I have tried everything. Regular shampoo, organic shampoo, free and clear shampoo, low- poo method, No poo method (baking soda and apple cider vinegar), Water only method (just that, water only), a mixture of them all.
Finally I made up my own routine with a little help from science. I call it my water only-ish method.
Why have I been trying all of these crazy hair methods?
Easy. Because shampoo have nasty chemicals in them. Pretty much all of them. All natural, Organic, dollar tree, salon, expensive and inexpensive. I've searched extensively for a shampoo that doesn't have nasty chemicals. I have found some but that is where we run into another problem: Hard water
Hard water is pretty much my arch enemy when it comes to cleaning and beauty products. Everywhere we live since I started trying to avoid harsh chemicals has had hard water. Not fair. *stomps foot, crosses arms*
What is hard water?
Hard water is water with certain minerals in it (calcium and magnesium) that bind to chemicals in soaps and other cleaning agents to leave a residues on whatever surface it has been used on. In this case, we are talking about hair. A lot of shampoos contain phosphates or other chemicals that help to reduce the film left on your hair, but in order to do this and not make your hair a brittle mess, it has to strip everything off and then replace it with a wax like coating. Not only do these chemicals strip your hair of its natural oils, they are also potentially harmful.
Why are the chemicals bad for you?
Chemicals such as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) are used in TONS of beauty care products, yet are known to be irritants. In my search (on pubmed.com -- a site where you can search for peer reviewed scientific journals), I didn't find much on how SLS negatively effects you, but instead found many studies that used SLS as an irritant! So, we know SLS is a skin irritant, yet we put it in all of our beauty products... Sounds odd.
There is also talk about it being a potential carcinogen (when it binds to other chemicals that are also common in skin products or just he environment) and it can also cause ulcers when ingested. If it can cause ulcers when ingested, imagine what it can do to the skin. Our stomach protects itself from HCl (a very strong acid) on a daily basis without contracting ulcers, but fails in protecting itself against SLS. This alone is enough to convince me that SLS should be avoided. From a mom's prospective it is an obvious choice to avoid it for the oxidative stress standpoint because of risk of cancer and the potential of having a negative effect on epigenetics.
To read more about SLS, I suggest you read this article. It isn't from a .edu or .gov, nor is is peer reviewed but it has scientifically sound information in a easy-to-read format.
To see a cool video on epigenetics , if your interested, click here.
SLS is NOT the only chemical that is dangerous in common beauty products, it is just the one I chose to focus on today!
How I avoid chemicals when washing my hair:
There are many ways you can avoid these chemicals when you are washing your hair.
There are awesome things called shampoo bars that are harmful-chemical free-- but don't work with hard water.
You can do the No-poo method which is typically baking soda for shampoo and apple cider vinegar for conditioner. It actually works amazingly well-- if you don't have hard water... You can also adjust the amounts of baking soda and apple cider vinegar to make it work better for hard water, but I have very curly hair and any amount of build up from scale in my hair is detrimental to my curls. Aside from that, I have noticed that baking soda makes my hair a bit brittle. I blame it on my curly hair. It is naturally dry and baking soda seems to agitate that for me.
Next, the water only method. This is also great. It consists of just water and a baking soda, apple cider vinegar rinse once a month or just as needed. This is an awesome option if you don't have hard water
do you see a theme here? this is why hard water is my arch enemy. We simply will never get along because of the long months I spent attending classes and work with waxy, gross hair.
This is where my method of water only-ish method comes in.
My method consists of "washing" the hair with water and nothing else and then using citric acid dissolved in hot water as a second wash/ conditioning cycle.
What I do:
I put one (sometimes 2) tablespoons of citric acid into a 24 oz mason jar.
(I buy my citric acid on amazon.com in bulk)
I then fill it up with hot water (the water I'm showering... not boiled or anything hotter than you would comfortably put on your body)
Put the lid on, shake until completely dissolved.
Pour it over my hair as evenly as possible-- making sure to get the underneath, also.
Comb my hair out with the citric acid mixture still in there
I then let it sit for a few minutes-- usually as long as it takes me to clean the rest of my body and answer 50 questions from my 4 year old.
Rinse THOROUGHLY and you are done!
VERY important:
Citric acid HURTS when it gets into your eyes! Horribly! so don't do that! Also, if you have an open wound, I suggest covering it. That burns also. It is basically like squirting lemon juice into your eye or open wound. Just don't do it. It hurts.
Why does citric acid work with hard water?
Citric acid is a metal chelator. This means to say, it binds to metals (such as calcium and magnesium) and prevents them from binding to other things.
In the apple cider vinegar rinse, it is the same general idea, but apple cider vinegar is a little weaker than citric acid in chelating.
Does it really work?
Yes yes yes!!! My hair is so nice now! I just love it. I "wash" my hair once a week (Don't worry, I take baths more often than that!)
I need to warn you though:
If you are going strait from regular, store bought shampoo to water only-ish method, there WILL be a transition period.
Your hair is used to having to produce TONS of oils to keep up with the stripping of your hair every time you wash it with a shampoo. Therefore, your body has to learn to not do this. This is the transition period. The transition period also consists of the time period it takes for your hair to get rid of all of the build up that shampoo has been putting on it since you started using shampoo! The time period depends on a lot of things. Mine took a month. Some people it takes a week or 6 months. It just depends.
I suggest doing the change over a time period. Start slowly spacing out how often you wash your hair and then start the water only-ish method once you've reached the once a week washing. This will help the transition be less gross.
My hair:
(I am a horrible selfie taker... bare with me... Also, ignore my tired, no make-up face... I haven't slept in 2 months!)
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