the no 'poo method

Hello everyone, I have some questions about the no poo method, ACVR, the use of any conditioner afterwards, if anyone feels like their hair is dry/ frizzy after using ACV with no BS and what oils if any should or could I add to the conditioning of my hair and if from what my experience is what i am doing is correct. Any help/ feed back / comments is greatly appreciated and thank you for reading my post.

A little bit about my No Poo experience, I'm Japanese with thick wavy oily hair that is shoulder length. I've switched to the no poo method for about 3 weeks now and this is my second time trying because while using store bought hair products I could feel that after 2 days my hair would feel very oily and heavy and even if I put it up in a bun or pony tail the top of my scalp would feel tender by the end of the day as if my hair was too heavy to be put up. Another reason why I went No poo is because I am trying to grow out my hair but at a certain length it feels like it just stops growing even after every 2 months I get a trim to cut off the dead or damaged parts. I also noticed that in the shower and when I brush my hair I lose a lot of hair due to breakage. I tried the No Poo method a few months ago for the first time with shampoo soap bars from chagrin valley and I experienced some few pros and cons: Pros: I could see my individual strands of hair becoming stronger and less prone to breakage after the first 2 weeks, my hair grew longer and quickly by a few inches within a few months (from shoulder length to belly button length) and within 2-3 months I had noticed that I no longer had hair breakage when I took a shower. Another note I made was when I put my hair up after a day, the top of my scalp didn't feel tender. Con's: it did take 2-3 weeks for the "transition period" to be over and done with which felt really greasy and gross to the touch, and after I used the shampoo bar I read somewhere on some sites that it wasn't entirely necessary to use conditioner if I used a Homeopathic chemical free shampoo bar so I didn't for a while. In doing so after each wash it was hard to brush through my hair without knots due to a grungy feeling of build up that it made brushing my hair a long tedious nightmare, so I found a organic chemical free conditioner that seemed to get the grunge feeling out and return my hair brushing experience to manageable BUT the conditioner made my hair feel somewhat heavy afterwards as apposed to using no conditioner. After my hair was the length that I wanted I damaged it beyond repair by dying it and perming it that to the touch even after an expensive deep conditioning treatment my hair had a "crunchy" feeling at the ends when I rubbed them in between my fingers and ended up chopping it off into a bob hair cut. I just couldn't take the feeling of dead crispy hair leaning against my back anymore.

Now after resuming the no poo method I have tried using ACVR after i use my shampoo bar and here's my experience of the pros and cons. Pros: it gets rid of the build up left over by the shampoo bar, it makes my hair look very shiny without looking or feeling oily, it's a great detangler, and I don't need to wash my hair but 2x a week if that because of my hair feeling oily. Cons: the ACVR has a very strong smell when my hair is wet and if I sweat during the in between days the smell of AVC in my hair comes back, my hair feels clean and less prone to breakage yes but it feels and looks dry. (Ps I forgot to mention my shower head does have a water filter because where I live we do have hard water and I read that soft water is better for hair and skin, also in my mixture of ACVR I use cold water and wash with warm and I leave the ACVR in as a leave in ) Does anyone have any suggestions to Hair I can make my hair feel less dry? or what can I use to condition it? I have tried pure unfiltered organic coconut oil cold pressed and rubbed that in my hair but it makes my hair look really oily, also i have tried morrocon oil and though it absorbs better than the coconut oil without making my hair look greasy it does make me need to wash my hair 3x a week.
Any advise would be helpful and sorry about the long post. Thank you

Hi! I am very greatfull for all of the postings that have helped or inspired me along my journey of no-poo! But I seem to be in a rut and not sure how to get out. I hope someone might read my post and have some advice to share :)

I went no-poo 6 months ago and I am having little success keeping away the waxy/gunky/heavy feeling.

Info:
hair type: blonde, type 2a-b down to mid back
Water: using shower head filter. high pressure during wash/scrub
brushing: scritch and preen 2x week. BBB using every other day, cleaning after every use with bronner's soap, every day to style using neem wood comb.
lifestyle: 3x week doing yoga and usually washing/rinsing hair after

Attempts:
1. Bakingsoda-ACV routine - cleans hair well, but dries hair out and breaks at the root. EEEEEK!! I am NOT going back to this.
2. Honey-wash/ACV-rinse - waxy/greasy
3. Bentonite/ACV/honey wash +/- acid rinse (ACV or chamomile )- I tried to tweak with different amounts of ingredients. End result was that my hair just kept getting more heavy/gunky/waxy.
4. Whole egg - whoa, can we say mess of straw?
5. egg-yolk only wash (after a coconut mask) and finally felt like my hair was cleaner. It actually made suds on my head! but still had a slight slick feeling after dry, so not ideal. (plus its not really a sustainable choice of hairwash)

After the egg wash 3 weeks ago, I decided to try WO, thinking my scalp/hair was just overreacting to the things I was putting on it. I have followed all the tips, and I am slowly building up the gunk/waxy feeling. ARRGGHH!!
I am averaging WO wash every 3 days, and I have done 2 egg-yolk washes (no coconut mask) which bring things to a manageable level, but not ideal. I was hoping it was still transitioning to WO, but it seems that might not be the case. After WO when my hair is dry, it already feels gunky. I am so frustrated, and I don't want to give up.
Please, any advice might help me!

Hi, this is my first post so thanks for reading. I bought a powdered no-poo herb at an Arabic market in France, and the seller called it I believe "alzaz", but it had no label on it and I don't think I have the name right because there are no google hits.

Does anyone out there know about it, especially the English name? It is green and smells a little like pineapple. I'm not sure I'm using it right (how diluted it should be, how long it should be left on, etc.) Thanks so much.

Hello everyone! I joined livejournal to write this so please let me know if I do something wrong!>.<

I'd really appreciate any advice - I'm kinda stuck right now! I've been no poo since around February 2014, so about a year and a half, but it's like I'm still transitioning! ;o;

I'll just say right now that I have quite curly hair (the lengths) and I'm mixed race. My hair is a mixture of black&white (race not colour) hair so it's rather strange haha, though it's closer to white than black. The length/ends are naturally dry whilst my roots are naturally oily. My hair is brown if that matters.

I never really had the moment that everyone describes as when your hair magically becomes perfect (lol) at the end of the transition, it's always just been icky at the roots and every so often it was alright.

I started off with baking soda and ACV, once every week or two I think. I also tried substituting ACV with lemon juice, but I don't think it worked as well. I also attempted honey, but it made my hair so nasty and oily (though this was still during the 'transition period') I'm 16 and still at school so I put up with a fair amount of humiliation, but my hair has never really looked nice& was always frizzy so I just endured it in the hope that my hair would be healthier and look nicer eventually. Occasionally I felt my hair looked ok and was fairly confident, I think the nicest it looked was when I used a mixture of 1 egg yolk/white. Egg hasn't really worked though the few times I used it after that.

I also have been trying water only since around Christmas, because I was worried about the baking soda being harmful due to the PH/harshness. My roots are always flat and gross, but the length of my hair has been very poofy (in a good way), fluffy and curly. The ends are damaged though because I have to drag a boar bristle brush through the curls/knots. The roots are gross from using cocoa powder to keep the oily appearance under control. After trying water only I got dandruff which I read was from sebum (or something?) so I tried baking soda&ACV again and the dandruff went.

I don't want to stop no poo, it's made my hair softer and I believe it's better than shampoo. I used shampoo two or three times when it was unavoidable, but afterwards my hair was so dry&it was much harder to untangle compared to when I no poo. If anyone knows a safe way to get fluffy roots with volume I'd appreciate it if you would share your knowledge with me!

Thanks for reading!

Hi all,

I stopped using shampoo 7 years ago (summer 2008) but this is the first time I've been on this site.
I wanted to eliminate unnecessary packaging, cost and artificial chemicals from my life. I had dreads and henna at the time I started and thought it would be the perfect excuse to try it out (you can wash dreads with shampoo but since everyone assumed I was a dirty hippy I thought I might as well use the opportunity to actually become one...). At the time I washed my hair with shampoo and sometimes conditioner about once every 4-5 days. My transition lasted 7 months (I combed out the dreads a few weeks in), with the worst greasiest point being about 6 weeks in.

My transition consisted of largely WO every 4-5 days with raids of the kitchen cupboard sometimes supplementing it (egg yolk, vinegar, tea, lemon juice etc etc), and henna every 6 weeksish. I found that my scalp became itchy about 2 weeks in and there was loads of buildup of grease and skin. I developed an unpleasant head-scratching habit. However after several months of perseverance my hair finally became socially acceptable again, and looked much nicer than before. I started increasing the time between my WO washes first to one week, then two weeks. Sometimes I go three weeks and I once managed 5 weeks without any water! I sometimes use ACV- a splash in a pint-sized cup- if I'm feeling vain. I still henna too, and mix in tea and lemon juice. Overall I'm very happy with my results- I find that in a 2-week cycle my hair looks and feels great in the first 5 days after WO, then gradually gets a bit greasy towards days 6-8ish then softens out a bit, gradually greasing and becoming itchier towards day 14 or 21. I find that the longer I leave between WO washes the longer my hair can stay ungreasy, but my scalp gets itchy so that's when I put it in the shower. Also I don't really bother with soap either, my skin is dry and soap (even natural soap) just makes it worse.

Egg: White made hair very frizzy, yolk was the best conditioner ever BUT couldn't get rid of smell
Avocado: expensive
Rosemary oil: Tried to rid scalp of itch- didn't do much
Witch hazel: possibly slight scalp benefit?
ACV: Really nice results, since it's a chemical change you don't need much at all.
Bs: I don't use as it's actually quite harsh (used in some commercial detergents) and I personally wouldn't consider it 'no-poo'
Tea: gives a nice shine and nice smell but usually can't be bothered
Henna: Love it! Leftover powder can get stuck in the scalp and exacarbate itching though
Hot water: I kind of feel like it's not as good as lukewarm water and it certainly doesn't melt the grease away...

Here's a picture of me looking a bit weird (was gradually making the henna less red at the time but currently my whole hair length looks like the bottom half):

Here are the problems I've never really sorted:

Itchy flaky scalp with some sore patches: I use nothing harsh (No BS) although I live in a hard water area.

Split ends, breakage and white dots: I got these when I was about 14 and neither henna nor 'no-poo' (I hate that phrase) have helped. I cut my hair and the ends and dots are back withing 2 weeks. Want to work out how to stop them before cutting off the current ones. Have just started with coconut oil every 2 weeks prior to wash.

Grey gunk: Yep, still get that.

'waxiness'... I think I understand what this is, and it tends to affect me more when I don't use ACV so is possibly related to hard water, or heat of water- certainly don't get it when I get a 'free shower' from rainwater.

Lots of the advice about these problems seems to be related to reducing BS ratios, however I have never used it. I was considering starting to use ACV with every wash to counteract the hard water but don't want my hair to become dependent on it. Please feel free tao ask me questions about my experiences as I have 7 years of them!

Hi there. Looks like there's not that many people around here!

Just wanted to share here about my adventure without shampoo. I have been using a baking soda wash and vinegar rinse for just shy of 3 years now. I started for a couple of reasons. Wanting something more natural, but mostly wanting something better for my hair. As I have been getting older, my naturally sleek, straight hair has gotten more and more frizzy. I tried different shampoos and conditioners to help with the frizz but all it did was make the top of my hair oily and the ends more frizzy.

After a lot of research I gave no poo a chance. I did not have a problem with it at all. My hair is shiny, much, much less frizz and so easy to comb through. This from a person who had difficulty combing it when I used shampoo and conditioner! The only problem I had at first was split ends after doing it for a couple of months. Trimmed my ends and started putting coconut oil lightly on the ends after each wash; haven't had a problem with them since.

My hair is fairly long; about mid-back length. When I started it was longer, about butt-crack length. I am very happy with this method. I get a lot of compliments on my hair and it makes me laugh when people make faces or when they can't believe that I wash my hair with baking soda. Some people ask for advice on how to do no poo!

Anyway, just wanted to come in to say how well it's worked for me.

Hi, I started using the no poo method with BS/ACV towards the beginning of the year. At 1st I did see results since I have curly hair and it had a lot of volume and was very frizzy before I started this experiment. After a few weeks my hair became less frizzy and the volume decreased, my curls were also more defined and my hair was softer. However, my hair is also falling a lot more then it did before and it's very hard for me to untangle it. Last week it took forever to comb.

I've been using 2tbs of BS in 500ml of water, I leave it on for a few minutes and then remove it. I then apply 2tbs of ACV in 500ml of water and remove it almost instantly. I have recently started reading this site and learned I was doing it wrong. I was adding the mixture to the entire hair vrs just the scalp. I have now bought a squeeze bottle to apply the mixture directly to my scalp instead.

I still have some questions as to if I'm doing it right or not and wanted to know if someone could guide me in this process. My hair is kind of a mess since I have dyed it several times (bleached it a lot since I used fantasy colors before), I even shaved my sides off because I couldn't take how damaged it was and that's why I'm trying this method. Anyways, my questions are the following:

1-How often am I suppose to wash my hair with this?
2-For curly thin hair, what is the best mixture of BS/ACV?
3-How am I suppose to apply it (BS on scapl/ACV on hair?)?
4-Can I still add hair product to this? (I use flax seed wax I make myself)
5-Is there anything I can use to leave my hair soft enough to comb without any trouble?

Thanks in advance for helping me with these questions. I'd really like to keep using this method because it really left my hair nice at 1st but now I'm not so sure.

Hi im living in mexico city where baking soda is really hard to come by. What would be the next easiest option? I am looking for something cheap that I could probably find at a grocery store. My hair is thick and somewhere between wavy and curly. Thanks!

Hi Folks!

I am a long-time lurker of this site, but am dropping in to say hello now that I've finally joined the community... and finally took the no-poo plunge over the holidays with Water Only! After reading a gazillion and one no-poo, curlygirl, water-only posts I thought I knew somewhat what to expect. And then was totally thrown for a loop!

I know, just 7 days I am a fresh noob who's barely gone on the first loop of the no poo rollercoaster but here's my story so far. I have fine, curly (2c, 3a?), below-the-shoulders hair that has always struggled to look awesome and was super hard to grow long as it would break and look all straggley (plus I was a bleach blonde for years). I'm in the process of growing all my natural colour back, and being a bit of a hippie trying to go as natural as possible in my household. Over the holidays I decided to give water-only washing a try (giving my sad break-y hair what I`m hoping is it`s best chance at being lush and beautiful).

So I expected a be kind of greasy and limp for a while... but HECK NO. It`s voluminous, big, soft, and fluffy n frizzy to beat hell! So do a 180 and my challenge is to keep my head from being a giant fluffball rather than the greaseball I anticipated. I`ve deep conditioned halfway through the week with coconut oil overnight, and made a rosemary tea spray with a bit of essential oil in it for touch-ups. I am not sure yet if it's helped though. So right now I'm trying to go as long as possible without so much as getting my hair wet to see what happens.

So while this is mostly just a "howdy" I do have a very few questions:

1. Anyone else experienced this insta-super-frizz-fluff and know what I'm in for over the next few weeks?
2. Is there any downside to an overnight coconut oil mask? (Could it have some weird effect like the too-often egg wash?)
3. Boar bristle brush: Being fine and curly I am worried about breakage. Will a wooden comb have the same effect of pulling sebum down my hair shaft?

Thanks :) So very nice to be here, this site is chock-full of usefulness!

-Holly Grail

Hi!! My name is Meghan & I've been lurking this community for god knows how long. You guys don't know me, but you taught me and encouraged me to go shampoo-free this summer. My fairy god-LJ.

I'm finally making a post because everything's gone pear-shaped and I've gone through the archives/memories/tags as far back as about 7 years and can't find exactly what I'm looking for. I have some specific trouble with my hair now and I found a lot of advice, but not a lot of follow-up if it worked. (I hope this doesn't mean people gave up D:)

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I don't wanna give up :( I want it to be like it was before. So I'm imploring for help.

Thank you for reading!!