Sunday, April 17, 2011

NATURAL

I don't like to bring chemicals into my house. I like to use natural cleaners as much as possible. For example I use vinegar and water to clean glass and mirrors (better than any "glass cleaner" on the market!). Instead of those rinse agents you buy to add to your dishwasher, I use vinegar. It works better than anything else I've ever bought. That's why when I read about "natural" ways to wash my hair I had to try it.

My hair tends to be dry towards the ends, and I have to wash it every day or it will be oily. So I decided to use the baking soda and vinegar route. Baking soda to "wash" my hair/scalp and apple cider vinegar mixed with water as a rinse.

On days when I'm going to be working around the house I will skip washing my hair. I do this with the idea that not washing it keeps the ends from drying out and (hopefully) keeps my color longer. I may be way off on this, I'm not a beautician by any means. But that's what I do. So on the morning I did this I hadn't washed me hair the day before.

I started out with a cup full of baking soda. Once my hair was wet I worked the baking soda in. This wasn't an easy task. The second the soda got wet it turned to paste. I scrubbed it around my scalp and rinsed it out. Then I applied the apple cider vinegar diluted with water to all of my hair and rinsed it out.

Vinegar is my best friend. I use it all the time to clean a number of things. However, it is not kind to my hair. Or my skin:


Everywhere the vinegar touched felt like a sunburn.

Not only that but my hair did not feel clean. I felt dirty and greasy all day. I think it smelled like a pickle. In all fairness, I read that if you could smell the vinegar than you weren't diluting it enough, but I diluted it according to the directions so I'm not sure.

I couldn't take it- I ended up washing my hair with shampoo and conditioner before I went to bed.

Lesson learned- vinegar is great on my mirrors but not so much on my hair.


This post is part of the A to Z Challenge.

2 comments:

Sylvia Ney said...

A truly amazing blog. I tried to add myself as a follower, but the computer or network is not cooperating. I'll try again later. I'm stopping by from the A to Z challenge and I look forward to reading more from you.

Cindy said...

Interesting.. I also use natural cleaners as much as I can, but didn't like the baking soda vinegar hair thing either.... but never had an issue with any sort of skin burns... in fact I have a tendency to take a bath with white vinegar when I am feeling like I might get a (TMI coming --) yeast infection to help prevent it.

While I didn't like the baking soda vinegar thing, I only used a few tables spoons of baking soda, and about a tablespoon of vinegar in a cup of water... maybe you used too much and I used too little ;)