No shampoo/self-cleaning hair stories?

[satnam]

Hello there!

I stopped shampooing my hair about two months ago, and then stopped baking soda/ACV rinsing a month ago (I learned baking soda's ph is way off from the scalp's ph and can damage hair a lot). I have been experiencing more hair loss than normal lately, but actually remember this happening before I stopped any products: whether its hereditary, stress-related (just had literally a "hell" of a year), or that my sebaceous glands or overproducing sebum and clogging follicles, I don't know. If I do go back to products, I'm opting for something non-chemical and apparently amazing like Morocco Method, BUT it is so expensive and after all this time I'd much rather wait it out until my truly 'natural' hair sorts itself out and gets healthy on its own (I eat well, exercise, etc).

Has anyone else here tried the no-product self-cleaning-hair route? What were your results? Any DIY scalp-cleansers that people have had good experience with, other than baking soda? It would be super helpful to know if there are other "crunchies" out there.


xoxo

[lilin]

You know, we have some WO (water only) success stories here, but a lot of people just never see results with it. I'm one of those people.

Probably has a lot to do with my water quality. Might also have something to do with my skin type and living in a city. But I never got over the waxy feeling, and it trashes my scalp.

Humans have been washing their hair with something for thousands of years, so we don't even really know what truly WO hair is supposed to look or feel like, and it's entirely possible that some people might never get what we today consider good results.

So I ditched it. My scalp just doesn't like it, and neither does my hair. I might try stretching longer between washes if I wind up somewhere with very soft water. We'll see. But I'm not convinced it's necessarily the best thing for hair anyway.

Water alone actually causes a fair amount of hair expansion -- more than some cleansers do, but less than others. Hair expansion = protein loss. This isn't avoidable. It WILL happen whenever hair is wet with any substance. But the fact that water isn't necessarily any more protective to the structure of the hair than actual cleansers really kind of cemented my decision to ditch WO and not look back.

I use soap nut liquid. Stick soap nuts in water, and boil! There's your shampoo. It contains saponin, which is a natural nonionic cleanser. Nonionics are gentler and less powerful than the anionics usually used in commercial shampoo, but still plenty strong enough to do the job. It also has a somewhat acid pH, ideal for hair. I've been very happy with it. It's by far the best of all the cleansing DIY solutions I've tried, for my hair. It not only does the job, but it appeals to my aversion to spending ages making some kind of concoction with a million ingredients. If you don't feel like watching the pan, you can even just pour boiling water over it and steep overnight, like tea. Ultimate lazy DIY'ers recipe. :)

I prefer to use a spray bottle, as it's quite watery and that helps me control where I'm applying it and how much I'm using. Pouring it causes a lot of waste, and makes it harder to avoid my eyes. It will sting the eyes, like pretty much any cleanser will whether it's natural or not.

Oh, and it's reasonably cheap. No need to spend lots of money on fancy products.

[satnam]

You know, we have some WO (water only) success stories here, but a lot of people just never see results with it. I'm one of those people.

Probably has a lot to do with my water quality. Might also have something to do with my skin type and living in a city. But I never got over the waxy feeling, and it trashes my scalp.

Humans have been washing their hair with something for thousands of years, so we don't even really know what truly WO hair is supposed to look or feel like, and it's entirely possible that some people might never get what we today consider good results.

So I ditched it. My scalp just doesn't like it, and neither does my hair. I might try stretching longer between washes if I wind up somewhere with very soft water. We'll see. But I'm not convinced it's necessarily the best thing for hair anyway.

Water alone actually causes a fair amount of hair expansion -- more than some cleansers do, but less than others. Hair expansion = protein loss. This isn't avoidable. It WILL happen whenever hair is wet with any substance. But the fact that water isn't necessarily any more protective to the structure of the hair than actual cleansers really kind of cemented my decision to ditch WO and not look back.

I use soap nut liquid. Stick soap nuts in water, and boil! There's your shampoo. It contains saponin, which is a natural nonionic cleanser. Nonionics are gentler and less powerful than the anionics usually used in commercial shampoo, but still plenty strong enough to do the job. It also has a somewhat acid pH, ideal for hair. I've been very happy with it. It's by far the best of all the cleansing DIY solutions I've tried, for my hair. It not only does the job, but it appeals to my aversion to spending ages making some kind of concoction with a million ingredients. If you don't feel like watching the pan, you can even just pour boiling water over it and steep overnight, like tea. Ultimate lazy DIY'ers recipe. :)

I prefer to use a spray bottle, as it's quite watery and that helps me control where I'm applying it and how much I'm using. Pouring it causes a lot of waste, and makes it harder to avoid my eyes. It will sting the eyes, like pretty much any cleanser will whether it's natural or not.

Oh, and it's reasonably cheap. No need to spend lots of money on fancy products.



Thank you for your response! That is a very good point, that humans have been doing this for centuries; it is likely we have adapted accordingly. And thanks for the recommendation r.e. soap nuts, I'll have to look into that.

[satnam]

P.S. Very interesting about water, that its expansion leads to protein loss.

[lilin]

P.S. Very interesting about water, that its expansion leads to protein loss.

Yup. To be fair, any wetting with any substance will do this. It's not possible to avoid 100% of hair damage. However, some cleansers actually cause less protein loss than water does! Even some of the harsher anionic cleansers fare better than water alone.

Here's a really interesting summary chart I've seen. You can find the original studies in the post.

http://www.thenaturalhavenbloom.com/2010/06/myth-or-fact-sulfate-shampoo-breaks.html

I see the train of logic for why WO is thought to be better, but in reality, I don't think there's any evidence it's actually better, and human history attests to that. I'd reckon we started washing hair for a reason. Lots of animals have various ways of washing themselves -- especially other "naked" animals like us.

Soap nuts are great! You can use them for general cleaning as well.

Soapwort and yucca are also natural nonionic cleansers you can look into. Soapwort has an additional property, called saponaria. I plan to give it a try and see what it's like.