No-Poo

Happy May 1st Everyone!

Recently I've noticed a trend of using baking soda and apple cider vinegar as your shampoo and conditioner instead of the regular stuff. It's called the no-poo method.

I'm no scientist or hair expert so I don't know a whole lot about the science behind it but basically shampoo and conditioner strip your hair of its natural oils which causes you to overproduce oil and make your hair greasy. It also clogs your pores in your scalp which causes less hair growth. In short, you won't have to wash your hair as often, and it will make it hair healthier, fuller, and less greasy.

So I decided to try this method out and see how well it works. I purchased a box of baking soda for around $2, a bottle of apple cider vinegar for around $2, and a spray bottle for $1. You will also need some water. Everything I read said you should use distilled water for the mixing if you live in a place with hard water but I didn't do that.

There are two ways you can use the baking soda. The first being you mix 1 TBSP. to 1 cup of water in a bottle with a pin point hole, such as a mustard bottle or a squirt bottle with a tiny hole. This allows you to focus the mixture right on your roots. Make sure the baking soda is completely dissolved and the mixture should feel slick/slippery. If it doesn't then keep adding more baking soda until it does. The second method you put the baking soda in an airtight/watertight container and after getting your hair really wet you use a spoon to put them baking soda on your fingertips and massage it into your roots. As with the first method make sure the mixture is slippery on your scalp. (I had a problem with this because I kept adding and adding more soda but it didn't seem to get slippery - I eventually gave up :/) Leave it in while you do the rest of your showering and then rinse it out really well.

For the vinegar you will add 2 TBSP. for everyone 1 cup of water into a spray bottle and mix well. You will spray it on the long part of your hair, NOT your roots. Rub it in and let sit for a minute or so and then rinse. It may smell like vinegar when you first apply it but once you rinse it out you can't tell. It won't smell like your normal shampoo and conditioner, it won't have a smell at all - good or bad, so if you want to add some essential oils or lemon juice to the spray bottle you can.  I purchased the 8 oz. spray bottle but it was a little too small to fit a cup of water plus 2 TBSP. of the vinegar so I but it down to 1/2 a cup of water and 1 TBSP. of water. I would suggest get a spray bottle that's bigger then 8 oz. so you don't have to worry about cutting the size down.

If you have oily hair then you should use a little more baking soda and less vinegar. If you have dry hair then do the opposite and use a bit more vinegar and a little less baking soda.

I've only tried this one time and I used the second method. I think I'm going to try and find an old mustard bottle and do the first method to see how well it works because I just couldn't get that slippery feeling I was told I needed to get. I forgot to take pictures of my hair before I started this method but basically I would wash it and let it air dry, it would get really frizzy and big after it dried. After about a day or two it would look greasy on the top at the roots.
(Sorry about the bad quality of pictures!)

This is what it looked like after I towel dried it a little bit & before I brushed it

This was right after I combed through it. I was afraid there would be a lot of tangles since I didn't use actual conditioner but there really wasn't any more then usual, I was really surprised by that.

Here's a front shot of the hair after I combed it

A close-up of the hair after the combing. As you can see it still is frizzy looking but I've only used this method once and they say it can take weeks for your scalp/hair to get use to it. Also, your suppose to use a clarifying shampoo for awhile before starting this method to get your hair prepped but if you don't that's ok, it will just take a little longer for your hair to transition. It may feel dry and kind of like hay or cotton or something like that for the first couple weeks but they say that will go away. You can use a little bit of coconut oil to help with that. Also letting it air dry and keeping it up in a ponytail, headband, bandana, etc. will help.

Top of my hair after combing it. The main places that it frizzes after brushing it are the top where my bangs start and the sides by my ears.


Click HERE to see the website that I got my information from! You can also Google "no-poo method" and it will come up with a bunch for results.

I will make sure to keep you all updated on how things are turning out.

xoxo