Week 2 of the No Poo Challenge

~ Are you sure we're not at the beach?? Cuz all I see are some serious waves! ~

We're now officially into Week 2 of the No Poo Challenge. As you can hopefully see from the photo above, it's not going too bad either!!! Hello hair!!

Since my last post though it's been an interesting ride. The boys' hair looks fantastic, I don't think they've had ANY transition issues at all!! Lucky little turds.
My hair on the other hand has been through a lot of changes. From dried and fried to otter-oily. I've had to say farewell to my beloved Mason Pearson paddle brush (for straight, fine hair) and learn to brush my hair like I brush Shannon's: wet it down first, brush gently, keep it damp & then let it air dry.

There have been a couple days where I spent most of the time it seemed day-dreaming about shampooing my hair. I seemed to have a greasy/oily spot near the crown of my head on my right hand side and it REALLY drove me up the wall. I have no clue why it was there, it just was and I hated it. I hung in there though and didn't shampoo.

From the posts I've read though of other people who've gone through this I've decided to try and wear my hair down and loose as much as I can, which isn't easy with the recent weather we've been having. It seemed that the people who this challenge didn't work for wore their hair up for most of the challenge ~ hence my decision to wear it down as often as possible.

Like I said earlier, I've also quit washing my hair everyday. This is something that was a definite and absolute must-do before this challenge. Now I wash it roughly every other day. I also have changed up the baking soda ratio a little, as well as how I make it. Originally I was going with the 1 TB baking soda per 1 cup water, which was working out 2 TB baking soda per bottle (I'm using an old shampoo bottle), pouring in the baking soda & then filling the bottle with water & shaking it all up.
I realized a couple of things though: 1) the bottle holds a little over 2 cups worth of water & 2) it's a white bottle, which means I can't tell how well the baking soda was mixing with the water versus just collecting on the bottom of the bottle.
So now I fill the bottle mostly full with water, then I add 3 TB baking soda, then shake. This seems to be working out much better for me and my hair feels much nicer to boot.

And now .. well, it's looking good!! My hair feels normal, and looks great. Justin commented on the waves the other day, saying that it looked like I had just come out of the ocean and let my hair dry & how much he liked it.
I've also noticed that my hair is taking curls in general better. If I wrap my hair around my finger and hold it for a while I'll wind up with a nice little spiral curl for a bit. I'm really tempted to try out pin curls now, something I wouldn't have dreamed of trying before because I know they wouldn't have stayed or likely even taken.
My ends still feel dry, but then again I was thinking how I was about due for a haircut while we were at the beach .. at the end of June!! I haven't had my hair cut in a long time. So long I don't remember when it was. Early Spring maybe?? Yea, I think that's when it was. Ok, 5 months, so I guess it hasn't been that long, but still .. I'm due for a trim. And, as far as the ends go, I've also dyed my hair blonde (month or two ago), been out in some serious sun, been to the beach, and spent lots of time in the pool. I can't really say that the ends being dried has anything in the least little bit to do with this experiment.

So there you have it. Going into Week 2 I'm really loving this challenge. It was hard to see light at the end of the tunnel and some days I longed to shampoo my hair, but I am glad I didn't. This is awesome.