Premature graying runs in my family. My grandma is the oldest of 10 children and she's the only one who doesn't have bright white hair. We call them the Q-tips. But she's always colored hers, as has my mom, as have I. I've been coloring my hair for probably 15 years now, since my white hairs started growing straight up and attracting unwanted attention.
I didn't give it any thought–just buy whatever was on sale at Longs—the home coloring kits for like 9 bucks. I thought I was saving a ton by not going to a salon. For brief period I was getting this more natural brand from the health food store, but then I got lazy. I figured if I bought the ammonia free one, I was safe. But then I got so lazy that I had my sons' barber do it for me. That was THE mistake that started this whole thing.
She either left it on way too long or mixed a chemical concoction way too potent for human hair...because when I came home the most horrifying thing happened.
I felt a matted clump of hair and was like "Geez, why is my hair so tangled?" I started to work out the mat with my fingers, when the whole clump came out and I was staring at a fist full of my own hair...disconnected from my head! WTF?! I was mortified. That just came out of my scalp. It can't go back on. OMG. I felt like I had been chemically burned. My scalp started to feel itchy and raw. How long would it take to grow back this hair?
I started my research.
The next day I asked my friend if she colors her hair (she's older than me and has no visible grays). She said no she doesn't dye her hair...but she does henna. I was like what? Isn't that dye--wait, what do you mean? She said her hair hasn't touched chemicals in 10 years. Whhaaaaa? How is that possible?
She doesn't use shampoo. Only Dr. Bronner's bar soap. She said any soap or shampoo in liquid form has detergent in it that is stripping–it's hurting your hair more than helping it. She said most people think they have to shampoo every day, but actually the detergent will strip your scalp of its natural oils, and it has to overcompensate by producing more oil, which makes you feel like you need to shampoo again...it's a vicious cycle.
What she said made sense and I wanted to know more. We surf together most mornings, so every morning I would barrage her with my questions. How do you avoid putting chemicals in your hair? Do all products have chemicals? Why did you want to go chemical-free?
I found out there's a name for the lack of shampooing she was doing--it's called the no-poo method. I googled it. And I thought I'd give it a shot.
That's when I made my hugest fails. My hair got worse before it got better. I'm telling you all this so that you don't make these same mistakes.
I made my first DIY shampoo out of Dr. Bronner's liquid Castile soap, coconut milk and tea tree oil. Sounds great, right? Wrong. It didn't lather, it didn't feel like it was spreading through my hair like normal shampoo would--it just kinda stayed wherever you put it. There was no working it in. But, I trusted that it had to be good for my hair so I just have to get used to it. I made 3 bottles of the shtuff for goodness sakes! I rushed out the door with wet hair to get to my daughter's soccer game. Hair was tucked under my hat the whole morning. Then I had to go straight to my son's wrestling tournament. Hat came off. Hair? STILL WET! Wait, what? Shouldn't it be dry by now? Oh well, I guess it will dry in the gym. WRONG. My freak hair never did dry. For like 4 hours I sported the wet look. My hair was waxy from the Castile soap, greasy from the coconut milk and tea tree OIL....WTF was wrong with my DIY poo?! Here's what was wrong:
1. Castile soap is super concentrated. If you use it, you need to dilute it plenty--like 1 tsp in a full bottle of water.
2. Castile soap is very alkaline (high pH). You'll need to balance out the pH with an acidic rinse like apple cider vinegar (ACV). HOWEVER, ACV smells like doo doo. I highly recommend getting the Dr. Bronner's citrus rinse. It works wonders and smells super fresh.
3. Coconut milk is just nasty if you don't wash it out with Dawn afterwards. I would never mix it into my DIY shampoo again.
4. I didn't want to use commercial shampoo, so I was looking for a way to soak up the grease. Enter CORNSTARCH with a few drops of rose essential oil. It did the trick. But after a few days it started feeling a bit clumpy. At a certain point you need to get the build up off your hair. It's hard to know how to do that if you've vowed to no poo.
5. I thought I could try "co-washing," which means you wash your hair like you would with shampoo, but instead you just use conditioner. BIG MISTAKE. HUGE. What happens is that conditioner coats and clogs the pores on your scalp. Eventually the dried conditioner has to come off somehow, and when it does it looks like DANDRUFF. It's also just a really bad idea. If you're gonna only use conditioner, you should just use it on the ends of your hair, not on your scalp at all.
All that happened back in January 2019, 10 months ago. I've learned a lot since then and had many many more fails along the way. But I share these first 5 in the hopes of saving you some time. You should probably just make peace with the idea that you'll have your share of mishaps too, though. It's a constant trial and error process. What works for one will definitely not work for all. And even ingredients vary between households. So give yourself plenty of grace and know that even if this hair journey doesn't produce the MOST AMAZING HAIR EVER, it will at least produced a more important thing in us: humility.