I’ve been playing with my hair care routine for a little over a year now, and have come to the following conclusions:
- No Poo does not agree with my hair
- I really don’t need a hairdryer
Together, those two have pretty much shaped how I take care of my hair, and the result is a surprisingly low-maintenance routine that seems to work out okay. As someone who defaults to putting her hair up in a messy bun and calling it a day, I whittled my (vast) collection of hair stuffs down to a couple clips which have stood up over time (I have a history of breaking those plastic claw clips, even with my very fine, not particularly long hair), and wooden hair sticks. I kept a few elastics and bobby pins for days I feel like doing something fancy, and… that’s pretty much it. This has also contributed to making my morning hair “styling” (if I can go so far as to use that word) faster.
First, for those who are curious, my thoughts on no-poo:
To be clear, I’m talking about the baking soda + apple cider vinegar variant here. I’ve not yet brought myself to the water-only method, though I did like Ariana’s explanation of how it might work in combination with daily scalp massage. Still, my current system works for me, so I’m not motivated to experiment further at the moment.
Right, the transition. I didn’t go through the grease-monkey adaptation phase that everyone warns about. This might be because I was only washing my hair every 3-4 days in the first place, even with “traditional” shampoos and conditioners. One thing I found almost immediately upon switching to the baking soda + apple cider vinegar rinse was that my hair was so much fluffier. I have quite fine hair generally, and I was used to it looking limp and sad and weighed-down around day 2 or 3 post-wash. Not with no poo! I usually made it 5 or 6 days before I felt another baking soda session was needed, which is pretty close to the posted “wash once a week” guideline.
But.
While I have always been one to shed a tonne of hair in the shower, I felt like the baking soda really exacerbated that and it made me unhappy to feel like I was losing even more hair than usual. So I stopped, and found some “natural” shampoos to try. The current favourite is Green Beaver’s shampoo, and I’m still washing my hair around once a week or so. My hair is still soft, still quite fluffy (not quite as fluffy) and shampooing is way less work without trying to figure out how to keep a jar of powder dry in the shower.
Seriously, no hair dryer?
Yup. I had always thought one would be necessary for me to shower in the morning and have semi-presentable hair in time for work. We also live with Seasons, and with winter approaching, I especially didn’t want to be leaving the house with a damp head of hair! But, on our RV trip, I had forgotten to bring my hairdryer, and the camp sites didn’t always have facilities so… I got used to air-drying my hair after washing. What I learned? It doesn’t take that long, even when it’s a little chilly out.
So after I got back, I tried the experiment of showering, towelling my hair with microfibre (to try to get as much water out as possible), combing and just… letting it dry. To my great surprise, by the time I got dressed, got Starfish up and dressed, and got everyone fed breakfast, my hair was at least 95% of the way there, if not completely dry. It was just as a fluffy as the days I broke out the dryer, and my ends seem to be happier for the lack of heat blasting. Good enough for me!
Now I’m not totally insane. There will be days when we’ll need a dryer, so I didn’t get rid of it. But it now lives in the hall closet, which frees up a surprising amount of bathroom cupboard space, which is especially nice in our teensy main bathroom.
Ongoing experimentation
There are two aspects of my hair routine I’d still like to fine-tune. The first is controlling frizziness. With very fine hair, and a wood stove-heated house, there is going to be frizz; it’s inevitable. I’m wondering, however, if there’s a balance with light oil application (just almond oil; nothing fancy) that might help though.
The second thing is The Frumpy Showercap. I have, from my long history of hoarding hotel toiletry supplies, something like a 3 year supply of folded plastic shower caps in my stash. I hate using them though. They are effective, but ugly and annoying, thin plastic things that can’t be recycled when their useful life is over. I know there are reuseable PVC ones that are essentially thicker, cuter versions of the hotel cap but I can’t bring myself to buy or make one of those; they feel a little to close to their disposable brethren. I am aware of some fancy reuseable options out there, but again, can’t quite make the leap. My next inclination is actually to try just wrapping my hair in a towel and seeing what happens. Will report back!
squishy.fishy 