No More 'Poo

Shampoo, that is. Rob kicked the lather habit a couple of months ago and, though I wanted to, I kept going back. Last fall I was able to finally go two-three days between shampoos, which was a huge step for someone who had shampooed every day of her adult life (minus the times I was living in a tent on the Appalachian Trail and a camper in Alaska). Sometimes the words of Gi-Gi, my dear great-grandmother, who is very much still with me, ring in my ears: "How come your hair isn't as shiny as it was when you were little? What kind of shampoo do you use?" She was right, in a way, but it wasn't the shampoo that I'd been using - it was that I was simply using it too often. Like most Americans I was seduced into believing that I needed to wash my hair with detergents to get it as clean as I desired. As soon as I quit the daily washing I was pleased with the results, preferring it the day after it was cleaned. A coworker of Rob's at the zoo told him that he hadn't shampooed in ages, spurring Rob's desire to forgo it as well. Then I recently heard from another friend of mine, Dana, who hadn't used shampoo since the '80s, and it really got me thinking that there had to be a better route I could take.

It's now been four days since I last used shampoo. I've even been running, and my hair is still amazingly free of excess oil. My trick? Baking soda and apple cider vinegar. I dissolve one tablespoon of baking soda in a cup of water, pour a little bit of this on my scalp and massage in to cleanse and break up the dirt and grease. I rinse, then, in an old shampoo bottle, mix a little bit of apple cider vinegar with water. I use this solution for the ends of my hair as a conditioner. So far I'm very happy with how this is working for me. I read a testimonial from a woman who used this as her hair treatment and she said that, after three months, her hair had never been healthier. I hope I have a similar experience.