Alternative living focusing on being chemical free, both in food and lifestyle, are becoming increasingly popular. Despite the stereotype of the "dirty hippie", some folks who subscribe to the idea of being completely organic are finding unconventional ways to stay clean.
Think about your hair: the texture, the sheen, the cleanliness, the upkeep. It's one of the first things we notice about other people. There are billion dollar industries devoted to that stringy mess coming out of your skull. We always want it to be as perfect as the hair models in the shampoo commercials. But is the current system we have in place all that effective at helping us achieve our ideal level of luscious locks?Some of us are getting fed up with spending an endless amount of money every year attempting to get hair so shiny it could make a blind man squint. Hair so thick we have to get it braided with all the horses at our local stable. But in the end it's just wasted dollars and broken dreams.
The beauty industry is in business because they are selling us products for problems that they create in the first place. Shampoo dries out our hair, so we buy conditioner. We then find that the conditioner makes our manes unmanagably greasy. Back to the shampoo! After we repeat this cycle day after day eventually we realize how much we've damaged our hair. Our poor tangled hair is feeling sad and abused.
There's a movement that's fighting against this heinous industry though. It's called "No-Poo". People have begun rejecting the idea of washing their hair. Not just everyday, but at all. Ever. No washing of the hair follicles. Shampoo shall never sully their tresses again!
Once you get past the initial hilarity of the name, the curiousity sets in. If you don't wash your hair, won't it get iredeemably dirty? Won't flies and dogs follow you in a cloud of fetid stank? After all, it's what we've been taught. Think about it for just a half second longer. Shampoo as we know it has only been around for a short amount of time. Humanity seemed to get by just fine.
Dirt is removed by shampoo, but also the oils that naturally make up our body chemistry. Once we strip ourselves of these precious oils, our hair gets dry and brittle. Our hair reacts by violently overproducing grease to make up for it's lost cargo. It's a vicious cycle we've created. We have become our hair's worst enemy.
So what happens if you just stop washing your hair? Oh, your hair is going to get dirty. Really, really dirty. It's going to be bad. But then something miraculous happens. It gets better. Once we allow our hair to do it's own thing once again, it becomes able to regulate the oil production. Grease is no longer a problem. Many people experience hair softer and shinier than when they were using average ol' shampoo and conditioner.
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| Before and After the no-poo method |
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