My baking soda + malt vinegar bottles

A couple of years ago I read Simple Mom talk about going without Shampoo in her book Organized Simplicity. It sounded so nice, but I was nervous to try it. Then a couple of months ago I picked up her ebook One Bite at a Time on my Kindle Fire. Again she mentioned the no shampoo thing. I decided I really really wanted to try it.

She mentioned in both books that your hair will be oily for a few weeks as it fights against the new regimen, so I was prepared to go a month or so with really yucky hair. It actually wasn’t SO bad, but here’s how it went.

Week One

At first I didn’t have a bottle to mix things in so I just shook some baking soda powder on my head in the shower and rubbed my head like I did with shampoo. Then, I had a squirt bottle I had used for water when ironing, so I added a little apple cider vinegar to water and sprayed it on the ends of my hair.

This worked great and I was super excited. I even told my friend on the way to bible study that I was doing the no-shampoo thing. They say telling others keeps you accountable to seeing things through and I needed some insurance to make sure I didn’t chicken out.

The baking soda was cleaning my hair and the vinegar sorted the tangles and made my hair silky. I washed twice in week one. Then came week two.

Week Two

After ordering some condiment bottles from Amazon, I now had the exact formula: CLEANSE
1tbsp baking soda, (approx. $0.02/mo)*
8oz water
RINSE
1tbsp apple cider vinegar (approx. $0.12/mo)
8oz water

By the third wash, my hair had become thicker than usual. I have long dark brown (almost black) hair and it’s very thick already, but this was insane. It was almost impossible to brush it, not due to tangles as much as the fact that the brush just couldn’t penetrate all of my hair in one pass. It was just too thick. I felt a little nervous, thinking I might have to report the results to my friend now that I had told her. Ugh.

So I used a blow dryer and brushed the hair down with heat. This tamed it so by the looks of things, it wasn’t bad. It felt awful, but it looked fine. I washed three times this week.

Week Three

Greasy as ever, I had to use the hair dryer immediately after washing, every time. If I didn’t, my hair was big and frizzy, and yet oily, so sticky. It was so bad that just running my fingers through my hair would make my hands sticky! I seriously had to wash my hands after touching my hair. Yuck. So glad at this point that I hadn’t blogged about this stupid idea.

By the end of week three, I was having serious doubts. But I was determined to see it through. I washed three times this week and told myself I’d give it another 2 weeks.

Week Four

My hair was still pretty heavy, but slightly more manageable this week. I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. I still blow dried and began using a curling iron, hoping a little style would distract people from the thick winter coat on my head. I washed three times this week and felt hopeful now, that it might get better.

Week Five

Suddenly, around the end of the first month, my hair got noticeably lighter (not in color, but in weight). Around this time I read another book called A Guide to Green Housekeeping in which the author suggested using malt vinegar on dark hair for extra shine.

Not only did this switch give me extra shine, it also did for my hair what conditioners in the past had done (or attempted to do and stopped short). It smoothed tangles, added shine, and made my hair feel instantly silky soft. And because I used it undiluted as the author suggested, it seemed to work much better than the apple cider vinegar.

I also applied it differently. With the apple cider vinegar I put just a small amount on the ends of my hair. With the malt vinegar I squirted it straight onto the top of my head while my head was under the water so that none would rest on my scalp but all of my hair would be touched by the vinegar. For my thick hair, this made the difference. For thinner hair or lighter hair, you might want to stick with the apple cider vinegar.

My final formula:
CLEANSE
1tbsp baking soda ($0.02/mo)
8oz water
RINSE
8oz malt vinegar ($0.85/mo)

So now, I can wear my hair naturally without heat drying or curling (though I still do once in awhile just because). And I now wash it just once a week, twice if I’ve had a busy week and it needs it. And now I’m blogging it because it all worked out. :)

If you wash without shampoo and conditioner, I’d love to know what works for you! I’m still just trying this out so I’m fascinated by all the ideas out there.

COST

So the comparison is a no-brainer for me. It cost an average of about $6-8/bottle for me to buy shampoo and conditioner and I used to use them in about two months, so about $6-8/mo combined cost. Now, I don’t imagine I’ll spend more than $1.00/month.

FOLLOW UP - check twitter where I’ll post my formula for homemade detergent, which costs me about 1/6th of what I used to pay for detergents.

*My prices are estimated based on what it cost me at the time I bought it at my local store and based on how much of it I personally use in a month. Your cost will vary.