no_poo

I have TWO tween girls that I am considering letting them try the no-poo. They are complete opposites..

1. My 11yo DD has dried/frizzy curly/wavy hair. It doesn't grow either! It's never gotten past her mid back and I never have cut more than an inch or less for trimming maybe twice a year. She's got that awkward fuzzy style. If I wet her hair and put some type of gloss/leave in conditioner, her hair will dry with prettier waves, but still the ends always look frizzy. 

2. My 12 yo DD has beautiful straight thick blonde hair. Usually pretty silky and nice. But lately, (body changes) are causing it to become extremely greasy really fast!! so it always looks dirty except for the first day when she washes it (shampoo).

I would like to go no-poo with them and see if it will help both of their "situations". What would be the remedies and routines you all would recommend for both of them. I'm assuming they would each be a little different?
thank for the help...

I am new to livejournal so I hope I am posting in the right spot!

Today I started my SECOND round of trying no-poo. The first I went four months and did "okay". I stopped because I still wasn't thrilled with the results, and I knew too little so I still had a lot of questions that I couldn't answer. Soooo, I'm hoping this time will be different. I will number my questions to make it easier to answer one or all.
about my hair: it's mid-back length, REALLY thick and heavy, dark brown, slightly course with some waviness if left to dry alone.

1. Can I still use a heat protector spray when I want to straighten/curl my hair? how will that effect my hair?
2. also, hairspray, or any other product? will it just come out without shampoo? last time I did no-poo I was sooo afraid to use any product as needed because I didn't want to ruin my hair and have to go through the first couple weeks of starting over!
3. can I still use a little Moroccan oil or hair masque conditioner on the ends? my hair is prone to split ends and dryness....
4. last time I used the Heinz, this time I will be using Bragg organic ACV. what does with "mother" mean and is it better?
5. I have really ANNOYINGGGG scalp itch, which leads to flaking. on dark hair that's not cool. What will help that? more BS? more ACV? Citrus rinse? (the itching is partially why I gave up the last time, it never really got better so I quit no-poo because I couldn't figure it out)
6. when doing the rinse, do I put it on my scalp or just the bottom half of my hair? 
7. do I use the whole cup of BS and ACV mixtures?? my hair is really thick.

thanks for any help I can get!!! I hope I can make it work this time...

Should the bs be applied on wet hair like if it was shampoo or on still dry hair and then rinse it off?

Hi everyone!

I've been no poo for about 2 months now and I'm doing really well so far. I'm still experimenting; I gave up BS and ACV instantly and I was successful with egg washes. Strangely my hair likes WO; I wasn't expecting that at all! Any kind of ACV wash makes my hair really greasy though. I have brown, straight, almost shoulder long, medium thick hair. Since I like to keep my hair on the darker side of brown I did some coffee and black tea rinses - and I love my DIY "chocolate mint dry shampoo"!

What I would like to improve are my ends - So far I've been somewhat successful with melted cocoa butter on my ends.
but here is where my question comes:

From my poo days I still have a bottle of a hair repair "oil". I would like to use it but I have no idea if the ingredients will build up in my hair and I won't be able to wash it out without shampoo.
It's Schwarzkopf's Gliss Kur Hair Repair and here are the ingredients:
Cyclomethicone (...that's a silicone - right?), trisiloxane, dimethiconol, helianthus, annus seed oil, argania spinosa kernel oil, parfum, benzyl alcohol, butylphenyl methylpropional, geraniol, hexyl cinnamal, citronellol, limonene, benzyl salicylate, linalool, alpha-isomethyl ionone, citral, cl 40800.
what do you think? Does anyone recognise these chemicals as potential cause for buildup? Should I pass this oil on to someone who is using shampoo? 

My 2nd question is about my hair length and hair growth - my hair has NEVER EVER grown longer than just below my shoulders even though I've been trying to grow it out for my entire life. Has anyone else experienced something similar? is it possible that now, that I stopped using harmful chemicals on my hair there is a chance that my terminal hair length is actually somewhere beyond my shoulders? That would be so awesome... 

Is it tiny scratching?  Is it scraping with a comb?  With fingernails?  Is it picking off the dandruff?  Is it scraping the sebum off the scalp and through the hair?   

Hi everyone. I've been doing no-poo for about four and a half weeks and I just have a question about storing ACV. I have a spray bottle and I put one cup of water and 2 tablespoons of ACV in it and store it in the shower. That mix can last me several weeks. Does it go bad if left in the bathroom that long? Or is it okay to store it for that long? Thanks so much!

Hi!

I am brand new to this. I just stopped shampooing cold turkey a few days ago, and I have a few questions that I was really hoping someone could help me with... I've been "washing" with water only every day....

1. When should I wash my hair with baking soda and then apple cider vinegar? How often should I do that?

2. Is it okay to use Conditioner? (Should i avoid conditioner too?)

3. How long will it take for my hair to stop feeling super oily?

4. Do you have any other tips for me?

Thanks so much!

I'm going backpacking for 3 weeks and I've heard about no poo but would this even be doable if I was going backpacking?

how do I get started?

I admit it. I fell off the wagon. But I'm coming back, and this is why.

No-poo solved a lot of problems for me. The dandruff I'd struggled with since childhood was becoming less of a problem. My split ends actually healed (I didn't know that was possible!). Except for the days when I started to get sebum and was too lazy to scrub at it with BS for a while, my hair felt pretty nice. I washed 1-2 times a week with BS and tea tree oil, followed by lemon juice and rosemary tea. And my husband actually complimented me all the time on the way my hair smelled! I guess he liked the smell of the natural oils.

Why stop, you ask? Well, I cut my hair.

Before my hair was shoulder-length, but I have this issue every summer where I decide it feels too much like wearing a scarf when I'm sleeping and it needs to go (I live in a sub-tropical climate). So I cut it into a bob to the length of my chin. When I used to have bad hair days and it was greasy or sebum-y I could just pull it into a ponytail and there was no problem. Now I don't have that option.

But back on shampoo, I'm finding my hair tangles in a terrible way. I had forgotten about that, maybe because before I had not yet experienced the wonders of no-poo natural de-tangling! My hair actually gets tangled and matted while I'm trying to rinse out the shampoo. Then, don't even try me on attempting to pull a comb through it. And remember, this is hair that is only chin-length.

Plus, my dandruff came back with a vengeance. And of course it's dry and straw-like.

So, I'm going back to no-poo and I'll find a way to deal with bad hair days when I get them. I'm thinking hairpins will be my new best friends!

I've been thinking it would be fun to dye my hair red for the summer using henna, I have blonde hair so it should take pretty easily. I've never done it before and I want a brand without gross chemicals. Do y'all know any good Henna brands? Also how long does it last not using shampoo, cuz I don't really want to keep it up, I just want it for a few weeks to a couple months, I'm hoping it will fade instead of me having to keep dying it to keep it from looking drastic. Thanks!

Hi, everyone! I am really new to this whole no 'poo thing. In fact, I just started this past Saturday. My hair would be classified as 2b, I believe. It is wavy and has a normal thickness, but is a little on the thinner side. As my hairdresser once told me, my hair may not be thick, but there is a lot of it. [: It is currently about shoulder length. I also dye it red. I used to wash my hair every day, but have been washing it every other day for the past few months. If I don't wash it at least that often, it gets visibly oily, which is odd because my scalp is currently a little dry.  My siblings and my mother all have super curly, lusciously thick hair. I was hoping going no-poo might show me that there is more curl to my hair than I think.

That's enough about me. [: I started last Saturday night with CO, figuring it would be better with my harder, mineral laden city water. I massaged conditioner (it is 'cone free!) into my scalp, let it sit for 10 minutes, washed it out, then applied it to my ends and rinsed. I finished up with a cold water rinse and let it air dry while I slept. The next morning, the middle layers of my hair were stringy and my scalp felt greasy. That night, I showered again and applied conditioner to my whole head, concentrating on the ends. Monday morning, the stringiness was even worse and my hair looked disgustingly gross. Thank goodness I have to wear it all up and under a hat for work! I had originally decided that I would try simply rinsing my hair with water that night, but the amount of sebum that had built up was so bad, I decided to use BS on my scalp and conditioner on the ends. I used 1 T of BS in 1 C of water, poured it on, massaged it in with my fingertips, and let it sit for a minute before washing it out. But, to no avail, my hair looked even worse the next morning. I scoured the No-Poo community for help last night because I REALLY didn't want to get trapped in my abusive relationship with shampoo again. After reading through countless pages on here, I decided to try a sugar scrub, followed by a citrus rinse, heavy on the citrus. I scrubbed about a cup of sugar onto my scalp and on the stringier sections of the hair shafts and rinsed. I'm not sure how much lemon juice or water I used. I didn't measure, but I used a very generous amount of juice. It was not fresh-squeezed juice, but bottled juice I bought from the grocery store a while back. I decided that enough was enough-- if my hair did not look better in the morning, I was going to use my shampoo.

Well, this morning, I went to the bathroom, looked at my hair, and it was still terribly greasy. There was no way I could leave for work with my hair like this. So I hopped in the shower and lathered up with the smallest amount of shampoo I could. It looks better now, but the crown still has a bit of sebum built up. However, my hair feels incredibly soft! I ended up buying a sulfate-free shampoo by Organix and some sulfate and silicone-free dry shampoo. I also bought a BBB today, hoping that would help in the future. I really don't want to go back to shampoo, but I simply cannot walk around with hair that looks greasy all the time. The reason I didn't use the BS/ACV method in the first place was because I was afraid BS would be too drying for my scalp and that the vinegar would only emphasize the natural oiliness of my hair.

Now that you have wasted the last ten minutes reading this novel of a post, I call on all of you No 'Poo veterans and resident experts to help me figure this thing out. When you first started, how did you control/camouflage the ridiculous amount of sebum build-up without drying out your scalp? Also, what can I use that will help preserve my red color? I will be showering again tonight to start this journey over, so if any of you have some advice, please please please share! [:

Hi all,

I've been checking in on this site for some time, and went no poo last October...so 6 1/2 months ago.

I am loving no poo! Aside from doing my bit for the environment and saving hard earned dollars, my hair is healthy, shiny, softer and thicker than it has ever been before! I even went to my hairdresser a few weeks ago, and despite her initial skepticism she agreed that my hair looks amazing!!

The only problem is that my fingertips are peeling and cracking, which has become very painful. I do suffer from psoriasis, but the condition on my fingertips seems totally different. My naturopath seems to think that the bicarb and white vinegar are burning my skin, and is encouraging me to go back to natural shampoos. I never had much luck with these, so would really like to stick to no poo!

I've experimented with different mixes, but my hair responds best to 1 tablespoon bicarb to 1 cup of water, and 50/50 white vinegar and water. 

Just wondering if anyone else had this problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Monica :-)

Hey everyone! So I quit no poo for a while because I got discouraged by my hard water and fine, blonde hair. My hair looked worse AFTER I did a WO rinse rather than if I had just left it dry. I finally figured out that it was the build-up of minerals from the water and no matter how much I tried to reset my hair for grease production, I wouldn't be able to get it to look good consistently AND be healthy.

Since then I've been using Burt's Bees (all natural, SLS & paraben-free) shampoo for washing and conditioner on in-between days, but I've found that my hair just doesn't look as nice after a shampoo. It looks okay on in-between days, but the minerals are still an issue for my hair without the EDTA. So, I want to go back to no poo (or maybe a hybrid with my Burt's Bees), but I need some help.

Does anyone use a shower water filter? Most research I've done says only expensive water softeners can get rid of the alkaline minerals that are causing the problems, but I can't install one in my apartment. Furthermore, the research on filters is spotty, unreliable, and inconclusive at best. I'd really love some reliable advice!

Also, is there a better way to remove minerals from hair on in-between that doesn't involve using a ton of distilled water? It's too expensive. I've heard a citrus rinse is good, but doesn't that make the hair still greasy looking?

Thanks!

Hey everyone, I just started my no- poo journey (first week) and I had a few questions:

*My hair feels really dryyyy after I wash it BS. Is it because I'm using too much? Should I only use it on the roots?
* I have very hard water, so from what I've read I'm guessing that the waxy feeling should be coming soon to my hair. Would washing with an egg solve this problem? If so, do you mix the egg prior to putting it in your hair, or do you just crack an egg on your hair haha xD
*Does your hair smell like egg after you do an egg wash?
* I bought Heinz ACV because I didn't know there was a difference between the filtered kind and the one with the mother. Will this still do the job? I'm kind of on a strict budget and don't want to go off and buy another ACV just after buying this one.
* How often do you do an ACV rinse? Every time you shower, or every time you do a BS wash? Or whenever your hair feels dry?
* I have an old jar of coconut oil, but the ingredients say it has petroleum jelly in it, is this bad for my hair even though it's still coconut oil?
*Where can you find rosemary and other herbs? 
* Do you have to boil the water before you make the ACV rinse?

I know it's a lot, but I'd really appreciate any help you guys can give me!

I just tried a new no-poo method today. I took a liter of water and put about a half teaspoon of olive oil in it and stirred it around. then I wetted my hair and poured it over, starting from the tips and working my way up to the roots. I massaged my hair and scalp well, and rinsed.

It's lookin fine!

After watering down my shampoo after each wash, I've managed to pretty much successfully go no 'poo, though if I wait to long in between washes I have to use the watered shampoo instead of the bs mixture, which leads to conditioner instead of hair rinse, which leads to extra baking soda being needed the next time. Don't worry, I use a 'cone free protein conditioner with only a few ingredients. Anyway, I've been trying the OCM on my face, and while EVOO alone didn't do much beyond softening my skin and smoothing out a few lines that were starting to form, I now have added grapeseed and tea tree oil to the mix. I've been looking for a way to cut down on greasiness in between washes and wondered if anyone here has had any success with using some sort of diluted mixture, maybe tea tree in water or mixed with some other essential oil, as a spray to clear up scalp grease? I've tried dry shampooing, it doesn't work for me.

Hello!

I've been a passionate and successful no-pooer however in the past 5 weeks I've been having trouble with oil all of a sudden. I used to do my routine every 7-10 days with water washes in the meantime, and now I have to do it every 3-5 days. My hair had been perfect, but then I went dancing and put a bunch of product in my hair and had to strip it to get everything out. I've been struggling ever since where usually I can get my hair back to its voluminous condition pretty fast.

What I miss the most is that the oil used to be lighter, I could get it out with water washes easily, it added volume and texture, and now it's heavier, doesn't come out, and looks greasy. I miss my old oil!!

• No-poo since May 26, 2011
• 1cFii Normal hair; fine but a lot of it, mid-back length, slight wave when I put my damp hair in a bun, dark brunette
• Current routine: I wash with about 1/8c of bs & acv. I massage in my scalp and let sit, the standard BS solution of 1 tablespoon/1 cup boiling water, and 1.5 tablespoon unfiltered ACV/c + 1c of tarragon, nettle, oat straw, rosehips infusion from 1 tablespoon each dried, the rinse also worked into the length. Occasionally as needed before my ACV rinse I massage in GSE to my dermatitis.

I log all my washes so this is what it looks like:


So I don't know what is happening. I feel like it's something with the BS not getting to the slippery texture or something. What can I do to better control this oil? Maybe it's stress or I need to change my shower filter? Do I need to go water only for awhile to reset these oils? Is my hair getting used to the routine and now I need less acv?

Help! Ideas? Thank you all! 

Hi, I feel my hair would definitely benefit from stretching out the days between washes. I'm aiming for once a week but will try for longer too. But what about after exercising? My hair seems to attract build up so quickly and I can't imagine just running some cool water over it will be enough. I'd be grateful for any suggestions, thanks :-)

Hi, everybody! First of all, a great big thank you to everyone in this community . . . your advice has been invaluable.

I don't even remember how I stumbled across the idea of no 'poo, but as my shampoo bottle got emptier and emptier back in March, I thought to myself, "Eh, I'm always up for a beauty fad that doesn't cost me anything . . . why not give it a shot?" So when it ran out, I whipped up a bottle of BS/water and suited action to the impulse.

First week went really badly . . . grease everywhere. I figured this was just transition and put up with it, gritting my teeth . . . and then double-checked my research and discovered that the standard recommendation was one TABLESPOON of BS per cup, not one TEASPOON as I'd incorrectly remembered while measuring. Oops. So I mixed up a fresh batch (and put it in a different bottle, with a narrow applicator I can use to get under the top layer) and tried again. Lovely! Really! Who'd'a thunk?

I'm still using commercial conditioner, because I had about half a bottle left when the shampoo ran out (I'm kind of compulsive about waste not/want not, which is why I'm NOT ADMITTING TO ANYONE that I found another half-bottle of shampoo in the back of the cupboard last week), but plan on switching to ACV when that's gone. (I shall call it my 'science-fair volcano hair,' which is even funnier because it rhymes.) I've been washing once a week . . . first this was just to muscle through transition, but now I've discovered that it's all I really need. About halfway through the week, I'm rubbing a few drops of sweet almond oil into the ends to keep them protected, soft, and un-frizzy. During the transition week, I also tried cornstarch to absorb some of the excess oil (another weird experience . . . who knew you could put cornstarch in your hair, like it was a pan of gravy that just didn't want to thicken up?), and that proved to be a good stop-gap while I waited for my scalp to stop freaking out. I'm also spending about 45 min. a week just brushing, usually while watching an episode of something. It feels good, it gives me something to do with my hands, and . . .

Well, the results speak for themselves. My whole head is fantastically soft. Frizzies are down, as is the amount of hair ripped out by my hairbrush and the amount of nasty gray stuff built up around the bristles. (Before discovering this community, I though I was the only person that happened to!) My hair tangles less and holds styles better. And, wonder of wonders . . . it's GROWING! My hair (which is thick, brown, and wavy) has fallen to just below my bra band since I was about 11 years old. This last month since going no-'poo, I swear it has grown an inch. And since I'm not getting it wet every day, it's tending to be straighter, which makes it look even longer.

I am NEVER going back to shampoo. This is too great. And I'm loving the feeling of smugness that I get now whenever I see shampoo ads . . . this great evil-cackle feeling of "Ha ha! Suckers! Have fun shelling out eight bucks a bottle! I'll just stick with my $.017-per-wash miracle system, thank you kindly."

Just wanted to share.

So it's been 2 months since i've used shampoo. I tried w/o for 2 weeks, and i have hard water so it wasn't working. So I started using bs with distilled water and a citrus rinse. This was working ok, the bs never really felt slippery though, I'm not sure if it was something I was doing wrong but it didn't clean it well, it was still greasy/ sebum-y. I loved the citrus rinses though, it kept the minerals from building up. Now I have been using salt rinses, because I love the simplicity of it and it makes my hair soft, but also leaves it greasy. It is out of the sebum-y phase but it still looks greasy, though it feels a lot better I have to wear my hair up every day. It's been 2 months and I am getting very frusrtated. Is there something I'm missing? I want this to work, how long does the transition phase last?

Hi all, I'm a noobie to no poo and so far I love it, even after some initial bumps.  I started out washing with BS and water and then rinsing with water-diluted white vinegar mixed with honey approximately 2-3 times a week.  It went great until I started noticing that waxy/filmy feeling and researched it back to hard water.  So I started mixing the BS with distilled water and have had much better luck.  This is when I started noticing dry ends that felt like straw about a day or two after my wash.  I have cut back on how much BS I was mixing into the distilled water.  My hair still feels dry but better since cutting back on the BS.  I've been lurking in this community for some time looking for options to use as a conditioner but I'm just overwhelmed.  I am a vintage lover and routinely do wet sets on my hair to curl it.  I try to "preserve" my set to last a couple of days so any over brushing or combing results in having to reset my hair which is time consuming for me based on my work/home schedule.  I need something to condition my hair in the shower to help stave off the dry ends.  I am wonder if I need to up my honey mixture?  Or do I need something else?  Any thoughts are appreciated!

I haven't gone swimming since I went no-poo - do I have to do anything extra to get the chlorine out of my hair?

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Hello all!

I've been going no-poo for a little over two months now. I do a BS wash and finish with a lemon juice rinse. I like the system that I have and I've never had any problems. However in about four days I'm going to be leaving to backpack around Europe for two months!!

Now while I would just love to attempt to carry a bag full of white powder through airport security... no f*cking thank you.

So I'm wondering what you ladies and gents would recommend for shampoo. I first started going no-poo because my hair was stuck in a grease-cycle. I would wash my hair, and then 24 hours later it would be greasy. So I decided to go no-poo and see if it would help. And it has!! So I don't have too many concerns about going back to regular shampoo/conditioner, but I would like to try one of the healthier(?) brands. 

So give me your lists and favourites and why you like them!!
thank you in advance!

I have acchieved great success in washing my family's hair with only essential oils.I use between 6-10 drops in 4 cups of warm water. I pour it first on the tips, slowly making my way up to the roots. I then massage it in very gently like the way you'd wash antique lace. I let it sit in the hair for about 5 or so minutes and then rinse. My daughter and I have butt length hair, and we both have shiny, healthy hair thanks to this combo.

So I've been no poo for almost 9 months now! I did an experiment last week and shampooed my hair. I forgot how much my hair tangles after washing it with shampoo. What a mess! Anyways, now 6 days later, my hair's just starting to look greasy! Before going no poo, I had to wash my hair every single day or else it'd be as greasy day 2 that it now is on day 6. This is probably my best kept secret. (Still haven't told my friends or family. Hopefully that'll happen soon!) I haven't experimented with much, just some tea rinses, applesauce and honey! I knew from the get go I wanted to be WO, and I didn't want to mess with BS, it seemed too similar to shampoo for me when I was trying to get my hair out of the "needs to be washed everyday" phase.

Since going no poo, I haven't traveled for a length of time long enough that I had to worry about washing my hair while traveling. But I'll be traveling shortly! I am WO but recently found my hair loves WO+honey, to combat dryness.

My fears: I've heard plenty on this community about hard water. I believe my water is somewhat-hard. While visiting my dad a while back I took a shower at his house and my hair turned out AWFUL, I figured it was because I was going through my transition phase, but now I'm not so sure, he might have hard water. I don't want hard water ruining my no poo experience.

Oh, and another thing. Soon I'll be moving (across state lines), I'm worried about how I'll have to tweak my routine! I'd rather not go through the lengthy process of figuring out how my hair and new water will get along. Should I invest in a shower filter? How exactly do the "portable" ones work? I've tried to look for them but I guess I'm not sure exactly what I should be looking for.

This is where you come in. Any advice? Have any of you gone through this? Is a shower filter worth the money? Thanks in advance to anyone who responds!

I started doing the whole no-poo thing about a month ago? Maybe a little longer. I'm running into a bit of a snag in that my hair seems to be building up oil, particularly toward the back. It wasn't an issue the first couple of washes, but the last two seem to be leaving my hair looking oily.

To break things down a bit more, before I started trying the "no-poo" method I only washed my hair every three-five days anyway. I would only shampoo my scalp and then condition all of my hair, paying special attention to my ends which are all kinds of damaged and need a trim. My hair is pretty long - about hip length right now, and was always healthy and strong despite the frizz. I've never seemed to have the issues with too oily or too dry hair that other people seemed to have. I did, however, have crazy dandruff. Not the kind that would flake loose and show, but a thick coat of dead skin that would flake off if scratched. My scalp was never itchy or any of that unless it needed a wash, just... a lot of dead skin.

I decided to do the no-poo in hopes that it would help with the dandruff and frizz issue without needing to use products or whatever.

The first time I made a paste of some baking soda in the palm of my hand, and that was way too much. My hair was crazy dry and insanely frizzy, even after an ACV rinse. My scalp was also "tight" and sensitive for the first day after washing. After that I bought a couple containers from Wal-Mart that hold about a cup and a half of liquid and dissolved one tablespoon of BS in the one and about a tablespoon and a half of ACV went into the other. That's what I've been working with. Although I just refilled the ACV, the baking soda one isn't even half empty yet.

The last couple of times I've been leaving the ACV in for several minutes and then rinsing with cold water in an attempt to combat the frizz. It works to combat the frizz but I believe it may be the culprit of the oily feel. When I rinsed it out with warm water, it didn't seem to leave my hair feeling oily.
The affect on my scalp was somewhat positive. I find I have a day of obvious flakes on my scalp for the first day after I wash, and then my scalp appears to be relatively clean for a couple days, and then gets flaky again. Overall the dandruff isn't as thick in appearance - I think part of it before may have been from my anti-frizz serum and the use of products in general.

I've been washing my hair every six days or so after starting this, but after reading the reasoning behind the "adjustment" period for others (more frequent washing) I've come to the conclusion that I don't particularly need to wait even longer than my customary 3-5 days to wash my hair, so I'm going to go back to my normal washing routine for that at least.

My main question is: What do I do to combat frizz but keep from having oily hair at the same time? Keeping in mind that my scalp has never been the sort to make my hair oily, especially not the same day as a wash, it's definitely something I am doing, but I am not sure exactly what/what percentages to change in my wash.
I am also interested in citrus instead of ACV because while I don't particularly mind the smell of it myself, I braid my hair to keep it "neat" while it dries (otherwise it's a hot mess due to the ends), and often have to go to work that way. It's rather embarrassing to have the smell of vinegar constantly wafting about my person for hours.
I'm also curious if there's any way to do something about the dandruff as well. I know of tea tree oil, but it's never given me spectacular results before.

Oh. And aside from length, my hair is fine, but strong and very long (as mentioned). I'm Caucasian, if that matters at all. The texture is very LIGHTLY wavy, although curls run in my family I don't have them - my hair will curl a bit when wet, but as it dries it straightens out whether I brush/comb it or not. I have been known to joke that I've gotten all the frizz and none of the curls.

Any and all comments/advice would be very much appreciated, and I apologize for the length of this!

I've been no-poo since the new year, when I figured it might be a good resolution and one I might actually keep. Plus my last bottle of Head & Shoulders Intensive whatever had run out, and the store didn't have any more in stock, so I figured it was a sign. ;) I have thick, semi-coarse, wavy light brown hair, just past shoulder length, and my scalp has a severe dandruff problem. The water in my area is very, very hard, and I live in Florida. I decided to go no-poo after reading that it should work wonders for dandruff, and since my hair is my one big vanity, it was worth a shot. Plus a jug of ACV and a box of BS is much cheaper and lasts longer than any bottle of shampoo!

The experiment started with 1 Tbsp BS/1 cup water to wash, and a healthy splash of ACV in 1 cup water for a rinse; I'd been using ACV for a couple years, on and off to help with the dandruff. I found that my scalp was getting really dry, and the flaking issue was different, but not necessarily better: I had gone from big, gross flakes to little bitty flakes. Brushing my hair left me with a snowstorm on my shoulders.

This led me to cut down the BS to 2 tsp/1 c water, and it helped a bit, but what really made the difference was putting 5-6 drops of Tea Tree oil in with the BS mix. I put all that in an old shampoo bottle, apply liberally to the scalp, rub it in really well and let it sit for a couple minutes before rinsing. Follow with the ACV rinse and I'm golden! I do wash every 3-4 days; I have tried doing a WO wash, but that just leaves me with more flakes than I care to see!

Currently I use a BS solution and a WV rinse. It works okay, but so many people here have had such great success with lemon juice that I'd like to give it a go.

Plus, it would smell better. I live in a sub-tropical climate (no, seriously!) and summer's coming. That means your hair and skin is pretty much always damp, and I've already noticed some vinegar smell on the muggy days as one's hair never seems to completely dry.

I only have one reservation. I haven't found an answer here in the forums.

I've heard lemon juice lightens your hair. I'm okay with a little lightening, but I like my brunette head to stay as brunette as possible. I've also heard that it only lightens your hair if you don't get it all rinsed out.

So, with the risk that I maybe accidentally don't rinse it all out, my question is, how much lightening are we talking about here? Honey-colored tints? Or platinum blonde?