No 'Poo Regimen

I tried the no poo regimen on my hair Saturday. If you aren't familiar with it: it's where you use baking soda and apple cider vinegar instead of commercial shampoo and conditioner.

I dig the fact that I'm dealing with two natural ingredients. One cleanses, one conditions without any little fillers and silicone. Plus, it's cheap as dirt. I typically use TIGI shampoo and conditioner, that ain't cheap! The fact that I can get a box of baking soda and apple cider vinegar for under $10...awesome! Full sized TIGI bottles last me a looong time, but this would last me nearly as long; plus in the long run it helps decrease in shampooing as often.

Me, I shampoo my hair every 5-7 days. I don't brush it often since it's chin length. I use dry shampoo to extend on shampooing it. I maybe use a spray wax or a little light hairspray on it. Since I've cut most of it off, I'm pretty easy on managing it...I just keep it messy.

The Process

Alright. So, I took a coffee mug with 1T of baking soda, filled it to the brim with warm water. Then I took another mug 1T apple cider vinegar, filled it to the brim as well.

Wet my hair down the cold water (I have red hair, hello!), carefully poured the baking soda mixture to concentrate it at the root. (In hindsight, a pointed squeeze bottle would be a great solution) Scrubbed it into my scalp to loosen the product build-up (dry shampoo), let it sit for a minute, scrubbed once again then rinsed. I was disappointed to see my color going down the drain, but it does that with sulfate-free shampoos. Plus it was a given, it is baking soda. I only had to 'shampoo' once, whereas if I shampoo with shampoo, I'd have to lather up twice to get my hair all the way clean.

I noticed my hair took on a different texture once it was rinsed. Not so much dry, but just roughed up.

I squeezed out excess water then dumped the apple cider vinegar on my ends, let it sit for a minute then rinsed. The smell made me gag, but it faded and wasn't noticeable.

Once Dry

The volume was crazy and my curl came out. Since cutting my hair, it'd been really hard to get my curl to cooperate. It took product overload to try and get it to scrunch up, but after a few hours it would fall out. After the no poo, I simply applied a spot of TIGI's Some Like It Hot serum and let it air dry. I'm still amazed at the volume, even days after, I have crazy volume. Which I admit, I have a lot of hair, but usually it greases up and falls flat within a couple days.

As for the color, I didn't notice a big change in color fade. Nothing that made me think I need to never do this again.

I'm going to give it a couple more tries to see what it does to my color and just my hair period. I'll update accordingly.