No-Poo Challenge, Day 1

Over the past few months, I have been reading about this "no-poo" challenge, where the "poo" stands for shampoo. The idea is that there are so many BAD chemicals in shampoo that we should not "shampoo" our hair altogether. That doesn't necessarily mean don't wash, but don't use regular shampoos. The whole idea is that today's shampoos are designed to remove oil, but much like antibiotics, they don't discriminate good from the bad and therefore strip our hairs of the natural oils that would normally be present. We then add the conditioner to attempt to replace the lost oils. Your hair is able to regulate its own oils though; its much like a supply and demand situation. The more you remove your oils, the more your hair tries to replace it. The goal, then, is to let your hair stabilize where it needs to. 

There are two ways to do this. First, you can wash with water. Yup, that's right, your hands scrub and all you put on is water. Second, you use a baking soda paste (1 tbsp baking soda plus water to form paste) and rub that in to your scalp only. Let sit for a minute and then rinse with water. You then take 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar and mix in a large cup with enough water to fill it and you rinse the ends of your hair. Let sit for a minute and then rinse out. There is actually a third, which is to just wash with conditioner (not shampoo). From the detail, you can assume that I am choosing the second option and I found details of it here.

So today was day one. I didn't plan ahead, I just jumped in and I hope to go at least 30 days. What do I have to lose? There is a "transition period" where your hair has to adjust to the oils which can take up to a month or so, but I figure that I can very easily cover my head if it becomes nasty. My biggest worry is that I won't be able to stand it. I HATE it when my hair gets dirty and won't let anyone touch it. I anticipate suffering somewhat for the first few weeks, but hopefully it won't be too bad. If I can't take it, I might just try washing with conditioner that day and hoping that the smell of the conditioner makes it feel better...so today, I washed my hair per the instructions on the website and it feels very soft and it was slightly curlier than normal. I went ahead and blew-damp (not dry) my hair because I do that normally, but I also covered it, which I usually do. There were far fewer tangles than normal because I didn't try to wash all my hair, just the roots. That was a welcome relief because I usually have very tangly hair. Stay tuned to see how long I go. Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures...pictures are really important here!