No poo - shampoo free

In a lot of places on the internet people are advocating stopping with shampoo useage. I am totally behind and supportive of this notion.

As you may have read shampoo did not exist until the 1930's, since it's advent it as made massive amounts of money for it's producers.

A lot of people especially women are addicted to foam. People love it on their hair, on their skin, in their baths and when washing dishes. The chemicals that create foam are really bad for your skin.

If you want healthy, smooth, resilient, youthful skin - ditch the foam.

My hair has taught me; vaseline = crap, shampoo = crap, conditioner = crap, anything manufactured (with a shelf life over 1 year) and sold especially to deal with whichever of the (hair/skin) problems I have = utter crap.

My hair has taught me: to use only natural substances - nut butters, (preferably cold pressed) oils, fruit, veg and herbs on my skin and hair at least daily - twice is nice, three times won't do any damage. Also to drink as much water and herbal teas (green tea as a secondary option) as possible, a minimum 1.5 litres a day (which I rarely manage), to avoid coffee, sparkling, sweet, commercial drinks (I pretty much do) and minimal alcohol (which I msotly ignore!)

From childhood my hair has broken off.

If I ever got my hair 'relaxed' it would never look relaxed when dry no matter how much burn I endured. As soon as it got wet it would take on the straightened look I think most of those with African, peppercorn curled hair long for. As soon as there was about 1 cm of growth (half an inch) the straightened hair would break off.

This was seriously distressing - you straighten your hair so it will look straight (more acceptable to white people) my hair didn't look straight, you also straighten your hair so it will look long like white peoples hair so in breaking off it also didn't look long (because it wasn't)

In addition to refusing to allow me to be a hair conformist by taking the torture and running with it as every one else's hair seemed to do. My hair is very, very fine and soft - so I also can't get an afro together.

Extensions - hair falls out. Dreadlox - breaks off and falls out, sisterlox - broke off, fell out, didn't even grow in between, so I just had bald patches.

I cannot count the number of times I have had to just give in, shave it all off and start again.

Most no poo'ers recommend using vinegar and/or sodium bicarbonate.

I tried it the other day and I can see that it has a similarity to foaming, however it is really harsh, especially when combined with vinegar. I find it hard to believe that anyone's hair is sooo dirty or greasy that using this method is necessary on a regular basis.

Organic cider vinegar is not harsh but I am not interested in putting anything that expensive on my hair - also one of the reasons I stopped using shampoo.

It is now so long since I last used shampoo that I actually can't give you a number that I can be sure of, it's probably somewhere between 5 and 10 years.


Now I know that optimum hair care has very much to do with stress levels, water, trace minerals, micro nutrients and environmental factors, which basically means my hair is always going to be prone to breaking off.

Let me cut to the chase - use lemon juice (I add essential oils for ultimate health care) to clean your hair. You can condition and or rinse it with cold (herbal) tea.

You can also use beer to clean your hair -

Lemon juice is vitamin rich and full of oils so no, it doesn't dry it out, it doesn't sting. You need to strain it to get the bits of flesh out. I apply with a teat pipette, I include rosemary, sandalwood (when I'm really into myself) and West Indian Bay essential oils and generally do a rinse with either cold rosemary, green, or nettle tea.

Using lemons is not sooo very cheap but I reckon it still comes out cheaper than the 'best shampoo', I have also made a tea by boiling squeezed lemons - I drink the juice of 1 lemon every morning any way, this also seemed to work well. But because I tend not to use organic food. I washed away the wax, either with normal soap or by soaking in a vinegar solution.

I won't repeat any of the info about how long it can take for your hair to adjust and how much better it will look etc - all that info you can find easily with a no poo search.

If you're lucky enough to be able to grow lemons - yr sorted!