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Bubble trouble
One green girl's story of ditching shampoo altogether; she (and her gorgeous new hair) never looked back.
Sun, Nov 01 2009 at 2:54 PM
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HAIR GLARE: Turns out that not washing with shampoo can create shinier, healthier hair. (Photo: *Zara/Flickr)
Every day I faced off against lackluster tresses, while two friends of mine couldn’t stop raving about their own glossy, sexy hair. They had recently stopped shampooing — just went cold turkey — and the results were marvelous. Both are decidedly un-crunchy, so I knew they weren’t making some hippieish statement about evil soap conglomerates or shampoo pollution in our waterways; this no-suds policy, I reasoned, must actually be good for hair.
What did I have to lose? I tossed out my shampoo, began simply rinsing my hair in the shower every day, and waited to be dazzled by my new chemical-free, naturally lustrous mane. The payoff was a while in coming, and I soon regretted having told everyone about my little experiment. Was it dirty, friends asked? Did it smell? Most concealed their revulsion at the idea of not shampooing, but when one involuntarily put her hand to her face in horror, it made a powerful impression.
Seven months later, my hair has never looked better. It’s shinier and has more body, and my ordinarily flake-prone scalp is noticeably healthier. Plus, I get the self-righteous buzz of having beaten the system: I washed The Man right out of my hair and it stayed clean anyway.
The problem with shampoo is that most of it contains sodium lauryl or laureth sulfate as a foaming agent. Both are detergents capable of degreasing engines. Not surprisingly, they are also skin irritants. The charge against them by the no-’pooers is that they strip the hair and scalp of natural oils, creating an artificial demand for moisture that only commercial shampoos and conditioners can fill.
Bahman Karimzadeh, a Los Angeles stylist and staunch anti-shampooist, advocates a more DIY approach to conditioning. “You have to let your scalp make enough oil to bring it through to the end,” he says. “Some people say, ‘My scalp is dirty, oily, I have to wash it.’ You have to get over that feeling.”
Admittedly, when I first got off shampoo there was a funk factor. Around week two, I noticed my hair felt tacky when I wet it. Not long afterward I thought, “What’s that smell?” The answer came: “Oh. It’s me.” And I hadn’t even been hitting the gym that hard.
That’s when I contacted Karimzadeh, who counseled “shampooing” with conditioner once a week. That improved life dramatically. My hair was cleaner and softer, and it was starting to develop body I’d never seen. It fell in ringlets and held a style. It even stayed out of my face.
I should throw in one caveat here: The anti-’poo camp is dominated by folks with wavy and curly hair. Straight-and-fines may have trouble with the shampooless lifestyle — it usually just weighs their manes down. But for everyone else, says Lorraine Massey, co-owner of Devachan Hair Salon in New York City, ditching the suds is de rigueur. Something of a demigoddess among the curly-headed set, Massey has developed a line of products called DevaCurl. I now wash with Massey’s fragrant, sudsless No Poo (think of conditioner minus the slippery element) once a week.
And so here I am. There has been just one significant setback in my quest for natural hair. It happened a few days before Thanksgiving, when I decided to deep-condition using a product recommended by Karimzadeh and countless beauty magazines: mayonnaise. I wet my hair, towel-dried it, worked in about one-eighth of a cup, and rinsed a few minutes later.
After it dried, I admired the shine in the mirror, but something was off. It was a little too shiny. I rinsed again. And then I understood: The stuff wasn’t coming out. Over the next two days, my hair hung in oily clumps and developed the distinct odor of rancid nut oil. Finally, on Thanksgiving morning, dinner with the in-laws just hours away, I gave in and shampooed my hair for the first time in months. It looked great that day, but my shocked scalp immediately started to shed delicate flakes, and the texture of my hair soon got weird. That was all the assurance I needed. I’m back on the ’poo-free track, and this time I’m not getting off.
DIY Beauty
A sampling of natural cleansers and conditioners.
BAKING SODA:
This is the best natural cleanser I found, but don’t use it more than once every few weeks: Too-frequent use will strip away the lipids in the hair’s cuticle, says hair researcher Yash Kamath of Princetonbased TRI (formerly known as the Textiles Research Institute). Dissolve 1 teaspoon in a cup of warm water, massage through hair, and rinse. Leaves hair crazy silky and squeaky-clean.
BEER:
In a favorite book of mine from childhood, the heroine escapes from a Nazi concentration camp and is taken in by nuns who wash her matted hair with beer, making it lovely again. I had such high hopes as I opened the can in the shower! Instead it left a dull residue on my hair. I’ll stick to drinking it.
HAIRBRUSH:
Brushing every single night makes my wavy hair too straight, but 100 strokes twice a week helps to distribute the natural oils evenly.
LEMON JUICE:
Some people swear by it as a clarifying cleanser, but after applying the juice of one lemon to my hair and rinsing, I found it lank and lifeless for a couple of days.
MAYONNAISE:
The ingredients in this supposed miracle conditioner — eggs, lemon, and oil — are the holy trinity of home hair remedies, but I say leave the stuff on the sandwich.
OLIVE OIL:
Good for long hair that gets dry on the ends. A drop or two — no more — rubbed between the palms and applied lightly to dry hair will moisturize and add shine.
Story by Traci Hukill.
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Matriz sleek and shine is AMAZING! I have used it for awhile now and I mistreat my hair very badly :( But every time I go back to the hair dresser she says I don't know how your hair stays so healthy and grows so fast! & I say matrix sleek and shine :) I highly recommend it to anyone. It is expensive but well worth the money.
This seems like a very interesting idea, but with all of the extra products and shit its like, what. I'd be trying this to save money and make my hair nicer at the same time. I am not sure how well it would work with me straightening my hair every day... yea my hair is naturally wavvy and I hate it. >_> The conditioner thing also confused me... bc i steal my dad's shampoo which is shampoo/conditioner combined.
Dan, I definitely appreciated this comment. I feel like many of the suggestions here have been vague and completely opinion-based, instead of fact-based. This provided helpful and scientific information. To those who didn't like his tone, as my momma always said, "if the truth hurts, it's your own damn fault!".
He has his points, but comparing hair with trees and leaves is pretty absurd. The hair is alive only in epidermis, when the hair is outside, it is dead, so the longer the hair, the more attention needs to be drawn to its ends (of course if you do not want it to be all dry and split) and this is where masks are very helpful, by giving them the missing nutrition.
thank you for putting this into a "no shampoo for dummies" format :)
I thought your response was great and straight to the point. I took more from your reply than the actual article. Thanks.
dan i find ur info gross but helpful. perhaps you could have gone about it in a NICER manner
he doesnt have to be nice. he just has to be right. which he is.
Dan, you kinda sound like a pretentious ass. Your need to educate the rest of the "inferior intellects" is comical, but if it gets you off well then hey, more power to you.
Douche.
I like the idea a lot! I never have time to shampoo my hair and think that if my hair would behave it would be so wonderful. To the rude person being mean to dan: I'm sorry that you do not understand and I see no need for foul language. He is simply explaining the processes. I'm sure you will understand if you think about it.
I love this response. Soooo true.
I love this response. Soooo true.
I love this response. Soooo true.
Dan,
How about some references, speaking of scientific?
Also, if you want to remain anecdotal, I've used that much mayonnaise on my hair before with success. I frankly don't see how putting something on the scalp is any better than putting it on the hair ends- the living roots are under the skin. The purpose of using something like mayonnaise is to moisturize the already-dead hair. Real nutrition comes from diet.
he took chemistry
I rinse my hair with vinegar and cold water, and it shines like crazy! I try to shampoo every other day but my hair is really thin and can be a bit of a grease trap, but we did it for millions of years without it, right?
I'm curious about trying this but I have the same questions you did about the styling products and visiting the salon. I hadn't even thought of the beach, but certainly that would be a concern. I would love answers to these questions too! I think the next time I go to the salon I will just ask what she thinks about going shampoo free and see what she says before I actually try it.
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