A year without shampoo
Introduction
It’s been roughly a year since I stopped using shampoo/conditioner.
The main reason I tried it was because I had read that most dandruff is caused by shampoo, and I’ve had dandruff for as long as I can remember so I thought I’d give it a try.
My dandruff has never been better and my hair itself looks great, it hasn’t lost any “shine” or “volume” or any of the words companies arbitrarily use to sell shampoo.
Why shampoo is no good
The reason shampoo is no good is because it stops your scalp from regulating itself, which it is very good at doing if you just give it a chance.
Every time you use shampoo you are removing good oils from your scalp which makes your body overproduce them, which is why the more often you wash your hair the more quickly it gets greasy, just like chapstick which appears to moisturise your lips immediately but then makes them more dry.
If the products didn’t do that they wouldn’t make much money; like Chris Rock says “the money isn’t in the cure, it’s in the medicine”.
Some people even suggest that chemicals in products like shampoo are correlated with childhood obesity and lower brain development (source).
How can I do it?
It’s easy! Firstly you need to allow for a few weeks of adjustment, during which time your hair will become more greasy than usual. This is just because your body is used to battling the shampoo. It’s OK though because you can just clean it more regularly during this time, but try to last as long as you can in-between cleans to ween your scalp off faster.
To clean your hair without shampoo you just use baking soda. It’s really cheap and you don’t need much. Wet your hair in the shower then run a bit of baking soda through it, just because baking soda is a great cleaning agent. That’s all!
So save yourself some money and make your scalp and hair more healthy, it really works 🙂
Sure but it’s different for a woman!
Nope, in fact it’s mostly women who are writing articles about how great it is!
My girlfriend has been off shampoo for as long as I have, here’s a photo of her – and her previously unmanageable hair – from 2 nights ago. She’s on the left.
If you want to know more about it, check out these articles I found by searching “no poo”:
The No Shampoo Alternative
Ditching shampoo: a dirty little beauty secret
No ‘Poo: New & Improved!
The Oh-So-Important HAIR Update
and of course Wikipedia
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