Hello there, I am 49 years old, Asian origin, with long dark hair. My hair has begun to turn grey about 3 years ago and I finally could not keep up with the grey and started to dye it about 2 years ago and I had to do it every 3 months. My hair had also been falling out in large amount and it got steadily worse and it was up to the point that I thought I had to do something about it before going bald!
My hair is very important to me and it has to look good and feel good. I usually had a minimum 3 lots of different expensive shampoos and conditioners by my side and I washed my hair every other day and more recently daily, because the more I washed it the faster it became dirty.
I spent 9 years doing Chemistry degree and I am aware of chemicals that I put on my hair. Having done quite a bit of research on no-poo and natural ways of cleaning hair, I decided to give it a go and I started my Journey on 24th September, I day I moved into our new property. It was a very good start of the new life!
Like most others, I started my journey with Sodium Bicarbonate and Apple Cider Vinegar. That left my hair very dry and tangle as expected. It was not my intention of using these combination regularly as I think it is rather a harsh treatment to the hair to be exposed to alkaline and then acidic treatment immediately afterwards.
I then washed my hair in water for 2 days, on the 3rd day I used herbal and other natural cleansing ingredients (I will list these out later), followed by water for a few more days and this went on for about 6 weeks. I used baking soda twice more during this period. The cleansing ingredients I have used: honey, egg, beer, green tea, fresh lavender, rosemary, rose water, yogurt, aloe vera gel and kaolin. I mixed some ingredients together and tried different combinations with some essential oils in it for nice smell.
For the first 3 weeks, it was hard. The hair got greasy quickly and a quick water rinse helped a little. When I brushed my hair I noticed that there was a lot of dust coming out in the brush. The smell was not great. But the great two things happened that I noticed and that kept me going. Within 10 days my hair stopped falling out. My grey hair has noticeably reduced to the extent that I have not had the need to dye my hair (the last one was 6 and a half months ago). In the past after a few weeks of dying the hair, I would begin to notice some new short grey hair and a lot of long grey hair. Since the treatment, I have seen smaller number of short ones and hardly any long ones. The result suggests that the treatment reduces the growing of new grey hair and the absence of long grey hair suggests that it extends the life of the hair dye.
After the struggle to get the hair sparkling clean (though it got better as the days went), I asked myself what I really wanted. It was not about not having to wash my hair. I love washing my hair, I love the feeling of water on my head. I just have had enough of what shampoos and conditioners did to my hair and I wanted to find an alternative natural method. At the beginning of 7th week, I’ve started washing hair with soap (Tea Tree organic liquid soap) and conditioned it with aloe vera gel mixed with vitamin E, various essential oils (rosemary, peppermint and orange). I think the 6 hard weeks earlier did fantastic job to my hair as the natural oil was not produced on my scalp so much any more. Since then I only need to wash my hair once a week and it stays beautiful and manageable throughout the 7 days. And it is absolutely CLEAN! I have not seen my hair this good for many, may years.
I only used a very small amount of the soap, a little more than a teaspoon each time. The 250 ml bottle of soap is only half empty and it has been used since the beginning of November! I have had a break from using the aloe vera gel conditioner for three weeks now and the hair is still amazing. I have now discovered the really true meaning of WASH and GO!!
Give it a go girls if you have not tried and don’t give up if you have already started it!
Thank you for reading. J
