New! Water Only Routine

Yesterday, I took a shower and tried a new water-only routine that I found online. Water-only requires more physical involvement to distribute sebum from the root to the shaft of your hair rather than relying on the chemical powers of baking soda and vinegar to wash it away.

A user on the "no 'poo" LiveJournal—who had been doing water-only for a year with only three mild white vinegar rinses in that time— described his routine as follows. Before showering, brush your hair really well to distribute the oils and to remove dead skin, loose hair, and other crap from your scalp. Massage your scalp to loosen up more crap, and brush again. Once you're in the shower, the key to successful washing is massage and temperature. Rinse your hair and massage your scalp with warm water, do the rest of your shower duties, and, before getting out, rinse your hair thoroughly with hot water and gradually decrease the temperature to be as cold as it can be.

Water-only proponents of "no 'poo" rely on the power of boar bristle brushes to distribute oils. My crappy plastic brush gave my hair a powerful static charge and didn't do much to spread out the sebum. There was lots of dander and loose hair though, which I did my best to remove before hopping into the shower. But I just ordered a boar bristle brush, so hopefully I'll get it sometime next week. Changing the water temperature was also much more difficult than taking a cold shower. I imagine this is also something you shouldn't do if your immune system is weakened.

Overall, My hair looked and felt better than it had after the most recent tries with baking soda and vinegar (which I probably overdid in the first place), but since yesterday, it has gotten pretty greasy. I'll keep going with the water-only and try to hold out until the special brush gets here. But thinking back, my only successful attempt with baking soda and vinegar was on a really, really greasy head of hair. I'll figure it out one of these days.