Washed Hair

A couple weeks back I talked about washing my hair with baking soda and vinegar. I did so yesterday for the first time. Here’s the rundown.

I used these directions. I went with the simple method though instead of using old shampoo bottles I used some canning jars. I really want to get rid of as much plastic as possible which is why I went the jars. Anyways, I hopped in the shower with Wolf, wet my hair, then had him pour some of the baking soda/water into my hands. I rubbed it onto my head then massaged my scalp. We noticed the baking soda settled to the bottom really fast so we kept shaking the jar to mix the ingredients. Finally I just started scooping the baking soda off the bottom of the jar and putting it onto my head. I used about half of the container.*

Per the directions I left the mixture on my head for 1-3 minutes but found the mixture ran down my face and got baking soda all over my lips so I had to wet my face down to get it all off. There’s definitely a learning curve when it comes to using the baking soda/water mixture. Then I rinsed it off. It was at this point Wolf shaved the back of my head (I have him shave about 1/3 of my hair off every Sunday. Long story.) then we did the conditioner thing.

Prior to getting into the shower Wolf made the vinegar/water concoction. I let him chose the essential oil to put into the concoction and he chose sage. This worked out a lot better than the baking soda/water mixture because we kinda knew what to expect with the concoction running down my face so I tilted my head back. Then I brushed my hair to get the tangles out and it wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be. My biggest fear was I wouldn’t be able to brush my hair due to an abundance of tangles. It was an unnecessary fear. The vinegar worked fine as a conditioner.

Wolf commented on the smell of my hair multiple times. Even when we woke up this morning he commented on how much he likes the smell. The sage hides the vinegar pretty well and he says it smells clean and not chemical-like.

The only problem I see thus far is I have big flakes coming off my head. I’m not sure if the flakes are baking soda, shampoo and conditioner, or dandruff. I’ll give it a couple days to work itself out because I really, really, REALLY don’t want to go back to shampoo and conditioner.

Now I have to figure out how often I should wash my hair. With chemical laden shampoo and conditioner I have wash once a week at the very minimum. Around day 10 I start getting really itchy and dandruffy so I use the chemicals every 7. With this method I don’t know how often I should be washing. I’d like to keep it at 7 days. We’ll see though.

Melinda, any comments?

*It was smaller than a pint. Like, maybe a half pint…?

Edited to add: I forgot to say after I got out of the shower my face was really, really red and the skin incredibly dry. So dry it was reminiscent of the days when I used stridex pads on my face. I don’t know if the reason was the vinegar, baking soda, or sage or some combination but it took a couple hours for it to wear off and remoisten.