No-Poo Follow-up

Ok .. I broke down and washed my hair. We had court the other week and I couldn't bear it. I know the last time I blogged about this challenge (http://thebluenymph.blogspot.com/2010/08/week-2-of-no-poo-challenge.html) I was digging how my hair looked. So what happened?

Pro: I could let my hair air-dry and have these really awesome waves. Justin compared it to coming out of the ocean and letting my hair dry. Kinda bed-heady, but cool.

Con: I couldn't brush my hair. At least not with my beloved Mason Pearson paddle brush. But then I couldn't brush it with a regular ole brush either. If I did I would have an insane pouf-fro thing going on.

Pro: Thanks to having one kid with curly hair, I've had to learn how to brush curly hair, so the above issue could slightly be taken care of. Mist down hair very well, then brush. The key is to the wetness of it all.

Pro: I had VOLUME!! My hair is fine and straight usually. And limp. During the No-Poo Challenge I had VOLUME and it was AWESOME!!!!

Con ... and this was the breaking point: My hair had an odd oily texture at the roots. It reminded me of when I dyed my hair with Manic Panic. It would lift up more in sections than strands, if that makes any sense. When I was washing my hair in the shower I felt like I had to wash my hands afterwards, and I really hated that.

So, I broke down and washed my hair. I even used some conditioner that I still had from when I box-dyed my hair blonde last. I was headed into court and wanted my hair looking nice, it was one thing I just didn't want to have to worry about.
Now it's almost a week later. I'm back to using the shampoo we had here at the house already (Nature's Gate shampoo which, it turns out, is just as toxic as most store bought shampoos and costs a couple dollars more per bottle!!) & my usual "conditioner" rinse: a mixture of beer, chamomile tea, and lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. So, how's that going?

Pro: Hello my dear hairbrush. I have missed you.

Con: Back to HAVING to wash my hair daily. I could probably make it till the end of the day, but my roots would be looking super nasty by then. So .. back to washing it every friggin' morning.

Pro: Hello silky hair. Silky strands of hair.

Con: Hello FLAT hair. REALLY FLAT! You couldn't iron hair and get it any flatter.

Con: Bye bye pretty waves. Also, bye bye air dried sexy hair. I need a haircut and it seems more and more obvious everyday now.

Con: Bye bye being able to style my hair and have it hold. Now it's too silky and just falls.

Obviously I'm not really liking shampoo anymore. The kids are still holding true to the no-poo thing because it hasn't had any negative "effect" on their hair. Their heads look great.
So, I'm back to researching options and alternatives to shampoo. Today I washed my hair with some Dr. Bronner's and the usual rinse. Much nicer.
I also found this blog: http://asimmeringpotandamom.blogspot.com/2010/02/back-to-bloggin-cooking-up-more-than.html - some very good suggestions there. I might have to try this out.
Also high on the list of priorities .. get a friggin' haircut!

I'll keep you up to date on how things go and what I try next. For anyone who may read this -- thoughts? Have you tried ditching store-bought shampoo?? What did you use? Remember, store-bought shampoo didn't even exist until 1930's and, from what I've seen, all the really impressively gorgeous (female) hairstyles existed before 1930 as well. I can't help but see the correlation. What do you think?