Day 10 of No Poo

So far so good. I have washed my hair with baking soda three times now since I used shampoo a week & a half ago. This is a bit less frequent than the 3-5 times a week that I would normally have used shampoo. It feels & looks the same as always, except less itchy. Possibly less dandruff too. If this turns out to be the solution to the dandruff & mild sebhorreic dermatitis that I've had all my life, I am going to have a fit. I try hard not to think of the creepy carcinogenic oils & shampoos my mother & then I slathered on my scalp from a young age...

Shampoo was very much like a drug addiction: I'd use it, it would get my hair squeaky clean to the point of scalp dryness & then a day or two later, it'd get itchy, which I'd 'cure' by washing with shampoo again. Cue vicious cycle. Theoretically my hair will adapt to the lack of detergent scrubbing it every day or two & produce less oil in the long run, enabling me to use the baking soda less than twice a week.

I would like to streamline the baking soda process a bit. I'm going to the kitchen, using a funnel to get a tablespoon of baking soda into a squirt bottle, which I then fill with water in the shower. Once that's done, it's the same as using commercial shampoo: squirt on head, massage into roots & rinse. Slightly more preparation involved than groggily reaching for the shampoo bottle on the windowsill, though. I suppose, down the road, even if I still need to clean it with baking soda, I'll be saving a fair bit of money in the long run & will not have to worry about parabens, phthalates, sodium lauryl/laureth sulfates, etc, etc, etc.