The Long and Short of It

Wow, has it really been 3 months since we last posted? We are terrible, no good, very bad bloggers, Jenn, truly. And it's not like we haven't had updates that are relevant to your interests—we have! We're just...delinquent. Oops. Well, I'll leave Jenn to expiate her guilt on her own time—though I will tease her contributions with the following key words: no-to-low and red. Go ahead and speculate. You might even get her to write soon!

As for me, I do believe that the last time I posted, all the way back in the old days aka July, I was on a rye flour wash and occasional ACV + EO cycle, which seemed to be working just fine for me. And, well, it continued to work just fine for me, which is probably why I haven't posted anything.

Busted.

Yeah, that's a lie.

The truth is that I was just plain old lazy. And laziness is what also led to a change in my self-prescribed routine. Anyone else who's tried rye flour wash (using the actual paste, not just the water used to soak the rye flour) knows that it is an Absolute Bitch (official term) to get rye flour flakes out afterwards, especially if you have long hair. Don't get me wrong, I loved the results, my hair felt and looked great, and I was only doing a rye flour wash once every 2 weeks or so. But OMG trying to rinse and then comb all the flakes out was a real production, and not at all quick and easy, which was at least part of my reasoning for going no-poo in the first place.

Now, I probably should have just tried straining out all of the flour and just using the soaking liquid, or something else that removed the larger flakes from my mix, but I didn't. (Again, laziness was key, here.) Instead, I looked at the measuring cup I used for rye flour mixes, sitting in the caddy in my shower, and I looked at the bottle of Shea Moisture still sitting next to the sink, because I'd never gotten around to putting it back in the drawer with other rarely used haircare products, and I caved. Yep, that's right, I'm now a low-poo/no-poo lady. And you know what? I feel good about that.

I also joined HYDRA as Agent Cylocptopuss.

I settled into a nice routine—low poo once every 2 or so weeks, diluted ACV + a few drops of lavender or lemon oil every 4–5 days in between, and water only otherwise. And it worked, through the entire rest of the summer—huzzah! before jumping into this grand experiment with my (equally) MIA compatriot, I had been most worried about how to manage transitioning and going about daily, sweaty, humid life in the big city without a daily oil-stripping routine. Turns out the answer was: just fine. And that's been hair life since last you saw me. Heh, I guess I really didn't have many updates, after all.

That's a lie, too.

Oh yeah, a few minor updates! Since one of the primary reasons to switch to no-poo (and then low-poo) was to stop using potentially harmful chemicals like sulfates and silicones in my daily routine, it didn't really make sense that I wasn't following suit with other stuff I put on my body on the regular. So, keeping that in mind (and having finally finished using up the decidedly chemically stuff I had on hand), I've since switched to using an aluminum-free deodorant stick from Jäson, which I think I've mentioned (somewhere) as having had the effect of making my underarms feel smoother and less puffy than they did when I grabbed something like a Dove antiperspirant stick out of the medicine cabinet. I've also noticed that the skin of my underarms just looks...lighter than it did. (Is this TMI?) No idea if that's actually true, having not paid very close attention, but I'll go with it.

I've also recently switched to a sulfate- and phthalate-free body wash from Nature's Gate, which I chose, honestly, because it was the first one I saw on my local pharmacy shelf that didn't list sulfates as an ingredient. I have no idea, at this point, if it will cause any appreciable difference in my skin, but for now, I am enjoying NOT smelling like perfume for hours after my shower. Not that the body wash is unscented—it's actually got a pleasant, light aroma—but it doesn't really linger on my skin the way other body washes do.

Oh! One major update, too. Well, sort of major. I mean, it's really not that big of a deal. It's kind of minor, maybe. Or not.

Is it just me, or does my head feel lighter?

Rye

Geepers. I haven't posted in forever.

So I tried the Rye flour. With mixed results.

I put 2tbsp in the gotube and added water to it until it was goopy. I did this a few weeks ago.

The first time I did it, I tried a rinse with white vinegar instead of the Apple Cider Vinegar I've been using. My hair looked alright after the rye flakes came out, but my scalp was amazingly dry. So the next time I did the rye wash, I went back to the ACV and put a little coconut oil on the ends. It worked a lot better. I went about 4 days between washes the first time, and my hair didn't even seem that greasy (though, I guess at that point I was comparing it to being super greasy after the honey/aloe mixture as I found that the honey/aloe mixture doesn't actually remove sebum). It felt more like hair. Less than grease and more than straw, so that was good, right?

I didn't need a full wash, but in between rye washes a couple weeks ago on a Wednesday I used the ACV rinse with the spray bottle. It was just a little greasy before, and it was a little less greasy with the ACV rinse, but my hair was really dull compared to what it was before this experiment. I played tennis that night and all I could smell was vinegar as I sweated which was kinda weird, but since I don't have a horrible hangup against the smell of vinegar, it was ok. i did a WO wash that night and felt better. My hair looked pretty great the next day.

I did the rye wash the following Friday with an ACV rinse. It was alright that day, and a little ok the next day (honestly, I did absolutely nothing the next day. I didn't even brush my hair or put a bra on, it was one of those - it was delightfully relaxing, but probably horrible for my hair).  After a WO wash on Sunday morning, my husband was making fun of what my hair was doing. It was stiff and greasy that day, and the next as well.

I washed again this past Thursday, so a bit less than a week between washes. Of course, the day of the wash I wake up and my hair is gorgeous. Why does that always happen to me when I'm greasy like mad the days leading up?! It seemed ok, but it does still feel rather waxy, and there really is almost NO shine to it at all. This is better, I guess, than a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that my scalp was not only crazy itchy, but also that parts were rather raw.

I think what all this means is that I'm not quite out of transition yet. Which is fine. I didn't expect it to go this quickly anyway. That's not my life. :) But the longer this transition period lasts, the less I think the payout is going to live up to my expectations.

I do rather like the body and thickness I've gained. It's possible that my hair is growing quicker because of it. It seems about time to make another appointment for my roots.

I'm really missing my shampoo hardcore right now.

Jenn's Current Status

# of days since last SLS shampoo: 55

# of days since last rye flour + ACV wash: 5

Hair Happiness Scale: 6/10

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 6/10

I'm Still Here

And just LOOK what's happened with my hair!

Hi kids. Did I mention I had a vacation? Well, I did (which is why I've been radio silent for so long), but I'm BACK and I'm still no-poo :)

Where was I? (You ask. You did ask, right?) I spent a glorious week and a half in Vancouver and SE Alaska, the latter on a surprisingly fun cruise. (Surprising, because I'd never been on a cruise before and had somewhat low expectations.) It was a great trip, filled with hiking, kayaking, canoeing, snorkeling (yes, snorkeling in Alaska), whale watching, and glacier viewing.

Glaciers are totally cool, in both senses of the word.

Going Low-Poo

As you may recall, I had a plan for my hair regimen going into the trip, which mainly consisted of holding out for as long as possible, and then indulging in a low-poo shampoo (is that cheating?). Well, that's pretty much exactly what I did. I landed in Vancouver with hair that hadn't seen a rye flour wash in 5 days, and—other than being matted airplane hair—it wasn't so bad. Which was great, because I promptly tested it—and myself—with a 3-hour mountain hike in North Vancouver the next morning.

The view was lovely.

And I celebrated by using my low poo that night! Now, I think I'd been building up in my mind what using low poo would feel like. After all, it's been quite some time since I last used a commercially available shampoo of any kind, and I have to admit I've missed the glorious sudsy feeling you get from a good lather. And since I'd so bravely conquered that mountain in the morning (a big deal for me, as I have a terrible fear of falling), I felt like I needed to reward myself. 

So in I went to my fancy hotel shower with my fancy non-SLS, moisturizing and thickening shampoo with its fancy-sounding ingredients, and it was...meh. Yes, it lathered and yes, it smelled great, but it also felt...slimy. You know that feeling you get in your hair when you use conditioner and it feels like a lot of work to rinse the product off your head and your hands? (I'm not making it up, I swear.) That's the feeling I had with the low poo, and I found that I didn't like it. It reminded me of the first time I ever used conditioner myself, which, honestly, wasn't until early college. Yes, that's right. Full disclosure: my childhood was a shampoo-only one (my mom didn't believe in the added expense of conditioners), which probably explains the giant knot that formed in my waist-length hair in high school, prompting an overnight switch to a shoulder-length style. So, you see, I grew up used to feeling my hair squeak after a wash, whereas the application of conditioner always made it feel a bit slippery, like I still had soap in it. And the Shea Moisture low poo, which was probably doing exactly what it says on the label, made my hair feel slippery and still soapy to the touch. Sigh. 

In all likelihood, it made my hair look fabulous and probably added some not unwelcome nutrients in, but I kind of missed my rye flour wash. Plus, I felt like my hair got greasy within 3 days. Boo. In any case, great-looking hair was not really a necessity on the rest of the trip, since Alaska was, well, rainy.

Can you see my hair? Doesn't it look fab?

Yep, my typical gear every day was a ponytail or pigtails and a ball cap, pulled low. Hey, Alaska is wet, and I had lots of outdoor physical activities! Water-only sufficed for most of the vacation, though there were also a few skip days (I was tired of my hair being wet).

And now, I'm back (and back to rye flour and ACV), trying to catch up. Did I miss anything?

Back to no poo, and cool with it.

Edwina's Current Status

# of days since last SLS shampoo: 48

# of days since last low poo: 9

# of days since last rye flour + ACV wash: 7

Hair Happiness Scale: 9/10

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 0/10

Transitioning Is Hard

After reading about the alkalinity of the baking soda wash we'd been using, and experiencing the straw hair of doom, I decided a change was needed.

We're still working on getting a PH test kit, so I don't know what the PH of this solution is, but the ingredients lead me to believe it will be much more gentle, maybe even nourishing than the baking soda.

Secret formula #2: Aloe Gel & Honey

I got the recipe from Code Red Hat

Naturoo Take Two!

1/4 Aloe Gel (I used one I got at Whole Foods)
2 tbs all natural honey (I used Colorado Star Thistle from Bee Raw Honey because apparently I have a honey hookup)

I actually doubled the mixture because I wasn't sure if I was going to get enough. I totally had enough, and probably would have had MORE than plenty if I'd just used the amount in the recipe. I mixed the ingredients in a blender and got something that's vaguely the consitency of shampoo. It smelled delightful, actually, though I resisted tasting it. I did, end up tasting the honey though. You know pouring that can be such a PITA. OMFG it was the most amazing honey ever and I can't wait to put it on waffles and in coffee and everything.

I digress.

This is what the mixture looked like, and probably the coolest naturoo photo this blog has ever seen:

Hey girl, I want to eat your sebum.

I used the mixture last Thursday for the first time. It did make my hair soft and it felt really clean right after. It moved in breezes and felt light.

Happy hair!

Then the oil came right back before the day was done. Not to the point where others noticed it, but I could feel it. 

I think this was taken that night, I'm not totally sure.
Looking at this now, several days removed,
the hair actually looks pretty good.

I washed again several times this week with water only, scrubbing my scalp, trying desperately to get rid of the sebum build up. No dice.

I washed again with the aloe/honey yesterday morning. I don't think I did a great job of getting all the honey out  of the back of my hair. It still felt a little sticky. But then later last night, as I was walking home, wouldn't you know that was the cleanest feeling part of my hair? 

The sebum likes to collect in the front where that one longer piece of hair likes to dangle. Indeed, that piece is covered in greasy sebum, making it look like I haven't washed my hair in days, when I just did. 

I think they key to this for me will be washing with water only almost daily until the transition phase is over.  I played tennis last night and washed with water only (which was way easier than packing my shampoo and conditioner, actually). I think I'm going to stick with the aloe/honey mixture for now since it's not drying my roots. I might pick up some essential oils to stick in it though, and make a cocoa/cornstarch dry shampoo for my especially sebumy days.

I'm not exactly the most patient of people, so this process has me a little frustrated, to be honest. I just cannot wait for that AHA moment of wonderfulness everyone talks about when my hair feels more like hair and less like the innards of an automobile's engine. Two things I have discovered, however, in this process:

1. People honestly don't notice your hair. Hair that I've thought has been almost unbearably greasy has actually been perceived as ok or nothing to comment on by other people.
2. Hippies do not smell like patchouli!  They smell like sebum! I know this because I've been smelling a LOT of sebum recently as my hair dries. I'm not really self conscious of it because I have a super high threshold of feeling self conscious of things (thanks Mom!) and also because most people aren't really getting close enough to me to smell my hair. 

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 30

# of days since last naturoo: 2

Random Friend #1 Check: Are you still even doing that no-poo thing? 

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 3/10

Shamless plug: no really, go check out Bee Raw's honey. It's delightful both for your insides and your outsides (the kind I used is also good for honey facials, which I didn't know is a thing, but apparently it is - this blog post is pretty good at explaining stuff on honey facials: She Knows - Why Honey Is Good For Your Skin). Their honey is also good for the bees too - they not only support artisinal beekeepers, but they've also set up a foundation to save endangered bees.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Yep, about to head off for vacation! BUT FIRST. Yes, that's right, I tried using a rye flour mix to wash my hair, and the results are...pretty good :)

Exhibit A: In which I am happier than a chocolate brownie.

I was admittedly a bit skeptical about washing my hair with yet another baking product, particularly one that looks like gloop.

Gloop is a technical term.

But the results speak for themselves: After washing with it, my hair felt clean, smooth, shiny, voluminous... Need I go on? Also, can I tell you a secret? That photo was taken 3 sweaty, humid days after using the rye flour wash. It should also be noted that I'm still using ACV as a conditioner, but much, much diluted from what I started with. Will it make a difference? We'll see. Am I a rye flour shampoo convert? Well, after just one go at it, sure...for now. Of course, I am about to embark on a low 'poo-fueled trip, using a Shea Moisture product, so who knows. Perhaps the seductive qualities of low 'poo will wile me away from the no-'poo life? (I'll certainly be cheating this week...)

The New Formula

Rye flour wash:

• 2 tbsp rye flour (in a 2oz. squeeze tube)
• just enough water to make it gloopy (see, technical term)

Apple cider vinegar rinse:

• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 3 drops rosemary oil
• 4 drops lemon oil

Edwina's current status:

# of days since last commercial (sulfate-inclusive) shampoo: 27

# of days since last naturoo (rye flour + ACV): 3

Significant Other Check: "It looks good."
Judgmental Coworker Check: "It actually has more volume now (0 days post-rye flour) than at any other point in this whole experiment!"

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 1/10

Bonus video:

See you on the flipside!

Not Pictured

No, I am not about to reveal the identity of the guilty party in a season-long murder mystery arc. On the other hand, I haven't procured a pH test kit to photograph (or use), yet, so it must be guilty of something...

Not the correct way to pose for a mugshot.

I may have thrown us off-track a bit by blithely declaring, "Oh, any pet store that carries aquarium stuff will have a pH testing kit for sale!" Now, this is not untrue. However, contrary to my bleary memories of childhood fish tank maintenance, the pH kits sold in pet stores provide color guides that typically fall between 6–8 pH only, since it's not likely that your aquarium water is any closer to acidic than that without you actively dumping acids in among the poor little fishies. Also, since pH level is just one of many potential concerns when trying to help your aquarium thrive, the test kits I found were all bundled with a slew of other water testing purposes, driving up the cost of the kit past the point I was willing to spend to do a one-time test of my current BS and ACV mixes. Hello, selective stinginess, my old friend.

That said, as Jenn and I are finding online, MANY before us have done the legwork of testing their mixes and documenting their results, so...I'll continue to be lazy for at least a bit more. In any case, over the past few weeks, Friday morning has been my cave-in-and-wash-with-naturoo day, the day I sort of get fed up with the oily feel of my hair and/or the paranoia actually sets in. This past Friday, though, I had been binge-reading anti-baking soda no-poo blog posts, had not managed to acquire a pH test to determine how potentially damaging my own mixes might be, and also had not managed to find time to seek out rye flour to attempt a rye flour-based shampoo. What's a girl to do?

So, I opted to be daring, did my usual water-only rinse, and swept in to work with my hair down, air-drying on the subway, with only a slight care in the world. No one sat me down to ask me if there was a reason I was neglecting personal hygiene, so I'm guessing it looked completely normal. Phew! And, as it turns out, I think that was kind of the break I needed. I'd been locking myself in to the idea that I couldn't possibly last more than a week, when the truth is, I could probably go for longer. I should at least try, right?

Not bad for 3 hours of sweating while walking around in the sun.

Yes, my hair feels oily to the touch, but only at the very back of my head and, honestly, not as oily as it did say the first week of this whole enterprise. And yes, you can see some separation of locks happening, but I can live with that. (Oh the benefits of doing this with long hair.) Today, I let it air dry in the sun as I traipsed around Brooklyn, and it felt completely normal in the breeze. What's more, as far as I can tell, no one has noticed a difference! Either that or they're all being fake nice to my face. Speaking of which, quick shout-out to my fellow Bella Voce Singers for a lovely concert last weekend, and for—at the very least—being bemused by this blog. I DO hope (and believe) that I can slot you all into the former option, not the latter :)

What's Next?

So with a vacation looming, I think I'm going to hold off on ending this current water-only phase until just before I fly out OR my hair achieves previously unseen levels of oiliness (whichever occurs first). I'm sufficiently scared by all of the BS-is-bad-for-your-hair chatter to avoid a return to that method (though I WILL, I swear, test what's left of my mix...at some point. That said, I did manage, in all my errands today, to acquire some rye flour, courtesy of Whole Foods.

Not just for baking, apparently, though baking will also happen.

I also picked up some Shea Moisture Yucca & Baobab Thickening Shampoo as a low-poo option, if and when I'm ready to go that route. I'm bringing this with me on my trip, in case I need something more than a WO wash but without requiring that I find either BS or rye flour and ACV while on a cruise ship. (Though that would be an amusing request for shipboard services, I'm sure. "Um, could I ask your kitchen staff for a favor?") 

Edwina's current status:

# of days since last commercial (sulfate-inclusive) shampoo: 22

# of days since last BS+ACV wash: 8

Significant Other Check (immediately after WO rinse): "There's a slight smell, but it's barely noticeable. It's not pleasant or unpleasant, it just smells like wet hair."

Partner in Crime Check: "Have I mentioned that my level of jealous increases every time we talk about this?"

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 2/10

Put It to the Test!

I love these guys. Also, they're totally on the right track. When in doubt or when curious about something, put it to the test!

Over the past week or so, Jenn and I have been alternately terrifying ourselves and soothing ourselves by continuing to seek out and read others' recaps of their experiences with going no poo/shamphree (depending on which term you like best), including those who have, per the title of this post, put this method to the test. The biggest scare? The chemistry of what we're doing.

Baking soda is an alkaline substance, which makes it great as a cleaning agent. Apple cider vinegar is an acidic substance, which no-pooers use to neutralize the baking soda and return your hair to a good balance. Here's the thing, though—when they say that baking soda is alkaline, they mean REALLY alkaline.

Here's one of the best blog posts I've found that actually walks through the pH ups and downs of the BS/ACV technique, the not-at-all-scary-sounding Baking Soda Destroyed My Hair. (Seriously, go read this.) Basically (hehe), the sebum coating on human hair has a natural pH of somewhere between 4 and 5 (slightly acidic). This protective coating keeps your hair healthy and shiny. ACV has a pH of 2–3 (very acidic) or 3–4 when diluted, which makes it great at neutralizing a highly alkaline solution. An alkaline wash like baking soda cleans your hair by opening up the cuticles on your hair and an acidic rinse like apple cider vinegar closes them back up. Simple. Here's the thing, though—that opening up of hair cuticles that baking soda does? That's exactly what you do to your hair when you get it dyed—opening up the cuticles allows the dye to soak into your hair, resulting in longer-lasting color. And what happens when you dye your hair frequently (say once a month)?

Yep, exactly.

Now imagine doing that to your hair once a week. Oh, dear.

What this means for me, I have yet to determine. Jenn is trying some alternatives right now (but I'll leave it to her to update us all), and we've both been eyeing interesting posts about the benefits of rye flour. In the meantime—again, back to the theme—I still plan to test the pH of my own solutions. I wonder where they'll land... I, meanwhile, am bound for a 10-day vacation in a week, so I need to figure out a travel solution soon, if only because I don't really care to carry baking soda and apple cider vinegar with me (the logistics of the vacation make it somewhat impractical to mix on the go). Perhaps a low-poo for travel?

That said, I feel like my goal is clearer now: Reduce dependency on any kind of shampoo (no-poo alternative, low-poo, or other) to about once per month. I'm tracking at about a week's worth of water-only rinses right now before I'm fed up with oiliness, so I'd definitely like to extend that.

Edwina's current status:

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 20

# of days since last naturoo (BS + ACV): 6

Significant Other Check: "No, it doesn't look oily, just unkempt." (In response to my request for a check shortly after waking up.)

Public Perception Paranoia Check: 3/10

Has YOUR Hair Ever Been Perpendicular to Your Face?

Last Saturday I washed with Baking Soda and rinsed with Vinegar.
On Tuesday I rinsed.
On Wednesday. I played softball. Here's what that looked like:

I'll confess to not always wanting hair
that defied gravity

I'll remind everyone that it was like 91 last Wednesday. And no, thanks for asking, but we tied. There was no way in hell that rinse was going to last that long. As it was, my hair was a greasy mess. But why wash it that morning when I knew I was going to have to wash it after softball? 

I walked into the shower, and my tube had the same issue that Edwina's tube had. It was crusty (and not in a...wait...crusty is never sexy). I added water to it. Shook it like it owed me money (cause, honestly, that GoToob was NOT cheap!), and squeezed some out. It seemed a little thick, so I added a bit of shower water to it before massaging it onto my scalp. Finished with the vinegar rinse. Huzzah!

NO. There was no "huzzah" to be had. The first real time I massaged my scalp with the baking soda mixture it felt great, soft, blowing. Wonderful. This time? Straw. If I were a mule I'd eat my own hair it was that dry. I was dejected.

The fault of the internet is the lack of
impact on senses outside of sight. 

Trust me, that's me looking dejected with straw like hair.

I was rather worried about what the baking soda was doing to the color I put on my hair (yes, I know...let me remove some chemicals from my scalp, but keep others on my hair...I know it's non-sensical, but this whole naturoo thing to me is out of vanity anyway so there!). Enter fabulous hairdresser (I'm calling her Faha from now on so I don't have to type out "fabulous hairdresser" each time) . I called to make an appointment to get my roots dyed. I warned her that I've "been doing that natural shampoo thing."
"Oh, ok," she said in a quite non-judgmental tone. "What does your hair feel like?"
"Well, greasy," I admitted, "and today it feels like straw too."
She went on to say that she hasn't had many clients that continue with it after they start trying it, and she usually tries to dissuade folks from it, but that we'd talk about it at my appointment on Saturday.

Saturday rolled around. My hair was only just starting to feel almost like hair again, but it was still straw like, and tangled. Faha lifted strands. "I don't like this," she said.
I sighed. Honestly, I don't like it either. I'm giving it the good ol' college try. If it doesn't work itself out in two months, I'll have to figure something else out. I also told her I thought I was done with the baking soda regiment due to what it's done this time. "You could try using just conditioner," she said, giving me an out. I told her I'd think about it after this trial period ends if it's unsuccessful. She did say "You know, they used to use baking soda in the 20s and 30s," I nodded, she kept on, "and there's a reason they invented shampoo."

This is the part where I'm torn between whether that reason was cleanliness, softness, and body, or if it was the commercialism that my skeptical self suspects.

She lathered the dye on my short tresses. She read her magazine, and I sat there knitting. She moved me to the sink, let it sit on the ends for a bit, and then rinsed the dye off, and washed using only conditioner.

Cheating has never ever in a million eons felt as good. The color, the color is beautiful. The movement, it swings. She rolled the edges under. It had a sheen (that was NOT grease!). It was light and fluffy and wonderful. This was "huzzah" worthy!

If you could feel the silky softness,
this photo would mean a LOT more.

And honestly, I have to say, that was saturday and it's almost Tuesday and it still looks pretty good. Granted, it's only two days, and that makes sense, but still.

Anyway, I do mean it. I'm done with the baking soda. Next up will be a honey and aloe gel mix from Code Red Hat. I picked up some aloe gel from Whole Foods (nothing like a trip to the aloe area of Whole Foods to make you realize how much you're NOT a hippie!) and I apparently have a honey hookup from Bee Raw and am super psyched to use this very tasty honey (I might have opened it today to taste it before using it in naturoo...). So that'll probably happen on Thursday morning after Wednesday's softball game. Stay tuned!

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 19 (the conditioning at the salon doesn't count, right? It wasn't really shampoo...)

# of days since last naturoo: 4

Masseuse Check: It looks really good, Jenn!

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 3/10

Steady as She Goes...

I've now done my second naturoo, with some slight tweaks, and only very subtle changes taking place, so far. Per Signficant Other, my hair's been a little flatter lately, but per Judgmental Coworker, my hair has looked basically the same throughout this whole process. (Sorry, Jenn.)

Here I am one day pre-naturoo, second time around:

Second verse, same as the first.

As with the same time last week, my hair was fine up until this day, when it just felt very greasy to the touch. It's hard to tell there, but even when up in a ponytail, there was obvious separation of strands happening all over, so it was almost definitely time. I say almost because, well, I may have been hankering to naturoo again so I could play around with the mixes, rather than actually needing a naturoo at that point. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Getting Better, or Getting Resigned?

On this point, I've got far less to be negative about than my partner in crime. While she's been going through some very obvious and significant transition, I'm either proving to be a late bloomer or a quick adapter. Compared to last week, my hair followed basically the same track: steadily getting oilier but not terribly noticeable until 6th day post-shampoo/naturoo, then fluffy and more voluminous immediately post-naturoo. One possible change is that while there was a very noticeable and unpleasant waxy feeling to my hair during water-only rinses (which transferred its waxiness to the palms of my hands), I didn't notice waxiness nearly as much these past few days. Of course, it's not like I've been carefully measuring waxy buildup, so I may just be getting used to that feeling. Still, I remain hopeful that it is actually decreasing, meaning that my hair is actually experiencing a transition of some sort.

One day post-naturoo. Also, zero days post-trim.

That said, other than the obvious oily buildup after about a week, I can't say that my hair has gotten any better or worse, so far. I did venture out for a trim, armed with the knowledge that hair dressers on the web have alternately sworn not noticing a difference with no-shampoo hair or absolutely hating how it feels when they handle it. I go fairly infrequently to a little salon in Chinatown staffed entirely by Cantonese-speakers with very little English (and I understand maybe 10 words in Cantonese), so if Mae did have a problem with how my hair felt, I have absolutely no idea. Oh well. Onwards!

Totally Unscientific Measurements

Oh, I nearly forgot! I adjusted my mixes a bit, partly based on some conversations with Jenn and how she's been altering her mixes—we really need to post one of our chats, soon—and partly out of an urge to just modify something to see if it had an effect of any kind.

With that in mind, when I went to do my naturoo this week, I found, to my dismay, that the little squeeze bottles Jenn and I got are definitely not well sealed. A crust of baking soda had extruded itself around the edges of the cap, leaving only a little water and undissolved baking soda inside. Not to be deterred, I shook up what was left in the bottle to use as normal, but ran out about halfway across my scalp. Doh! Pre-coffee me can be extremely lazy, so instead of getting out and measuring out exact new proportions for a refill, I just added water to the nearly empty bottle. An experimental squeeze proved that whatever was left in there still had that slippery feel, so I figured it was fine. Yep, that's what I used to naturoo.

On the vinegar rinse side, last week's scent nearly bowled me over. Though I initially complained bout the vinegar smell (which, by the way, I could smell coming out of my pores when I sweated for a day or so after), I think the real culprit was the rosemary oil—clearly too overpowering a smell for my delicate sensibilities. I also noticed that when I picked up my vinegar rinse spray bottle, a slimy looking skin had formed on the surface of the mixture—the oil, separated out, perhaps? In keeping with my totally unscientific approach, I fished that skin out and discarded it (gross), added 4 more drops of lemon oil (the scent I really wanted), and added a random amount of water to dilute my mix from 50/50 to...something less concentrated. Gave it a shake and then sprayed away!

Was this better? Worse? My answer so far: About the same, but lemon-scented vinegar was WAY better than rosemary-scented vinegar. Let's see if this naturoo's effects last the same length of time. In any case, I'll probably be a little more measured next time, because, you know, for (hair) science!

Edwina's current status:

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 15

# of days since last naturoo: 1

Judgmental Coworker Check: "Your hair STILL looks completely normal."

Significant Other Check: "Honestly, it's been a little flat, but it looks fine."

Hairdresser Mae Check: [something I didn't understand—I'm terrible]

Public Perception Paranoia Check: 1/10

I Rinsed

I could feel the grease in my fingers. I could feel the fluffy part in the back go slick with grease. I wasn't optimistic. So I used the apple cider vinegar rinse by itself. Hoping against hope that the acid could cut through the grease better than water alone. Thinking: "We shall see...the day is early still." 

I'm not like Edwina. When I smell vinegar I think of fall. I see red leaves on the ground and apple crisps in a recycled cardboard plate. It reminds me of the first time I went to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool festival. Stopping at a booth of wool yarn rich in lanolin and warm despite its scratchiness. I remember picking up a brightly colored skein, bringing it to my nose and inhaling it deeply. Smells of hay, sheep, oily shears and vinegar swarming my brain. The rush of supporting the farm by buying a skein (or 2, or a whole sweater's worth, why not come out and say it?) and knitting with a yarn steeped in color, locked in with vinegar is what I think of when I smell vinegar. I have actually found myself knitting more these past two weeks than in previous months. Perhaps some subliminal motivation? At any rate, I don't mind smelling like vinegar and besides, I just assume that others can't smell my hair anyway. 

The lesson of the day is to keep a boar bristle brush at work so I can brush my hair there when I get in, after my hair dries so I'm less self conscious about the greasy separation. After I got in tonight, here's the result:

Looks smooth, doesn't it?

It still feels soft under all the grease, which I'm interpreting to mean that it's clean. I was pretty surprised by that, I must say, but there you have it. Plan is to wash again tomorrow night when I get home from softball.  

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 13

# of days since last naturoo: 4

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 7/10

Dyer Consequences

Wednesday I washed my hair with the new, more potent formula. I really dug in and scrubbed my scalp more than I had on Tuesday. Really laid into it. Results were actually pretty great.

Day of second naturoo experience, everything is groovy!

There was a breeze. My hair moved. It moved! It was fine and felt just like it had been washed with traditional shampoo! We have a winner!

But (there's always a "but," isn't there?)...

Further research is leading me to worry about the effects of the baking soda on the dye I use in my hair. To the point where there has been a nightmare where my hair dresser refuses to dye my hair because she heard I'd been using the baking soda mixture. A friend who goes to the same hairdresser I do was telling me the hairdresser told her that dye doesn't take well to hair that's been washed with baking soda and vinegar. Panic has ensued. I looked into alternatives like Dr. Brommer's Castille Soap, and found a comment by the makers that it's not good for dyed hair. I looked at honey washes, but found that not everyone finds that actually cleanses hair. I've looked at coffee grinds, and might try that next.

The thing I'm finding the hardest about this whole experience is that it's all based on others' experience. There really does seem to be a lack of science and professionals weighing in. That creates a dearth of hard and fast rules of what you should and shouldn't do, and I rather like rules. They help make it so I don't have to think ALL the time, just some of the time. I did, however, find a page on the blog: How To Hair Girl that seems to be an experiment of how the baking soda solution works on dyed hair. I'm taking solace in that experiment for now. The goal is to wash the hair only once a week, so minimizing the baking soda will be good in the long run for my scalp and my dye. I hope that it's just an issue of getting through the transition phase unscathed.

So I repeated Wednesday's process on Saturday, since I had a family event to go to. Similar results. Softness, but stopping short of the volume I've read others experiencing elsewhere. That was the last time I washed, and today we're getting back to greaseville.

There's a bit of separation going on...

I'm not feeling too too bad about this, but I doubt it's going to make it until Saturday. You can't see here, but the roots are really growing out, so that means making an appointment with my hairdresser for more dye. I'm hoping to be able to see her on Saturday, when I'll pepper her with questions about this natural thing, and see if she has any pro tips/tricks to share. Since I don't want to wash right before I see her, if I can hold out until Wednesday to wash again, I think that might work for everyone involved...

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 12

# of days since last naturoo: 3

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 5/10

It's So Fluffy!

So I have now used the naturoo and the results are FLUFFY.

Learning a bit from Jenn's experience, I emptied out my little 2 oz. bottle of (very weak) baking soda mix and started from scratch. In went about 2 tsp. of baking soda and enough water to almost fill the squeeze bottle (with just enough room to shake it well). The result is definitely not as gooey as what Jenn has settled on, but also stronger than what we had initially. I also added 4 drops each of rosemary oil and lemon oil to my apple cider vinegar mix (which was a 1:1 ratio in a spray bottle).

Washing with the BS mix was definitely strange—because I'd opted for a very watery mix, I had to be really careful about squirting it out in small amounts and immediately scrubbing it into my roots with my free hand. I worked it all along the front of my scalp, then my natural part going back over my head, and finally under at the nape of my neck. I could feel it cutting through the accumulated oil as I went, but I'm not sure I ever got the "slippery" feeling other blogs have mentioned. That said, it is SO weird not to feel it lather. Then, a really good rinse of water, making sure to get my hair and scalp soaked through and through.

And on to the ACV rinse! At first spray, I was sure I'd made a mistake. I have a shower with high glass walls, so the vinegar smell was almost overwhelming, but I soldiered on for (hair) science! From what I've read, you're supposed to focus on getting it into the tips of your hair, rather than your roots. That said, the acidity of the ACV is supposed to balance out the alkalinity of the BS mix, so I just sprayed it all over, taking care to lift sections of hair and spray them on both sides before using both hands to rub it in. Again, rinsed really thoroughly.

Salad, Anyone?

And OMG I smelled like vinegar and rosemary. So basically, a salad I'd made the other day. Especially while I was toweling dry—with my hair all around my face, I didn't care if it felt clean or less tangled because there was a cloud of rosemary vinegar scent around my head. ACK. There wasn't much I could do about it though without being late for work, so I just went through the usual motions: towel dry, detangle with comb, brush with boar bristles, air dry. As far as I could tell, I still had a salad dressing miasma wafting around me, so I was not looking forward to facing the world, though Significant Other took several deep sniffs, even pressing his face right into the back of my head, and declared that it was barely noticeable unless he really "dug for the smell." Hmph, liar. (Also, sweetheart.)

I was sure, getting onto the subway, that I'd get wrinkled noses and disapproving glances, but...I didn't. And, to my surprise, as my hair air-dried (which it did a lot faster than it had during my water-only days), I noticed the smell less and less. By the time I got to work, my hair was almost completely dry and the smell was noticeable to me only when I ran my fingers through the still damp sections at the back of my head.

And it was CLEAN. No more waxy feeling on my hands. The dry sections already felt light again, as they used to feel after a commercial shampoo. And, well, see for yourself:

See? Just like a unicorn.

Now, that photo is actually taken the next day, after a water-only rinse, but the results are the same as the day of my first naturoo: light, fluffy, slightly wavy, clean hair with zero smell (though I got a waft of rosemary when my hair was wet again). There's been no noticeable oil build-up since yesterday, so it still feels great. And, as Significant Other pointed out, it's got some more volume than it did during the past week. Hurrah! I'm ready for another week :)

Bring it.

Edwina's current status:

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 8

# of days since last naturoo: 1

Significant Other Check: "You look great!"

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 9/10 yesterday, 1/10 today

On the 6th Day, I Contemplated Shampoo

SIX DAYS. I'll be honest—there was point before we started this when I didn't think I'd last two days without shampooing my hair. And here I am, rock you like a hurricane. No, wait, took the wrong path there with my brain.

Silky-looking business in front...

As you can see, my hair is still looking pretty normal, if a little lighter than usual. (That has nothing to do with forgoing shampoo—when the sun starts to appear with more regularity, my normally dark hair goes for a reverse tan. Also, invest in a good camera, trust me. No, iPhones do not count.) I've been extremely lucky not to experience the overly-greased, heavy flatness that I hear can happen here. Nope, my hair is still moving with the wind (sorry, Jenn) and is, if anything, showing less of a tendency to tangle at the nape of my neck.

...noticeably oily party in the back!

That said, it definitely FEELS oily to touch. When wet—I rinse it with water daily—it feels oddly waxy, and that waxy feeling transfers to my hands, which is a little unpleasant. I can definitely feel that oil transfer when I touch my dried hair, too. And, while I haven't been checking the back of my head every day, I finally got around to snapping a pic of it again and the hair back there is definitely separating out into oily locks, which does not look so good on (mostly) straight hair. (Aside: Hi, waviness, since when did you extend that far up?)

Anyway, this has been a fun week of going from paranoid to not, but I'm probably just about due for my first date with naturoo (h/t: Jenn). Stay tuned!

Edwina's current status:

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 6

Significant Other Check: [hits snooze and snuggles closer]

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 2/10

And, as a bonus:

1 Naturoo

I did it. I washed with natural shampoo. It felt like washing with water even though I knew there was baking soda in it. I'm strange, and actually like the smell of vinegar (it reminds me of newly dyed/washed skeins of yarn!), so I was never worried about the smell. What I worried about was how that naturoo was going to get rid of all that grease. It worked. Sort of.

(L) back of hair is still greasy
(T) but look at the soft hair by the nape of my neck!
(B) still pretty greasy, though

This morning in the shower got weird. I'm so used to commercial shampoo that when I squirted the bottle of our Naturoo and realized it was mostly water, I got confused. To my credit, I was still under-caffeinated. Where is the lovely goopy consistency I know and love? How do I handle this? Well, I decided to handle it by squirting the tube right into my hair near the scalp. I tried to rub it around, but there's only so much rubbing around of water you can do before you start to feel useless. I sprayed the vinegar solution on my short tresses. Rinsed and toweled off.

My normal routine is to comb my hair with a wide toothed comb and get on with my life. It takes my hair about a half a day to dry, and like I say on the sidebar, I like to minimize the amount of time it takes me to get ready in the morning, so there's no blow drying when it's this warm out. Not until noon did I finally get what's going on with my hair. When I left this morning, I still felt grease and was not optimistic about this day. However, around noon, pulling my fingers through my hair, rubbing the nape of my neck I was surprised. What's this? Is it soft? It feels clean! I got it clean, it just doesn't look clean! GAH!

It's the worst nightmare, right? Being something, but coming off to others as something else.

I had to switch to Naturoo to wash my hair every day. Even with commercial shampoo I was only washing it every other day. While one wash of commercial shampoo could just whisk away all this grease, I'm not giving up that easy. A change is in order.

So, our original recipe, which you may remember from yesterday's post, was 1 tablespoon of baking soda for 1 cup of water. In the post-mortem research of today's wash, I found a blog called "The Hairpin"(now on the sidebar because it's one of my new favorite informative blogs on the subject) where the woman used a 1:1 ratio of baking soda to water. When I came home tonight, I took out my GoToob and mixed a concoction of equal parts baking soda and water. With the grease the way it is, there's no way I could handle work and a professional function after work without washing my hair, so we'll give that a go tomorrow.

Hopefully the magic potion.

You can tell the new recipe has a much more milky appearance. If this doesn't work (but if the Care Bears exist it will surely work!) my next step is to find an air tight container I can put some baking soda in to take out in clumps while I'm in the shower. I have also heard of this working, and clearly it's the most drastic case.

Hypothesis # 2

I'll bet that we started this recipe backwards. I think that our sebum creating scalps are in party mode right now like highschoolers when their parents aren't home and we probably need a higher concentration of baking soda to start with. Once our scalps get used to the fact that we're expecting them to do their own thing they won't want to party anymore and will settle down to watch some Game of Thrones with a friend and a beer. Accordingly, we'll need less of the baking soda to tame them. 

Jenn's Current Status:

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 6

# of days since last naturoo: 0

Concerned Coworker Check: "It looks great! It doesn't look wet anymore!" (never has such a ringing endorsement been doled out so cheerily)

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 7/10

UPDATED: The Halfway Point

UPDATED: I lost the ability to count and originally reported this halfway point as 3 days in, when in fact I was 4 days in. Hurrah!

Well here I am, 4 days in, and I feel...fine.

As taken by Judgmental Coworker (again, a loving moniker).

Hey, I DO have white hairs!

I've definitely noticed that my hair feels heavier and slightly oily to the touch when I run my fingers through it, but so far, it's passed the Significant Other, Bemused Colleague, and Judgmental Coworker (that's actually not a knock against her; we revel in our shared judgment) Tests. (I'd say that it's also passed the Skeptical Friend Test, but I haven't actually seen her yet...) Which leads me to...

Hypothesis #1

When we started, Judgmental Coworker pointed out that we should try to have hypotheses we would test out during this experiment—hello, scientific method! Well, one such hypothesis incorporated the assumption that based on the differences in our hair—Jenn's is short and thick, mine is long and and less dense—that Jenn would have an easier time transitioning than I would. That said, we also need to keep in mind that I am running about 2 days behind Jenn, so I should really be comparing myself to her 2 days ago.

So far, I've been rinsing every morning with warm water, making sure to massage my scalp with my fingertips and rubbing the full length of my hair under the shower spray to rinse off as much daily crud as possible. This was especially important yesterday after walking more than 17,000 steps (per my fitness tracker—yes, I'm one of those people) and sweating like a very nervous, not particularly suave bandit. After showering, I towel my hair dry and let it sit wrapped in a towel to catch more moisture for a few minutes, then detangle with a large-toothed comb. One it's a little drier, I brush it all out, both topside and underside with a natural boar bristle brush. Then it's air dry from there during my morning commute. 

After all that, I feel like my hair doesn't look very different from a typical shampoo day, and I haven't noticed any itch in my scalp, either. So here's a thought, which will either be born out or proven wrong as this experiment continues. Instead of the length of my hair being a detriment, I think it's actually giving me a greater surface area over which to distribute the oil building up at my roots. Maybe?

Let's see where I'm at when I hit day 5!

Edwina's current status:

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 4

Significant Other Check: "Looks fine to me."

Judgmental Coworker Check: "Your hair looks surprisingly normal!"

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 2/10

It Might Just Be That Time

Huzzah for that weekend, there. I'm hoping that it helped get a lot of oil out of my system (I know the road is longer still). I think starting this project in the middle of the week was great as it allowed a lot of greaseballness to happen this weekend.

The downside of short hair is that I can't just put it in a bun.

But yeah. That's gross. I'm trying my best to pull a 90s slick hair style with it behind my ears. Sorta like Trinity from The Matrix:

Almost, right?

They wouldn't have had shampoo on the Nebuchadnezzar, right? I did tell my husband I wanted to be like Trinity. I think this might be as close as I can get as I'm 90% sure my leather catsuit wearing days have ended.

No one at work has said anything yet, but really, why would they? They're nice people and nice people keep their judgments to themselves. I have a dinner tonight with former colleagues. At least two of which check my facebook so they might know why my hair looks like crap.

So let's see what happens tomorrow morning when I wash with the naturoo (that's what I'm calling natural shampoo since I'm too lazy to continually write baking soda & Apple Cider Vinegar and "bs" means something else in my world.). I can remember only once when I was looking forward to a shower this much. The day I returned to civilization after being at Burning Man for a week.

Jenn's Current Status

# of days since last commercial shampoo: 5

Significant Other Check: not available - thank god we're on opposite schedules

Public Perception Paranoia Scale: 8/10 I'm getting through it by sheer determination...

The Secret Formula

It's really not so secret. We've been scrubbing blog after blog to figure out what the exact proportions of baking soda or apple cider vinegar to water are. What did we find? It depends.

It sounds like it all boils down to this: for the baking soda shampoo replacement, add baking soda to water, mix well, use. If you're not happy with the results, add more baking soda or add more water and try again. General rule of thumb, based on our extensive research, is that if you are seeing a lot of oil in your hair post-wash, add more baking soda, and if your hair is drying out, dilute it.

Mixing the Magic Stuff

Being utter novices at this, we're going to start with the absolute basics. 

First step: How much baking soda to how much water? At this point, we looked things up and discovered that a lot of folks start with a mix of 2 Tbsp. baking soda to 1 cup of water. Luckily, we bought squeeze bottles that hold 2 fluid oz. Doh. Not to worry—we do ok with math. (Jenn: Well...one of us does.) And, of course, a handy bottle of tea tree oil to add to each washing. As many others have pointed out, tea tree oil is a great natural way to treat various scalp issues, including dryness (which might crop up while we figure out the right baking soda mix) and dandruff.

Step 2: This was a lot easier to figure out. Most everyone we checked with recommended a simple solution of 1 part apple cider vinegar to 1 part water.

So, our list of equipment and ingredients:

The stuff that makes the stuff.

• For the "shampoo":
• 2 fl. oz. GoToob squeeze bottles
• 1 Tbsp. baking soda
• 1 cup of water*
• teat tree oil (add couple of drops each time you use the shampoo)
• For the conditioner:
• 8 fl. oz. spray bottles
• 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup of water

* For the Record: We used lukewarm water, which required a bit of elbow grease to get the baking soda to dissolve. We might use warm or hot water next time to speed it up. (Edwina: It was totally fine!)

And we're ready to get started! Next step, hold out without using any shampoo or conditioner for as along as we can (up to a week), then use these mixes for the first time. Fingers crossed!

Will it work? Stay tuned!

Next time on 2 Girls, No Shampoo: Who will break first?! Place your bets.

PS: While writing this, I also stumbled onto a post on Refinery29, "The Great No-Shampoo Experiment." Interesting to see others' experiences with going no-shampoo!

Edited to add:

Jenn had to change the formula a bit to get a result that worked for her. Here's her first change to the formula: 1 Naturoo
She also re-found a blog we both found inspiring called The Hairpin. She even added it to the sidebar for easy access!