No Poo Movement

Pretty hair, still can't smile

No, I'm not talking about not pooping. That is exactly what everyone thinks when I say this and this movement really has a rather unfortunate name. Maybe they should consider calling it something else.

So what is the no poo movement and why on earth am I writing about it? Let me give some background here.

I have pretty wavy hair that goes over into curls if I care for it correctly. I've spent my whole life not knowing how to care for it correctly. I was either getting perms to help control my curls or straitening to hide the frizziness. I never liked my hair. But then who does right?

I do now. I love my hair. But it took a lot of work to get here. Back at the beginning of the year I started going to the gym every day. I used to only wash my hair every other day, to keep it from  being dry and breaking. My hair is very dry. But when I started going to gym every day I had to wash it, I was gross and dirty. My hair got very dry and was in terrible condition. I bought more expensive products, deep conditioner and leave in treatments. It wasn't helping much and my hair just continued to get worse.

I started with something called co-washing. Co-washing is where I only washed my hair with shampoo every other day and on the other days I only used conditioner. My hair responded amazingly. The life came back, it was moisturized and my curls looked pretty. After this experiment worked so well I moved onto something else I had read about. No Poo.

So now, what is no poo? It's not using shampoo on your hair. Shampoo is actually very unhealthy for our hair, it strips all of our natural oils and nutrients from our hair. The only reason people use it really is for scalp health and because it is what is socially acceptable in America.

You must think I am a bundle of nasty oily stinky hair. Nope. My hair is awesome and for the first time in my life I love my hair. It's beautiful, soft, my natural color is amazing, my curls are outrageously amazing. My hair has luster. I've never been able to say that. It actually shines. And it smells amazing.

So what did I do? Well, I started out with just conditioning every day. My hair was a little greasy for a few days. That is going to happen  because your scalp has adjusted to having those natural oils stripped away from it every day. It can take as much as 6 weeks for your scalp to restore the natural balance it once had. It only took my scalp about 7 days.

Then I continued to do some reading and decided to go over to a cleansing conditioner with no sulfates in it. Because this was a trial I wasn't willing to spend a ton of money on something like Wen. I bought L'OrealCleansing Conditioner. 3 weeks later my hair is beautiful, manageable and amazing for the first time in my life.

There is another option completely. You can wash your hair with a mixture of baking soda and water. This option is green and also gets rid if the harsh sulfates.

So, is no poo right for you? If you have the same texture as me; dry, wavy or curly, coarse. Then yes you should consider trying it. If you don't really have problems with your hair then maybe you should stick with 

your regiment. But just remember that shampoo is actually very unhealthy for your hair.

If you're interested in learning more about why shampoo is bad for you, go check out the info here.