Ok… So, now you’ve dealt with all your fears. That’s good. You’ve convinced yourself that it’s ok to try this “weird” method. You’ve found your motivation. You saw that there are other people that have done it and they are happy about it. You’ve read enough information to make you try it. Now you’ve found the courage to try it.

Very good!

You did it for the first time… You discovered that it is not gross and you don’t stink J You continue doing it and you see that it works fine. You stumble a bit (the build up and stuff), but you find support here. You read that you’re not the only one and you receive advice and carry on.

Now you’re more than one month into it, maybe more. You’ve passed the hard part already and you are happy with the results. You are really confident and you start to enjoy your new and healthy hair. You find yourself that you are really into this stuff and you are enthusiastic about it.

Sadly that’s not all…

Yeah, you’re not finished… Now you find yourself in the position when you start telling about this method to your friends and family. And… all Hell breaks loose. You thought it would be fine, but you forgot that you were reluctant at the beginning too. Your friends and family, and those you’ve told about this, start laughing at you. They start to mock you and they look at you like you are the biggest weirdo on the planet! J Maybe you didn’t see it coming, or maybe you thought you could handle it. Don’t worry, you will! They start to give you a bunch of reasons why it’s better and healthier to use shampoo… Maybe you start to debate those ideas, but I advise you not to. Let them say what they think, listen to them, but carry on doing what you feel like. They will think that this method is unhealthy, gross and bad for you. But you know a secret. You know that they are wrong because you’ve tried it for a long time, and you convinced yourself.

Steadily they will chill and they will probably forget about it. Be relaxed and you may find out that some of them tried it, or that maybe some of them embraced the idea and are using it. If not, you will find out that some friends like you for who you are, and that they don’t judge you by what you wash your hair with )

Try not to let your friends change your mind about a thing you’ve tried and you know is ok for you.

And don’t forget the fact that you DON’T have to share this method, even if you like it and use it. You know best the people you hang with and if you think that they will give you a hard time, maybe it’s better to keep it to yourself. It’s no one’s business what you do in your own privacy.

All the best,

Bogdan

First, let me introduce myself I am Bogdan, an almost 22 years-old student from Romania. I’m studying Psychology and I am very interested about green and natural stuff, from food to living.

I found out about the noShampoo technique from Facebook, if I’m not mistaken. I think a friend of mine “liked” one article from the website and I was curious to read it. That was a very good move for me. After I read all the articles, I asked some questions to a post but the answer didn’t came up as fast as I wanted and I decided to try this “weird and crazy” method.

My first experience was in November 2011. At first I was a bit reluctant In my mind I imagined myself, after using noShampoo, as a homeless guy. I thought that my hair will be filthy and unattractive.  I guess most of you think about this at first, it’s ok So, after several weeks I saw that my hair was… interesting. It was like it changed, somehow. It was thicker, let’s say, but not from grease, it was thick after I washed it.  My hair was like never before. It had volume, and I could manage it, I could comb it as I wanted. Simply, I was amazed! I have straight hair, and the length is medium.

After trying this method for several weeks I had my downs… I must admit it. When my hair was too greasy (for me) I made the HUGE mistake to wash it with shampoo… Trust me, it was a mistake. My hair was very soft and I couldn’t make it stay one way or another… I had a hard time dealing with it To be honest, I had my slips just 2 or 3 times and I don’t really regret them, because I saw very clearly the difference between using shampoo and noShampoo.

Now I have been using only noShampoo for several months and I think my hair is starting to adjust its oils. I say that because my girlfriend asked me everyday if I washed my hair with shampoo (she knows I don’t use it anymore) because my hair looks really nice and clean.

So, to wrap things up, I advise you to give it a try. I’m not saying “Do this for the rest of your life!!”, but just try for yourself and see if this is bull**** or if it really works. That’s how I did it, and I experienced on my own the benefits. You might feel a bit awkward at first, but you won’t look dirty and your hair won’t smell bad!

Have a nice day and give it a try!

All the best,

Bogdan

Inspired by mimpy’s recent comment on ‘noshampoo: join the revolution‘ we’re inviting noshampooers to…

SEND US YOUR PHOTOS!

I would love to see the different no-shampoo looks and all suitable entries will be posted and a vote taken for the noshampooer of 2010 2010-11.  The winner will get a free blue noshampoo t-shirt (with silver writing!).  You can see some of my noshampoo styles on flickr.  You will be judging the photos yourself, so remember to keep in mind not only the subject (noshampoo) but also the artistic value of the photo itself!

Send your photos to nsphotocompetition2010 at noshampoo dot org.

THE ENTRIES

How to vote: Make a comment here or in the photo area (by clicking on the photo) saying ‘i vote for…’. Votes will be tallied and the result posted!

Mohair

Mohair - Mo Harber-Lamond

Waking up to is the funniest part of my day.

Alexandra D - Waking up is the funniest part of my day

Mohawk Madonna

Mohawk Madonna - Lira Kay and Miranda Kanaan

Deer noShampoo,

Deer noShampoo - Soren du PLessis

NoShampoo Safety Blanket

NoShampoo Safety Blanket - Pip May

So how do you go noshampoo?

Step 1. Make the decision.

As Nietzsche pointed out, the fundamental human resource is will to power, a superset of will power.  Yes, once you have decided, really decided, to go noShampoo, the rest of this list is mere child’s play.  But what decision do you have to make?

Step 2. Formulate the decision exactly.

Do  you want to discontinue using shampoo, that generic item which can be obtained in hundreds of different forms in your local supermarket?  Are you going to replace it with something homemade, such as baking soda and apple cider vinegar?  What about something which has less environmental impact?  My recommendation: save yourself the brainpower involved in researching alternatives and just forget about the whole idea of putting anything in your hair at all.

Step 3. Take a break.

That’s right, now that the hard part is done (will power, remember), the rest is really pretty simple, right?  You just stop putting anything in your hair.

Step 4. Put something in your hair!

Well, of course I’d be lying if I said you could just stop putting stuff in your hair and everything would be hunky dory.  You’re hair will look like you just mopped the kitchen floor with it.  Take a fine tooth comb to it and all sorts of stuff will come out, the most interesting of which is a kind of grayish greasy substance which looks like rillettes.  So of course, you will be desperate to remove this matter from your head.  To be totally honest, it doesn’t really matter what you put in your hair, even shampoo.  You’ve probably got some of that old bottle lying around, so now’s the time to take a small quantity and clean your hair.

Step 5. Work from home.

Not really.  The idea here is to take progressively longer and longer breaks from your usual routine.  Using shampoo as your hair cleaner will become progessively less enticing (it really is very harsh) so now is the time to use baking soda and apple cider vinegar. Or just vinegar according to my mom.  Baking soda tingles your scalp, though, so I like it. Eventually you’ll only be using shampoo when  you go to the barber.  Then you’ll be asking the barber not to use shampoo.

Step 6. Nirvana

This is the point when you stop thinking about your hair.  It’s funny really, because all that time you were using shampoo, you probably weren’t thinking about your hair either, so it may feel like you haven’t progressed all that much.  This couldn’t be farther from the truth.  In my related study of addictions, I noticed that addicts were people who had returned to their previous truth, only now they required a foreign substance to achieve that state. Look at credit card abusers, at some point they run out of money, so technically they are in the same place they were when they started taking credit, only now they have to pay the fiddler as well. Look at drug addicts, they end being just as miserable as they were when they started taking the drugs (let’s face it, why would they take drugs in the first place) only now they are drug addicted and miserable.  Shampoo is the same, you were once an addict, which was easy enough and not particularly expensive (of course I only ever bought cheap shampoo).  But in the Nirvana state of no shampoo, you will not only be mentally free to think about whatever it is you were thinking about before going noshampoo, but you will also be slightly richer and you will doing the planet a favor.  Of course the poor cosmetic industry will have to take a tumble, but ah well.

Step 7. Learn from your mistakes

For those of you with children, make their lives easier by never instilling them with the foolish desire to use shampoo. With young’uns, it’s easy, you just stop using shampoo and they never know the difference.  With older children, you ought just to explain, or, like me, stop buying shampoo.  They’ll thank you for it later.

Any questions?

Join the NoShampoo revolution. I’m interested in hearing from you about your experiences without shampoo. Go ahead and post your stories in the comments.

I will see how it goes for a year and take it from there.

I live in London. London is a dirty city. I realize many of the noShampoo gurus are living near beaches (it seems mainly in Australia). If you swim in the ocean everyday, and live near a beach, I wouldn’t have thought your hair (or anything) would really get very dirty. This is not the case in London.

Grease builds up. I haven’t used shampoo for several weeks, and at the beginning, there was serious sebum build up. My brush was clogged with a greyish grease. The upside was that new and interesting styles such as the one shown below can be created.

This style was created by brushing the hair backwards. Notice the incredible amount of lift at the back.

I didn’t see how this initial Grease problem could be overcome so I tried various experiments with shampoo replacement options.

Shampoo alternatives

The basic idea here is to find something that cuts out some of the grease and dirt, but leaves enough behind so that your scalp doesn’t increase sebum production.

shampoo oil mixture
I mixed shampoo with almond oil in a 50/50 mix. Shaking gives a white foamy emulsion. Using the emulsion in your hair doesn’t really create much foam.
Result: Too much sebum was stripped, leaving the hair unprotected and dry, and re-starting the natural sebum production.
Conclusion: doesn’t work

egg yolk
Recommended to me by an Albanian friend. Egg yolk is an emulsifier, which is something that binds oil and water. Soaps are detergents, which are very strong emulsifiers. I figured this might be the answer
Result: Success! The hair was not greasy, and it was not completely stripped.
Downside: Eggy smell all day.
Conclusion: requires addition of perfumes.

egg yolk + yogurt + vanilla extract
To solve the problem of eggy smell, I added vanilla extract. My girlfriend also suggested yogurt. I used Goats Milk Yogurt. Approximate ratio: 1 egg yolk to two tablespoons yogurt + two drops vanilla extract.
Result: Success! Washing my girlfriends hair this time (yes I convinced her to go no shampoo), I noticed that any trace of egg white in the yolk will leave snotty white pieces stuck to the hair. I removed these manually. Trick is to wash hair with coldish water or remove all egg white from the yolk mixture. Her hair was left very shiny. She was happy with it. So was I. There is almost no sebum buildup afterwards.
Conclusion: Way to go!

Where to go next
Emulsifiers are the way forward. They are weak enough to leave the sebum bound to the hair and scalp, but strong enough to remove excess oil and dirt. I will see if I can find any other natural emulsifiers that do not smell like egg.

The Daily Mail dramatizes the situation, but 3 of the 5 loved noShampoo. “I found it liberating” says one. “I saved £35″ says another.

Natural Family Online also asks ‘why should you go no’Poo’. “It’s a supply and demand relationship, much like nursing a baby.” She advocates the use of Baking Powder and Vinegar. Hmmm.

Natural Living warns of the initial two week ‘icky hair’ problem.

To mark the debut of noshampoo on earth, we (I) will be offering a free t-shirt to a lucky subscriber. So register today for your chance to add this excellent item to your wardrobe.

The shirts are also for sale at the noshampoo store.

Those with an environmental conscience may simply opt to donate money to the noShampoo cause. They can do so using the paypal donate button on the right.