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Gee Your Hair Smells…Frugal!
We at Cheapskate, adopted a grooming tip offered by Meryl Streep (who wouldn’t??). About a year ago, we started shampooing our hair less often, after we heard an interviewer ask her what hair product made her hair so shiny and healthy looking. She gave away her secret–reluctantly. La Streep said it was due to the fact that she didn’t shampoo as often as most other people do. Hey, healthier hair, AND save on a grooming product? We were THERE. After that, we only shampooed every other day–maybe even every three days. But we felt a bit oily and stringy by about day two and a half. And ready to go back to a daily shampoo regimen.
The key to beautiful hair...without shampoo!
So back to the Cheapskate Lab, Grooming Division, for us. Now after experimenting with, get this, not using shampoo at all, for several weeks, we’re ready to proselytize on the virtues of (drumroll please) NO SHAMPOO. Ever. As in, never. We’ve sworn it off. It’s an expensive rip-off product from which big corporations reap huge profits. Even worse, the stuff in that (plastic!) bottle that you need to replace month after month is pretty much a toxic stew of poly-syllabic chemicals. It’s designed to strip out the natural oils produced by your scalp, making you feel temporarily clean. In the meantime, the (possibly carcinogenic) sudsing agents added in get you hooked on the idea that to get your hair really clean, you need lots of bubbles. (A great article on just what it is that constitutes your average bottle of shampoo, recently published by salon.com, is a must-read for all consumers: What’s Really In Your Shampoo).
Ready to eschew the scam that is shampoo, but want to be able to leave the house with head held high, and no hat? Here’s the program that works best for us:
1) Water, lots of it. You can rinse your mop top all you like, every time you shower if you want to, and even massage your scalp while rinsing. This feels especially nice on days when you’ve been to the outside working and sweating, gone to the beach, etc.
2) Once a week, a tiny amount of dishwashing liquid from the health food store or organics section of the supermarket is all you need to feel super-clean. Look for detergent that is made from no more than four ingredients, and has no phosphates. Alternatively, you might try a product like castile soap, or Burt’s Bees’ shampoo bars. Some non-shampooers also swear by a follow-up apple-cidar vinegar rinse, but we haven’t tried this yet.
3) Purchase a 100% boar bristle “finishing brush” and use it daily on your (dry) hair. This is how you will re-distribute the oils evenly throughout your hair, and, trust us, you will have Meryl Streep-worthy hair after your first session (think of all those old movies and tv shows that show women brushing their hair before bed–this is what they were doing). By the way, the brush (shown in the accompanying illustration here) won’t set you back any more than around $8 at a drug or big-box store, and should last a very long time.
Happy, healthy hair to all…Please write in with your non-shampoo solutions for a clean (non-toxic) head!
—the Editors, on August 20, 2009
I make my own shampoo from soapwort root. It’s a gentle cleanser, and it is pretty cheap. Once spring rolls around, I’m going to try my hand at growing it myself.
My whole life I’ve been only shampooing as I need it – every 2-3 days, and more often if I go swimming or sports. I’ve got short hair so it’s easier!
But 3 weeks ago after this article I haven’t touched the stuff, and I kind of like it. I have to shower a bit longer to rinse my hair after sports, and I haven’t gone swimming yet. I wonder what the chlorine will do. I’ve got to get some natural soap to try it out.
Thanks!