Hair Au Naturale

There's an old children's cartoon series called "The Wild Thornberries." It followed the hijinks of a nomadic family of wildlife documentary filmmaker parents, (the father, Nigel, was voiced by Tim Curry) and the daughters; younger wild-child, Eliza, and disgruntled teenager, Debbie. In one episode, the family is in the middle of a jungle when Debbie gets inspired by a magazine article to make her own "natural shampoo" to tame her long, wavy locks.

I have recently been living Debbie's struggle. I've recently begun dabbling with the popular no shampoo, or "no 'poo" method of hair maintenance. The theory goes, if you quit using conventional shampoos and switch them with baking soda and apple cider vinegar, your hair will become shiny, soft, and more manageable.

Most shampoos are full of chemicals that strip your hair of its natural oil and soaks it in perfumes and waxes and who knows what else. The problem with that is your hair has its own natural method of keeping your scalp moisturized and healthy. Strip it of this natural oil and your scalp has to overcompensate by producing more oil and the cycle of shampoo use continues.

Congratulations: your hair is officially an addict.

Instead, there are methods of treating your hair with more gentle products or unconventional home remedies. Using baking soda and ACV is one of those methods. It's a simple practice and I decided last weekend that I'd give "no 'poo" a shot. I quit shampooing cold turkey and every few days did another scalp massage and rinse, but sans baking soda because it's freaking impossible to find here. But herein lies another issue: pH balance.

Hair is about a 4 or 5 on the pH scale and baking soda is highly alkaline, around an 8. Putting that on your hair weakens it and can cause icky nasty fallout.

I already have hair that would rather be on my floor than my scalp, so I'm glad I found that out before I tried coating my hair in baking soda!

So I turned to the New Library of Alexandria, more commonly known as Pinterest, for an alternative to hair-kryptonite and I found two very appealing recipes that drew me in for their one common ingredient:

Coconut milk.

A few months ago, I tried growing my hair faster by massaging coconut milk into my roots and doing the "inversion method" for about a week. I did notice that my hair was softer and a little stronger, but I got tired of head rushes and soon forgot about the coconut milk.

But today it found its way back into my life! I found a recipe for a diluted amount of Dr.Bronner's, coconut milk, and essential oil. I saw the other recipe called for aloe vera gel and coconut milk, so I substituted the essential oil for the gel, threw it into a squeeze bottle and found myself in possession of my own natural shampoo!

After my workout, I washed my hair with my new concoction. It's still drying, and maybe it's because it's the first time in almost 2 weeks since I've shampooed, but it feels a lot better already! And the best part? Even having to assemble all the parts, my shampoo is cheaper than a bottle of that fancy "damage repair oil treatment" shampoo I got at the store!

That's it's own sort of success.