Recently I've been trying a new hair washing routine to help with growing pretty long hair and to soothe my sore scalp. For the past year or so I've had problems with a really dry/sore scalp and tried a bunch of prescription medicated shampoo and scalp treatments with no real improvement. Medicated scalp treatments tend to be full of chemicals and the ones I used would strip the dyed black out of my hair and be SO nippy on my scalp when I applied them. I tried using coconut oil and different dry oils in-between, washed my hair more often/ less often but it would always be pretty annoying.
So I decided to give up the medicated shampoos and use other natural methods to try fix my scalp. I bought the Lush Trichomania solid shampoo bar which helped because its pretty moisturising but I was still getting dryness so I decided to try the no poo method after I was told how amazing it was.
So no poo haircare basically is where you don't use normal shampoo or conditioner to wash your hair. Instead you use baking soda as a shampoo and apple cider vinegar as a conditioning rinse.
Most normal shampoos strip the natural oils from your hair and your scalp can then over produce oils meaning you need to wash your hair more as it will get greasy more quickly.
Other benefits include
- More body
- Added shine
- Its really cheap
- Improved scalp condition, because regular shampoos can have lots of irritating ingredients.
This method is really easy to do !
1. First mix 1 or 2 spoonfuls of baking soda with water and use this as a shampoo, this is actually a little tricky because it doesn't produce any lather, nothing at all so its hard to tell if your doing it right or if your hair is actually getting clean! But as long as you've rubbed it in and rinsed good your hair will be all nice and clean! This step can be done twice if you have lots of build up or don't was your hair as regularly.
2. For conditioner I used this Dr Bronners conditioning rinse instead of the vinegar because my hair is really dry and this has more conditioning oils, but using cider vinegar or any other conditioning rise is fine. You dilute this with water the same as the shampoo!
After my first wash using this my hair felt SO dry I used some coconut oil after I had blow dried and it helped a lot. Apart from that my hair did feel clean and my scalp felt dry. I went a week until my next wash and my scalp was greasier than usual (this is normal while your scalp adjusts to the change), but my scalp felt better and wasn't so itchy!
I'm now at the end of my third week using this method and my scalp isn't getting so greasy any more and my scalp is a whole lot better! Also my hair looks lovely and shiny and its SO SOFT! I'm surprised by how good the results of this have been and I would definitely recommend this method especially if you suffer from a dry/sore scalp like I did, It does take some getting used to but the benefits are really worth suffering that for a week or so.
