Well, this morning I did my first No ‘Poo wash. It was weird, but I’m happier with the results than I thought I would be. My shampoo was 1.5 tbsp baking soda to 1.5 cups water with 1 tsp honey. The conditioner was 1.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar in 1.5 cups water. Both had 5 drops of orange oil to add a pleasant scent. I used about one quarter of each on my hair. First I wet my hair with warm water, then applied the baking soda wash and massaged it in. Then there was a cold rinse. Next I applied the apple cider vinegar mix from the nape down, let sit for a few minutes, and finished with another cold rinse. I wrapped my head in a towel while I dried off, then let my hair air dry.

During the wash phase I lost 46 strands of hair, which is a bit more than normal for me. My hair felt seriously weird. It squeaked like clean plastic and kind of stuck to my fingers. After the final rinse there was no scent left, but that’s fine by me. After I took the towel off my hair I did what I always do after a wash. I turned my head upside down and gently went through my hair with a round-toothed pick. There was no tangling or knotting at all. Normally I have to fight through a tangle or two. I lost 5 more strands of hair, which is significantly less than I usually lose during the picking part. I flipped my hair back and went outside.

My hair dried faster than normal which was odd, but cool. My hair still feels a little dry, but this is just my first wash. I wasn’t expecting radical changes. I was surprised that I actually saw some. My hair is definitely more shiny already. It looks far less drab. What really blew me away was how the color changed. Eric noticed right away that there was more color to my hair. I didn’t expect it to look different at all from the first wash, but it does. Check out the photo in full size and you can really see how much the copper/honey color pops now. It’s pretty amazing. Even indoors it looks better. Under indoor lighting the brown on top looks richer and there’s a lot more of the copper highlight. If it made this much of a change in one wash, I can only imagine how gorgeous it’s going to be in a week or two.

I’m going to wash on Wednesday and Sunday just like I always did, so I’ll get two treatments a week. I’ll keep using the boar’s hair brush for 100 strokes in the morning and another 100 strokes at night. I’ve also switched to pinning my hair up at night rather than braiding it because I want to see if it will re-develop my natural curls without being braided every night. So far, I’m happy with this method. I hope that it gets smoother over time though. Right now it’s still as dry as ever, but I have years of damage to try to undo. Thank goodness I haven’t used any heat or chemical treatments on my hair in years, so I don’t have that to combat.

Read the rest of the No ‘Poo posts.

Briana Blair

Briana Blair is an author and artisan. She has published more then 30 books and thousands of articles across multiple sites. After practicing Paganism and witchcraft for 25 years, she's now on a journey as an atheist and skeptic. She's eclectic, unpredictable, and always evolving. Facebook - Twitter