My first clarify ever. (No pics)

[Zindell]

I just have to tell you how wonderful my hair feels. :D

My hair is virgin and I use sulfate schampoo and conditioner with cones. My hair likes the cones, it makes it shiny and slippery.
But this fall I've had a major shed. I think it has to do with either post stress from last spring. (Work related and I was home due to it for some weeks) or that I actually burnt my scalp on my vacation to Spain in august. I never protected my head from the intense sun, but I also never noticed that I eventually got burned. Maybe it was a combination of stress and sunburn or maybe just bad luck. I lost a lot of hair this fall but I now I can also feel that a lot of new hair is growing in. (When I run my fingers close to my scalp I feel "thousands" of soft tiny hairs, very encouraging).

Anyhows... because of the big shed my hair is thinner, and that makes it more prone to tangling. I usually sleep with my hair loose without a problem, but now when it's thinner I wake up with lots of tangles. Also my hair quality just feels different. Not so great to be honest.

So for the first time in my life I tried clarifying;
I made a thick goo of baking soda and rubbed it on my scalp and all through my hair. Then I rinsed with water and after that I rinsed with some fresh lemon diluted in water. Then a short final rinse of only water.

Now my hair feels great! Very soft but still strong.

I wish I tried this earlier. The question now is... should I only do this clarifying now and then, or should I actually start wash my hair with only baking soda and rinse with lemon water?

I read that some here think that using baking soda is too harsh for the hair? Any advice?

[Firefox7275]

Baking soda is alkaline so damaging to both skin and hair, those with low porosity hair will likely get away with that longer than higher porosity or fine hair. If you want to clarify use a proper sulphate/ olefin sulfonate or betaine rich shampoo that is clear/ non conditioning.

Note that some of the benefits you have noticed may be down to the lemon juice chelating and/ or helping the cuticle lay flat (isoelectric point of hair). Do not attribute it all to the baking soda, that is not the only change you made to your regime.

[Zindell]

Thank you Firefox. I noticed that while I was washing with the baking soda my hair and hands felt a dry not-so-nice-feeling, but when I rinsed with the lemon-water it felt fine again...

[sarahthegemini]

I don't understand where the idea that 'baking soda is gentle' came from. It's incredibly harsh! And not following up with a proper conditioner is asking for trouble...