I’m really excited about my hair.
I used my new Terressentials clay hair wash today. It’s made of all natural, edible, organic ingredients including aloe vera, bentonite clay, and essential oils.
I followed their instructions and washed my hair three times. The third time, I left the clay on, wrapped up in a towel, for over an hour, then I rinsed it out. After I rinsed (very thoroughly — it’s clay after all), I did a final rinse with diluted apple cider vinegar and lemon juice.
Terressentials and all the no poo people online say that when you stop using detergent- and polymer- (plastic-) based shampoos, you will go through a “detox” period that will last anywhere from a few days to a few months.
They say it’s because commercial shampoos (SHAM + POO = LIE + CACA) are full of detergents that strip your hair. When your hair is stripped of its natural oils, it produces excess oil. Which means you gotta wash it more often. Which makes you use more shampoo. Which strips your hair more and makes it produce more oil. You can see where this is going.
Commercial shampoos also deposit polymers on your hair. I don’t know what polymers are exactly but I know they are plastic.
I also know this can’t be a good thing. These polymers and other gunky stuff are there to make your damaged hair look better. In other words, this shambolic shampoo is designed to damage your hair and then disguise the damage.
Nice, eh?
When you detox off shampoo, you are sloughing all this plastic and other toxic chemicals out of your hair. Which makes it look greasy — all that gunk being excreted.
The good news is, once you get past that, you have your original hair again. The hair you had as a little kid. Shiny, soft, strong and healthy — not damaged and broken.
Anyway, everyone says the detox period typically lasts for weeks or months and you have to walk around with super-greasy hair. As committed as I was to going no poo, I was not looking forward to that part.
So I figured I’d wait to go no poo until after the holidays. I didn’t really want to spend Christmas with a greasy head. I could just imagine all the photos of me looking like a dirty hippie.
Anyway, about 3 weeks ago, I switched over to a shampoo I found at Whole Foods — Hugo Botanicals. I figured it wouldn’t be as bad as regular shampoo. I think I was correct in that assumption.
However, it does still have a lot of nasty chemicals in it. But not as many as the others, which is why I think my hair started detoxing. For the past few weeks since I started using this stuff, my hair has gotten oilier and oilier. And I’ve been washing it every single day!
So I think I’ve been detoxing for a few weeks now. Or at least I haven’t been putting as many bad chemicals on my hair and I haven’t been stripping it with as many detergents — so it has been getting oily.
So I decided today, since I’m experiencing the worst of both worlds — greasy hair detox plus still using bad chemicals — I would go ahead and start the no poo regime today.
So today is my first official day of no poo.
I have to tell you the Terressentials hair wash is AMAZING. My hair is so clean and shiny and gorgeous. I’ve never ever seen it this way. And it smells so good.
This is only the beginning. I have looked at the photos on the no poo communities online. Their hair is amazing. And they don’t wash it. At least not with shampoo (they use water, baking soda, sea salt, and clay, and rinse with vinegar or lemon).
I thought “no poo” meant going without washing but it doesn’t. It just means not using the shambolic stuff. However, I think if you don’t use shampoo and use clay or baking soda or what-have-you instead, in time you will not need to wash as often. Maybe once or twice a week instead of every day.
I know my hair is going to get more beautiful. I still have some nasty old highlights that will be cut off eventually. And the longer my hair goes without all these chemicals and plastics, the nicer it is going to get.
I’m really happy and excited! I can’t wait to wash my hair again tomorrow.
