
it still feels greesy at the back but it looks better than it did before i washed it.

iv read you can wash you hair with 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda mixed in 1 cup of water, then to condition with 1 tbsp vinigar mixed in 1 cup of water.
not tried it yet though, but i will if my hair gets really terrible.

i was thinking to rince it with the juice of a lemon mixed in a cup of water to make it smell nice.

does anyone else go no-poo? got any tips? how do you keep your hair smelling nice?

also how long does it take before it stops being greesy?

[PlainQB]

Try a headscarf till it stops being greasy.

[chickenchargrill]

Cider vinegar to rinse :) I also used to add some EOs to the rinse afterwards. I found it dries my hair out a bit too much and gets incredibly tangled so every once in a while I cover my hair in coconut oil. I've yet to be able to get the oil out of my hair with just bicarb, so I do end up stealing my kids mild shampoo for that.

[Green Aura]

I use ordinary white vinegar (about 50p a bottle) and put slivers of lemon peel and a bay leaf in it to soak for about a few days before I start using it. About 10-15ml in a litre jug of water, poured through my hair and left on for a few minutes to soak through then rinsed out sorts out all the tangles. And it doesn't smell so vinegary either (although that disappears after a few minutes anyway).

[gregorach]

Takes a few weeks to stop being greasy, I think... It was almost 20 years ago now.

These days I usually work a few drops of tea tree oil through when I wash my hair. That's all I use.

[demi]

im going to try the vinigar either tonight or tomorrow when i go for a bath.

what if you just dont use anything at all, will it go all horrible and start to smell?

if i do for some reason in the future end up washing with shampoo once ( like if i go to the hairdressers ) will it set me back so i'll have to go through the greasy stage again, or will it be ok?

once my hair gets long enough im going to dread it again. i regret cutting off my dreds, but my husband and i made them after a bottle of champange one valentines day and they were all uneaven with a big thick one then a wee skinny one and it was just a mess. im just waiting for my hair to grow long enough again so i can do it properly ( sober this time! ) and section it all out eavenly so it looks tidy this time. i think having natural hair makes it esier to dread because its not all slidy and soft from the shampoo and conditioner. just now it feels more frizzy and harsher than if i had shampood and conditioned it.

[chickenchargrill]

The odd shampoo shouldn't cause too many problems. Odd side effect I found was my periods became more regular and my hormones settled down more. Then I went back to shampoo over winter and my periods went back to how they had been. Switched back to bicarb now :)

[Zech]

I found bicarb too drying for my hair, which probably means I used too much (my hair is very, very fine). Now I'm on water only and it doesn't smell of anything very much. I really notice the smell of shampoo when my husband uses it, though! I do find a natural bristle brush useful - a really thorough brush a few hours after washing with water, otherwise I get a waxy build up.

[yvette]

Read somewhere that you can put a few drops of vanilla extract into the final rinse to give a nice smell. But I just cannot seem to get on with bicarb, much as I would like to - maybe my pathetic shower is not strong enought to wash it out properly? Just try to use as little shampoo as possible.

[demi]

i think its been 2 weeks since i last used shampoo and my hair actually looks good.
last night i washed it for the first time with bi carb as i had just washed it with water before and i felt it was needing something stronger. my hair felt as if i had hairspray or somthing in it that was brushed but not washed out. tonight i washed it with vinigar and now its feeling much sofer, although its not completly dry yet but i think it definetly feels better.
i get a slight wave in my hair when i leave it to dry naturally and its getting more exentuated now. when i was living on the beach in greece a few years ago i wash just washing it in the sea all summer and it went realy quite curly and all blond in the sun :) my hairs died red just now though so im going to leave it to grow out back to its natural colour, im hoping it will look nice and the sun will lighten it again this summer. or it might just go ginger!

[Skippy]

Seval years ago now I made a decision to try not using shampoo on my hair and instead just clean it with water. I found that during the first week or so it just felt a bit "unwashed "for want of a better term but after that the natural oils and what have you took over and it started to feel really nice and clean , silky and didn't smell. All went well for around four months when I had an old plaster ceiling come down on me. After picking the soild lumps out I thought that perhaps I'd better actually wash it "properly" with a shampoo which I did and did it itch? Yes it did something awful.
As my mother always brought more shampoo than was ever needed when there was an offer we ended up with lots and so rather than waste it all I reverted back to using it about once a week.
Even though my mother passed away in january I've still got bottles and bottles of the stuff but I came on this section of the forum to see if I could glean anything about soapwort as a shampoo. I've got a bed of it and would have a lot more if I let it but one of the first things I've learnt is that it's poisioness to fish. However, as the used water won't be coming into contact with fish or a watercourse I should be ok and I assume using it to water plants after shouldn't be a problem ?


Pete

[EcoSam]

There's an interesting thread about no-poo on Permies.com. I just washed with water for a few weeks but I think I needed to use bi-card or vinegar as well. I keep meaning to give it another go... So maybe I will

[Green Aura]

I've not used shampoo for months now. I tried the bicarb (about a tablespoonful in a litre of water) followed by a vinegar rinse but found it really didn't do much, my hair felt oddly greasy for a couple of days (although it didn't look it) then seemed OK for the rest of the week. I ditched the bicarb with no apparent change.

Having recently read a blog somewhere (sorry can't remember where) the author said she started with a 1/4 cup of bicarb mixed to the consistency of single cream and rubbed this into her hair, left it on for a few minutes then rinsed it out with vinegar - approx a tablespoon to a litre of water.

I tried this last time and my hair felt fantastic, squeaky clean, for the first time. She also mentioned she's been cutting down the amount of bicarb so now she only uses about a teaspoonful, with the same result. At this point I'm not sure I need the bicarb next time - I may keep it for odd occasions as other people have said how much it dries out their hair and scalp if used regularly.

[Skippy]

Well it's funny how things come around. I told my wife about this "no poo" thread and she then informed me about the special shampoo she had just got for our daughter. By special she means the stuff designed for head lice infections- yes our daughter has got nits.
She's seven years old now but this reminds me of a time about three years ago when she had the same problem. My wife had shampooed the hair and was combing the nits and eggs out , but our daughter was not liking the process one little bit. My wife had said that we've got to get the creepy crawlies out and at this point I had an idea. I'd use my digital camera, then zoom in on the screen thus making the grizzly child realise we were only trying to do good. Unfortunately even after looking at the nits she still announced that she "wanted the creepy crawlies" . You just can't win.
Anyway here's the nits in question-




Pete

[sleepyowl]

I have very short hair as I'm receding & only really rinse my scalp once in a while with water to get rid of dead skin cells & when I have just cut it (yes I cut my own hair)