PDA

View Full Version : Do you alter your hair care routine during a drought?



sumidha
January 21st, 2014, 11:24 AM
Hi lovely long hairs!

As you may or may not know, California, the state where I happen to live, has declared a drought emergency due to having the lowest annual rainfall since we started keeping records. People have been asked to cut their water consumption by 20%, and I was hoping we could share tips or tricks on how to cut hair related water use.

I've found that most of my shower time is spent rinsing stuff out of my hair, so I think in addition to stretching my washes more I'm also going to play around with scalp only washing, unless the length is actually legitimately dirty and needs it.

I've never done the whole 'mermaid soak' thing, but I think that might be worth exploring as well, as a way of rinsing thoroughly without constantly running water, like with a shower? I think I'm going to have to do some research about the flow rates of shower heads!

Ooh, and this one is going to suck, but I've resolved that when I go swimming this summer I'm not going to get my hair wet, so I don't have to wash it afterwards (I swim in the ocean or rivers, not pools so it's not as much of a chlorine/hygiene issue). That one's gonna suck.

Anyone else got any tips or thoughts? Great dry shampoo recipes? Anecdotes about how desert dwellers traditionally cleanse their hair?

YamaMaya
January 21st, 2014, 11:42 AM
Corn starch makes a good base for dry shampoo, and lots of BBB brushing.

melusine963
January 21st, 2014, 11:50 AM
I've never lived somewhere with a proper drought going on, but since I only wash my hair once a week I wouldn't feel too bad about using water for that. There are so many other ways of saving water that I would compensate with.

neko_kawaii
January 21st, 2014, 12:01 PM
For many years we had to truck in our water. We washed our hair in the sink over a bowl. It only takes a couple gallons of water. Start by putting your length in the bowl and pour water from the bowl over your scalp so that the bowl catches it as it falls. Get hair completely wet this way. You don't need handfulls of shampoo and conditioner, if you are having trouble distributing them, try diluting them with a little water first. To rinse move your hair away from the bowl and scoop water out and pour it over so the dirty water drains away.

Low flow shower heads are great. Mine is detachable and has three settings: regular, extra low, and jet. The extra low setting is for when you are soaping up and don't actively need flowing water (you can also just turn the water off), jet is high flow and works well for rinsing hair near the scalp (I find I hardly ever use it).

If you have plants, take a pitcher or bucket and collect the water that you would normally run down the drain while waiting for the cold water to clear out of the line and the hot to arrive from the water heater. You can also save your shower or bath water by putting a stopper in the tub or standing in a vessel in a flat bottomed shower.

Long term solutions that everyone should adopt are: low flow toilets, on demand water heaters, gray water systems, and water cachements.

I remember the drought when I was a kid and the reservoirs ran dry. We finally had enough money to dig a well in the last year of that drought and got less than a gallon a minute and they kept drilling for a few hundred more feet hoping to hit more water. We had one deep well, LOL, but never had better water flow until the drought ended.

sumidha
January 21st, 2014, 12:20 PM
I've never lived somewhere with a proper drought going on, but since I only wash my hair once a week I wouldn't feel too bad about using water for that. There are so many other ways of saving water that I would compensate with.

I wash my hair once a week as well, but it's still like a twenty minute shower which seems like a long time to me. I think like Neko_kawaii suggested, getting a low flow shower head would cut down on the amount of water I use... Also, I still need to do the research to find out exactly how much I'm using, at this point it's still pretty theoretical. :o

sumidha
January 21st, 2014, 12:36 PM
For many years we had to truck in our water. We washed our hair in the sink over a bowl. It only takes a couple gallons of water. Start by putting your length in the bowl and pour water from the bowl over your scalp so that the bowl catches it as it falls. Get hair completely wet this way. You don't need handfulls of shampoo and conditioner, if you are having trouble distributing them, try diluting them with a little water first. To rinse move your hair away from the bowl and scoop water out and pour it over so the dirty water drains away.

Low flow shower heads are great. Mine is detachable and has three settings: regular, extra low, and jet. The extra low setting is for when you are soaping up and don't actively need flowing water (you can also just turn the water off), jet is high flow and works well for rinsing hair near the scalp (I find I hardly ever use it).

If you have plants, take a pitcher or bucket and collect the water that you would normally run down the drain while waiting for the cold water to clear out of the line and the hot to arrive from the water heater. You can also save your shower or bath water by putting a stopper in the tub or standing in a vessel in a flat bottomed shower.

Long term solutions that everyone should adopt are: low flow toilets, on demand water heaters, gray water systems, and water cachements.

I remember the drought when I was a kid and the reservoirs ran dry. We finally had enough money to dig a well in the last year of that drought and got less than a gallon a minute and they kept drilling for a few hundred more feet hoping to hit more water. We had one deep well, LOL, but never had better water flow until the drought ended.

Yaay this is great advice, thank you!

Oh man, I've already given up on doing any gardening, I remember a few years ago there was a dry summer and water was so expensive, we used the grey water from the kitchen sink to water the flowers, it was such a dirty messy pain in the butt to haul buckets of dishwater to the yard! I'd rather let the landscaping in the cruddy house we're renting now die, lol. >.<

I think I'll be using that bowl in the sink method when I need to wash the length, and I also just realized switching from shampoo bars back to liquid shampoo would way cut down on rinsing time for me, as well.