The Hair Don't I Did
BronwenSo I’m in the middle from transitioning from an actually pretty natural, but not quite perfect, haircare routine to using a high-end, clean haircare line that you’d recognize by name. It’s honestly the roughest transition I’m making. I’m not quite ready to talk about this fully, except to say, the specific problem I’m having is that for the last few days the back of my scalp (where my male pattern baldness would be, y’know, if) will not get clean.* I was this close to taking my old shampoo back out of the cabinet.
Then, last night, I got to the chapter in No More Dirty Looks on hair care. In this chapter, the girls interviewed Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda and Intelligent Nutrients, on his preferred hairwashing technique: backwards.
I excerpt:
“When you wash your hair, try using your conditioner first,” he said flatly. “If you want to go all the way, put oils on your scalp, give yourself a nice massage, and then comb it through. Next, wet it down, put conditioner all over your hair and then also all over your body. Wash yourself with the conditioner, then rinse it all off. Then, you use shampoo. Rinse it off, and you won’t need conditioner again. If your hair is tangly, put a little oil on your hands, and then comb it through.” That’s it, he says. “You will feel very pure.”
Well, my hair was dirty, and I was born every minute, so I washed my hair backwards.
As soon as I got into the shower, I applied conditioner first to the length of my hair, focusing on the ends. I then applied a smaller amount up near the scalp and actually did scrub around my roots (particularly in my non-bald spot) like I was doing an old school CO wash. I tied my hair up into a bun while I went about the rest of my shower for a few minutes. Last thing I did was to rinse out the conditioner and then to shampoo the roots.
Results: Yeah, most of my hair feels “very pure” and clean as a whistle. The dirty spot, however, is still a bit dirty. great. It doesn’t feel quite as greasy as it did yesterday. In what is a complete surprise, however, my hair airdried with what’s as close to zero frizz as I’m probably capable of achieving. My hair looks like I flatironed it.
I’m certainly intrigued by this anti-frizz without products or effort idea, so I may try this hairwashing method again tomorrow. If I use a shampoo with parabens (but silicone- and sulfate-free, I swear) to get this damn greaseslick off the back of my head though, don’t hate me?
*The issue I’m having getting my hair clean can clearly be attributed to user error on my part because my whole scalp gets oily and yet I’m able to get the rest of it clean. Hence I am not yet quitting these products. But I am kind of a quitter, so this could still go down.
Reader Comments (4)
Have you tried a vinegar or herbal rinse yet? It was a total saving grace when I was switching to natural shampoos. My "non bald spot" is always the first place to get oily and by doing a rinse of diluted apple cider vinegar it seems to help break up the excess sebum on the scalp. I found I liked rinsing my hair first then using shampoo. But I think it is up to personal experimentation.
=)
I'm not ready for the vinegar yet. YET.
About ten years ago, I was following the Curly Girl method, so no shampoo, cone-free conditioner and then gel. I would do apple cider vinegar rinses every now and then to get the last bits of product and dirt out of my hair and I just HATED it. I'm not a huge vinegar fan, and smelling it all around my head got to be a bit too much for me. If I get really dire with my non-bald spot, I might have to ACV rinse though.
At the moment, I'm leaning towards hopping back into the shower tonight with the clean shampoo and just spending the time it takes to get the spot clean.
Maybe you can add in a bit of baking soda to that stubborn spot on your scalp. During my hair detox, I used handmade soap bars for at least 1.5 months before all that gunk from conventional products came off my hair. Then I went through this phase where I used baking soda and apple cider vinegar rinse as my shampoo and conditioner. That didn't work that well as in it was inconvenient and messy. I then switched over to Raw African Black soap and an apple cider vinegar rinse and my hair has been amazing! I've also tried this shampoo and conditioner from Organic Excellence which was decent but I loved my African Black soap and apple cider vinegar rinse better. I also tried Avalon shampoo in unscented which cleans but doesn't produce "wow" effects. Every once in a while I wait too long to wash my hair and there's a bit of buildup on my scalp. This is only when I wait too long to wash my hair. I'm assuming it's because of dead skin cells and oil buildup. I then take some salt, some honey, and some apple cider vinegar and make it into a bit of a paste and liberally massage it on my scalp to get rid of the buildup. It works so well. I know some people also use sugar in place of the salt and some people omit the honey because honey can be a bit heavy on the roots area. I just tend to have more salt lying around than sugar. I really like this scalp scrub. I wish I knew about it when I was detoxing my hair when I first went natural. I haven't been tempted to try out something new for my hair ever since I tried the Organic Excellence and realized my African Black soap was better. I've also purchased fragrance oils and essential oils and used it to scent my African Black soap so it can leave a bit of fragrance on my hair. I mainly use essential oils because I love the scent of peppermint and lavender. I know some people hate vinegar rinses and I hate the smell. But I found that rinsing it out is more beneficial for my hair than to leave it in which was what I used to do. I've also experimented with the amount of apple cider vinegar to use. I really only need a tiny bit to 8oz of water and I only use probably .5-1oz per shampoo to get the conditioning effect. My hair and scalp have come a long way to be able to get by with such little hassle.
The smell is totally why I rinse first then shampoo. Otherwise I feel like a smell like a salad all day and let's face it no one is going to go "Mmm is that Balsamic?" whilst smelling you.
I've recently dropped my ACV rinse and am going it alone with my clean shampoo. I'm currently using Yarok and find that my air dried hair looks as smooth and shiny as if I'd had a blow out. Which my hair never does.