65 days without shampoo

Me, to guy at party last night: "I haven't used shampoo in 65 days."

"Is that why your hair looks greasy?"

"...yeah."

I've been waiting and waiting for the incredible results that the "no poo" advocates blog about. Is my hair thicker? Well, somewhat, but I don't know if it's new growth, or simply that the hairs themselves are thicker because of waxy buildup.

Is my hair shiny? More manageable? I guess. Is it incredibly soft? Sometimes. It's softer than it was when I was using shampoo + conditioner + styling product.

My hair still has a greasy, waxy coating, which is driving me nuts. A couple of weeks ago, I decided it must have been residue from the previous 6 weeks, and decided to wash it out with apple cider vinegar.

Apple cider vinegar is one of those wonder products that health nuts are constantly recommending for everything from gout to herpes; in my experience, it's not useful for anything other than smelling like vinegar all day. So down to the kitchen to grab the apple cider vinegar. All out. I'd used it all trying to cure my toenail fungus. We had 2 containers of white vinegar, though, so I grabbed one of those.

I used about a quarter-cup of white vinegar in the shower (don't get that shit in your eyes) and gave my hair a thorough scrubbing. It definitely got rid of the waxy buildup, but by the time I stopped smelling like vinegar, 2 days hence, the buildup was back.

I've decided I'm very nearly done with this experiment. I'm going to stick with it until the end of September; if I haven't seen any wonderful results at that point, I'll go back to shampooing on a more-or-less regular basis. It's not that I'm horribly dissatisfied with any of the results, it's just that I'm not delighted, like the no-poo crowd said I'd be. And if I'm not delighted, then what's the point?

There is another product which is supposed to do awesome things for your hair (and nails), and recently I started taking it. I don't think the results will overlap. So you can look forward to the next blog post:

My results with prenatal vitamins.