Chemical Free Frugal Hair Washing

Severus Snape, not as greasy
as described in the book

They used to call me greaseball. When I was a kid, I had long, straight, thin, stringy hair which accumulated grease like mad. Sort of like Severus Snape, only a female version. Once, I was even got in trouble in school because the teacher thought I didn't shower often enough. My hair looked greasy no matter what I did. I would wash my hair daily and it would still look terrible. I didn't know what to do!

Aside for once, roughly a month and a half  ago, I haven't used shampoo in approximately 4 months. My hair looks terrific. Full bodied, thick... and shall I say- non greasy!
Why no shampoo and how does that work?


I read an article a few months back about all the dangerous ingredients found in shampoo, most of them highly carcinogenic, and since then, I've been scared to use shampoo on myself  or my kids. When you shower in warm water, your pores open up and absorb whatever  you put on your skin, bringing whatever it is straight into your blood stream. When you eat, all toxins first get filtered out in your kidneys before they can enter your blood, but when things get absorbed  by your pores, there's no such benefit; I've come to the point where I don't want anything on my skin that I wouldn't feel safe eating. (ETA: Then again, I have no degree in science and never studied  it in depth; this is just what I've understood, but I make no guarantee about its scientific accuracy.)

Since I'd read about the nasty shampoo ingredients (and consequently looked for and found them in every bottle we had), I haven't put shampoo on my head. Instead,  what I did was I used my homemade soap bar on my hair, and occasionally used Dr Woods Castille soap, because neither of them contained nasty chemicals.
But my hair reacted badly.
You'd think that with something as drying as pure soap in my hair, my hair would have been absolutely dry and moisture free, but no, that wasn't the problem.
Once I started using pure soap in my hair, my hair was the greasiest it had ever been. Even an hour after my showers, my hair felt like I had taken an oil bath. It was gross.
I couldn't figure out why.

Until I read an article that explained how the body works.
Did you know that your body secretes oils all the time to moisturize your body and your hair naturally?
When you wash away those oils with something like shampoo, or something especially drying like natural soap, your skin goes into overdrive and makes so much more grease to replenish all the oils that are gone. The more frequently you wash the oils out of your hair, the more oils your body produces and the more frequently you absolutely need to wash your hair to prevent yourself from looking like a grease ball.

The solution is to cut back on the frequency of hair washing.
Instead of washing your hair daily, switch to every other day, and then when your body gets used to that, switch to twice a week, then once a week.

I don't use shampoo at all; when I wash my hair, I wash it with baking soda when it starts to get greasy, and the rest of the time, I wash it with plain water.
This is called going "no-poo", short for no-shampoo.
I'd read about going "no-poo" a few years ago, but I gave up too soon.
You see, when you stop using shampoo, your body is still keeping up the oil production that it had been doing until that point, until it "realizes" that you're not going to be stripping the oils away anymore. Gradually, your scalp produces less and less oil until you're able to go completely shampoo free without anyone being able to tell.
But until that point, your hair will get greasier and greasier, even though you're washing it with baking soda. Your hair might start looking a bit nasty, like you've just stepped out of the shower when it's completely dry. A cute hat will help at this time.
But once you get past that point, your hair starts looking better and better, until you're where I am- completely oil free, nice hair... not using any shampoo, whatsoever.

People who do the "No-poo" route often rinse their hair with apple cider vinegar as a conditioner, but I can't vouch for that as I've never tried it.

What type of shampoo do you use? Have you ever heard of going "no poo"? Would you dare? Or no?