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No Poo Washing Method Troubleshooting: Wash hair with Baking soda and Apple Cider Vinegar

Updated on October 8, 2012

Fist week of the no poo method

About five days ago I decided to try the no poo method of washing my hair. I had though about trying this before but chickened out. I watched a bunch of you tube videos on it and came up with my own way to do. I found there are lots of different ways people do the no poo method. The typical way is using baking soda as shampoo and apple cider vinegar as conditioner. There are people who use just water, people who only use conditioner and people who use a shampoo bar. I didn't have any apple cider vinegar on hand and didn't feel like going out to get it so I decided to use honey in warm water as my conditioner.

The first night I washed my hair was Friday and I used one tbl of baking soda to one cup of warm water for the shampoo. I poured it all over my head and then massaged my head. I was surprised when it actually felt squeaky clean. Then I apply the honey in the warm water to the hair below the crown of my head. I washed it all out and did a blast of cold water before ending my shower. Normally when I brush my hair after a shower it is really hard to brush. It is long and thick and ever since I highlighted it last summer has been really hard to brush when wet. So I was very surprised when the brush just slid through my hair. It looked clean and I could brush it so I was happy. I tried doing the sock bun to curl that night but it turned out not curly but puffy so I was not thrilled with that but it was tolerable and got better after a day.

By Sunday night it was getting greasy so I washed it Monday morning again with my baking soda and water mixture and then conditioned with the honey and water mix. Again it looked clean and It was surprisingly easy to brush. I was on my way to work and was extactly sure how it would dry so I wanted to blow dry it. I put in some mouse to give it volume which I never do but decided to do that day. Not being one who likes to spend more then five minutes on my hair I didn't fully finish blow drying it and it had this sticky, tacky feeling for the rest of the day. Last night I decided to take my mouse hair and try to curl it again with out heat while I slept. This time I split my hair into four sections and then made four sections out of each one of those original sections and twisted them into little buns on my head. My hair was dry when I did this but I did spray a little water on the buns before going to sleep.

Today I have these curls I have never had before. They definitely turned out way better than any other time i tried to get curls. Now I have to see how it will look tomorrow. I think I will stick with the baking soda and honey mixes and see how my hair responds.

Curls from twists slept in overnight about 12 hours after taking them out of twists.
Curls from twists slept in overnight about 12 hours after taking them out of twists.
curls from twist at end of day.
curls from twist at end of day.

Week 2- No Poo takes a bad turn

So this week my hair is just not looking good. Last week I went five days with out washing my hair. I twirled into to buns each night and had curls in the morning, did a cute side bun and really didn't have any problems except that it was very staticy. To combat the static i picked up some dryer sheets to run over my head. That helped. Now though on my third time washing with the baking soda my hair feels really grimy. I finally went to the store and got some apple cider vinegar and was excited to see if it would help the static. I washed my hair this morning with the mix of 1 tbl baking soda to 1 cup water and massaged my head. I could tell that it felt less clean this time right away. I added a little more baking soda and water and rinsed. I followed up with 1tbl apc to 1 cup water on the ends of my hair and rinsed. I had no problem brushing my hair but it did look different than the last times I washed it with baking soda. I noticed at work after it was dry that my hair just did not look ultra clean. It didn't look greasy but felt grimy and pulled it back into a ponytail for the rest of the day and decided I would wash it again when I got home. The second round of washing I used less water and rubbed the baking soda mixture into my roots, rinsed, repeated with the orginial baking soda water ratio on the top of my head and then flipped my head over and repeated again with more baking soda and water. I was sure this would make a difference. I conditioned with honey this time and rinsed.

Well...My hair is only about 10% better than it was earlier today. Easy to brush though and no static so far but still grimy. I did find a website that has some tips on no poo troubleshooting.

http://thepistachioproject.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-poo-troubleshooting.html

One of the things it says it that if you increase the baking soda and it still feels grimy then it may be the hard water. Now I don't know for sure if I have hard water in this apartment but I am going to boil my water for mixing the baking soda and vinegar and see if that makes a difference. They recommend boiling water and then letting it cool and using this water to mix your solution. You can rinse with the regular water but apparently hard water and the no poo method do not mix. Hopefully I try that next time. Possible even tomorrow because I don't think I can go out in public with my hair how it is now. It looks like day old hair after normal shampooing but feels like 4 day old no poo hair and it has only been 2 hours.

Week two is off to a bad start but I know what I am going to try to I'll see if that helps.

Yeah for boiled water!

Boiled water. It worked. I boiled a pot of water and after it cooled poured it into three water bottles. Mixed one with 3 tbls of baking soda because I wanted to be sure my hair got clean, mixed one with acv and left the other bottle of boiled water alone. In the shower I washed my hair with the cooled boiled water and baking soda making sure to scrub my head and then rinsed with regular shower water. I conditioned with the boiled water and acv and rinsed with regular water. I then used the bottle of just plain boiled water as a cool rinse. This was a definite improvement over the last time I washed it. It feels way better and looks clean. I might have used too mush acv because the ends are a little sticky. So now I am going to stick with using the boiled water for the baking soda and acv mixes and try a pre-wash of boiled water and then a cold rinse of boiled water. I didn't think to get a photo of what it looked like this morning but here are the ones of my hair in sock curls and you can tell that it looks clean now.

Boiled water= clean hair

sock curls and clean hair after using coole boiled water
sock curls and clean hair after using coole boiled water

Sock curls resutls

This is the results from my sock curls. It turned out great and stayed curly all day. By the end of the day they were soft body curls but still looked good about 10 hours after I took the socks out.

Back on Track

Weeks three and four have been going great. I think I finally got the routine down. Boil my water and mix with the baking soda and apple cider vinegar. It took a while but I have stopped using too much acv and my hair feels way less sticky.

Things are going great now.

working

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