It’s been four years since I’ve given up shampoo. And last year I did not post a picture, so I thought this year I would. My hair isn’t looking fantastic – but that’s not really to do with nopoo. Rather, I have a habit of pulling at it/playing with it when stressed which is always lately and so I’ve got a bit of a problem with thinness and split ends. Still, I’ve nearly hit my goal of having classic length hair – having just barely scraped past waist length recently. I often get annoyed with how long my hair is, but I am learning various braids which makes it fun and worth it. I can almost do a proper crown braid – my hair is so long it just wraps all the way around. :D My hair is still coping well with no poo. I still have a water filter and I actually remembered to change the filter recently so although it’s a just a cheap one and I’ve long realised it isn’t that effective, it’s better than hard water. My hair just about copes/looks OK washing it twice a week with water only, and silicone free conditioner on the ends. Actually, looking back on my previous post that means I’ve been using the same routine for about two years now! No poo is actually very low maintenance and kinda boring to talk about once you get past the crazy experimental stage where you are like, putting eggs on your hair. At first, during the crazy phase, I wondered if it really was so cheap and easy, but after my hair got out of transition and I found what works it became more so, and lately I’ve not been moving around too much, so right now it really, really is.
I’m not even doing herbal rinses lately. The craziest thing I did was an overnight seaweed mask, which was great but so messy and smelly I’ve not done it again. That’s the thing: I’m feeling lazy right now so I cannot be bothered with any rinses or masks or anything. I occasionally oil the ends of my hair with camellia oil as its winter, but that’s all the special attention my hair is getting right now.
Since giving up shampoo I’m still questioning my beauty routine and my “choices”. I nearly became soap free as I mentioned last time – except for after hiking and the time of the month and shaving – but then I received some fabulous homemade goats milk and essential oil soap for Christmas, so that’s on hold. I’ve not been using natural oils much for my skin, as it’s not that convenient, although I’ve been liking the Salcura Bioskin nourishing spray as a quick and fairly natural way of moisturising – the spray function means half ends up in the air, but it’s very quick and sinks in much easier and quicker than the oils do. (Sadly though, it joins the long list of products that aren’t suitable for use on my scalp nor particularly helpful for the eczema I have there.) I do still love my natural sugar scrubs for exfoliating my body. The most major change I’ve made since the last update is beginning to transition to using cloth sanitary protection, and I’m hoping to soon change to replacing my disposable facial cotton with reusable wipes too. That and giving up juice for herbal tea (mostly). I can just about manage to convince myself that moringa and mango tea tastes the same as mango juice, and I do notice my skin loves it when I cut back on the sugary drinks and get those herbs in. So I guess I’ve gone from putting tea on my hair for my skin and hair health, to ingesting it for the same reasons. Either way works, right? (Well, I prefer ingesting them to be honest.)