DIY toiletries: body wash, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner
so i've been hearing more and more of the no-poo shampoo thing. (1 tablespoon of baking soda to 1 cup of water, to be used in place of normal shampoo).
well, i've tried it once, about a year ago. in fact, it was the no-poo recipe that formed the basis of my DIY body wash. I modified the basic no-poo formula to make it more ME-friendly, basically by adding sea salt and essential oils to the mix. So i now have a body wash of 1/4 cup baking soda, 1/3 cup sea salt, olive oil, hyssop and clove, all mixed into an empty body shop shower gel bottle.
Well, i'm totally happy with my body wash for ages, but last month i found a DIY deodorant. Those of you who know me would know that i've always had a body odor problem. In fact, that was what got me experimenting with soaps in the first place. So the recipe was simple. 1/3 baking soda, 1/3 corn starch, 1/3 coconut oil. I modified it into something simpler: in a small jam container, i mixed 1/2 baking soda, 1/2 coconut oil, and 3 drops pine scotch essential oil.
I tried the DIY deodorant, and found that it works EVEN BETTER than any store-bought or hippie recipe i've ever tried, so i'm sticking to it. On the flipside, i'm now concerned i'm slathering way too much baking soda on my body. So i've resolved that once my current batch of body wash runs out, i'm going to increase the proportion of sea salt and swap the baking soda for epson salts.
enter the no-poo.
as i said, i've tried it out a year ago, but the result was horrifying. my hair, coarse at the best of times, became as brittle as bleached straw after only one use.
you can be sure i did NOT try it again.
yesterday however, as i searched around for alternative DIY shampoo recipe, i came across a tip that i hadnt seen before. so for those no-poo-ers who were scared off by straw hair, here it is:
baking soda leaves the hair unnaturally alkaline. so the way to balance it out, is to post-wash it out with something acidic. think of it as baking soda shampoo and an acidic conditioner. all recipes recommend apple cider vinegar, and a few recommended lemon juice as a possible alternative, but since i didnt have either, i took a gamble and used normal vinegar this morning.
yup, you read right. this lil girl decided to give the no-poo another go.
observations straight off:
1) as usual, the baking soda mix left my hair feeling like straw. eugh. it also gave me a slightly itchy feeling on my scalp.
2) the vinegar was was awesome. in eight seconds, my hair went from straw-like to normal. i used significantly more vinegar mix than baking soda mix, and after awhile i think my hair showed signs of getting brittle again, so i'm a bit concerned that i might end up over-acidifying my hair. i guess a good rule of thumb is to rinse with vinegar until the brittleness of alkaline goes away, and stop before the brittleness of acid sets in. and this makes sense, cos YEARS ago i tried a lemon juice recipe which made my hair brittle too, so i guess brittleness would be a good gauge that i've gone too far in either direction.
3) the vinegar made my scalp itch too, just like the baking soda did. but the vinegar also made my scalp prickle. again, i'm thinking it might be because i used a bit too much. either way, the itching disappeared as my hair started to air dry.
4) i thought that i might have to use a natural oil to moisturize my hair once i was done "shampooing" cos my hair has always been high maintenance that way, but curiosity won and i decided to leave it be and see. i figure that if it ended up too dry, i can always just yoghurt it and apply oil liberally to undo the damage.
5) now that my hair is almost dry, i'm quite amazed. my scalp is not itchy at all (and my scalp usually is), my hair feels kind of light, and i feel like each strand is coated with just enough natural oil from my scalp for the moisturised-without-being-heavy feel. its like my hair is not exactly naked of oil and protection. but it's not carrying around a load of icky gunk.
will update as time passes :)
Updates:
6) for the first three hours after washing, my hair felt nice. then as time wore on, it started to feel really dry. eventually it got to the point that i couldn't even run my fingers without it having a tangle, so i put a few drops of olive oil on my hands, dampened my hands a bit, and rubbed the mixture in. It still feels dry-ish now (usually i use a yoghurt hair mask within a few days getting to this texture), but no longer brittle-snap dried out. i really think i might have over vinegared it. OTL.
7) i bought apple cider vinegar! yay! eggcited to try out the new mix. whee!
well, i've tried it once, about a year ago. in fact, it was the no-poo recipe that formed the basis of my DIY body wash. I modified the basic no-poo formula to make it more ME-friendly, basically by adding sea salt and essential oils to the mix. So i now have a body wash of 1/4 cup baking soda, 1/3 cup sea salt, olive oil, hyssop and clove, all mixed into an empty body shop shower gel bottle.
Well, i'm totally happy with my body wash for ages, but last month i found a DIY deodorant. Those of you who know me would know that i've always had a body odor problem. In fact, that was what got me experimenting with soaps in the first place. So the recipe was simple. 1/3 baking soda, 1/3 corn starch, 1/3 coconut oil. I modified it into something simpler: in a small jam container, i mixed 1/2 baking soda, 1/2 coconut oil, and 3 drops pine scotch essential oil.
I tried the DIY deodorant, and found that it works EVEN BETTER than any store-bought or hippie recipe i've ever tried, so i'm sticking to it. On the flipside, i'm now concerned i'm slathering way too much baking soda on my body. So i've resolved that once my current batch of body wash runs out, i'm going to increase the proportion of sea salt and swap the baking soda for epson salts.
enter the no-poo.
as i said, i've tried it out a year ago, but the result was horrifying. my hair, coarse at the best of times, became as brittle as bleached straw after only one use.
you can be sure i did NOT try it again.
yesterday however, as i searched around for alternative DIY shampoo recipe, i came across a tip that i hadnt seen before. so for those no-poo-ers who were scared off by straw hair, here it is:
baking soda leaves the hair unnaturally alkaline. so the way to balance it out, is to post-wash it out with something acidic. think of it as baking soda shampoo and an acidic conditioner. all recipes recommend apple cider vinegar, and a few recommended lemon juice as a possible alternative, but since i didnt have either, i took a gamble and used normal vinegar this morning.
yup, you read right. this lil girl decided to give the no-poo another go.
observations straight off:
1) as usual, the baking soda mix left my hair feeling like straw. eugh. it also gave me a slightly itchy feeling on my scalp.
2) the vinegar was was awesome. in eight seconds, my hair went from straw-like to normal. i used significantly more vinegar mix than baking soda mix, and after awhile i think my hair showed signs of getting brittle again, so i'm a bit concerned that i might end up over-acidifying my hair. i guess a good rule of thumb is to rinse with vinegar until the brittleness of alkaline goes away, and stop before the brittleness of acid sets in. and this makes sense, cos YEARS ago i tried a lemon juice recipe which made my hair brittle too, so i guess brittleness would be a good gauge that i've gone too far in either direction.
3) the vinegar made my scalp itch too, just like the baking soda did. but the vinegar also made my scalp prickle. again, i'm thinking it might be because i used a bit too much. either way, the itching disappeared as my hair started to air dry.
4) i thought that i might have to use a natural oil to moisturize my hair once i was done "shampooing" cos my hair has always been high maintenance that way, but curiosity won and i decided to leave it be and see. i figure that if it ended up too dry, i can always just yoghurt it and apply oil liberally to undo the damage.
5) now that my hair is almost dry, i'm quite amazed. my scalp is not itchy at all (and my scalp usually is), my hair feels kind of light, and i feel like each strand is coated with just enough natural oil from my scalp for the moisturised-without-being-heavy feel. its like my hair is not exactly naked of oil and protection. but it's not carrying around a load of icky gunk.
will update as time passes :)
Updates:
6) for the first three hours after washing, my hair felt nice. then as time wore on, it started to feel really dry. eventually it got to the point that i couldn't even run my fingers without it having a tangle, so i put a few drops of olive oil on my hands, dampened my hands a bit, and rubbed the mixture in. It still feels dry-ish now (usually i use a yoghurt hair mask within a few days getting to this texture), but no longer brittle-snap dried out. i really think i might have over vinegared it. OTL.
7) i bought apple cider vinegar! yay! eggcited to try out the new mix. whee!